70
years ago on this date, September 21, 1945, the commander of transportation at
the Sobibor Extermination Camp, Karl Steubl, committed suicide in prison before
sentencing. I will post information about this Nazi War Criminal from Wikipedia
and other links.
Karl Steubl
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Born
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October 25, 1910
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Died
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September 21, 1945 (aged 34)
Linz, Austria |
Allegiance
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Service/branch
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Years of
service
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until 1945
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Rank
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Unit
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SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Steubl, Steubel,
or Steibel (October 25, 1910 – September 21, 1945) was an Austrian Nazi,
perpetrator of euthanasia programme dubbed Action T4, and commander of
transportation at the Sobibor extermination camp during Operation Reinhard,
the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. Arrested after the war, Steubl
committed suicide in Linz, Austria.
Career highlights
Before
his last assignment at Sobibor in occupied
Poland, Steubl was a senior male nurse at Schloss
Hartheim, the biggest mass extermination centre outside Eastern Europe set
up at Alkoven
in Upper
Austria. The killing program Action T4 was performed there between
1939 and 1945. Already by August 1941, long before the war's end, a grand total
of 18,269 mentally and physically handicapped patients including many others,
were murdered at gas chambers of Hartheim Euthanasia Centre and cremated
on site in the course of his service there.
From
August 1942, Steubl was one of the Austrian commanders of Sobibor extermination camp, which he also helped
organize as an expert in gassing. He was present, and most likely took part in
the execution of the last Sonderkommando
Jews who were sent to Sobibor for clean-up after demolition of the Treblinka extermination camp nearby.
Arrested
by the Allies, Steubl was the first of three SS men from Sobibor who
committed suicide after World War II. The second one was Kurt Bolender;
recognized by a Holocaust survivor in Germany and arrested in
1961. Bolender committed suicide in prison before sentencing. He was accused of
participating in the murder of approximately 86,000 Jews. The third one was SS-Oberscharführer Gustav Wagner ("the
Beast of Sobibor") also from Austria originally. He killed himself in 1980
exposed by Simon Wiesenthal in Brazil. By the same token, half of the 13
Sobibor mass murderers tried in 1965–66 at the Sobibor
Trial in Hagen,
West
Germany were cleared of all charges and set free.
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