I
will post information about the Deputy Commandant of Sobibor Extermination
Camp, Gustav Wagner from Wikipedia and other links.
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Gustav Wagner
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Birth
name
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Gustav Franz Wagner
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Nickname(s)
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The Beast, Wolf (Yiddish: Welfel)
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Born
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18 July 1911
Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
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Died
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3 October 1980 (aged 69)
São Paulo, Brazil |
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Allegiance
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Nazi Germany
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Service/branch
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Schutzstaffel
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Years of
service
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late 1930s—1945
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Rank
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SS-Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant)
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Unit
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Commands
held
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Sobibór
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Gustav Franz Wagner (18 July 1911 – 3 October 1980) was an SS-Oberscharführer
(Staff Sergeant) from Vienna, Austria. Wagner was a starter deputy commander of
the Sobibór extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, where more than
200,000 Jews were gassed during Operation Reinhard. Due to his brutality, he
was known as "The Beast" and "Wolf" (Yiddish:
Welfel).
Biography
While
living in Austria, Wagner joined the Nazi Party in 1931 as member number
443,217. After being arrested for proscribed National Socialist agitation, he
fled to Germany, where he joined the SA
and later the SS in the late 1930s.
In
May 1940, Wagner first participated in killing during the Action T4
euthanasia program at Hadamar and Hartheim. Due to his killing experience in
T-4, Wagner was assigned to help establish the Sobibór extermination camp in
March 1942. Once the gassing installations were completed, Wagner became deputy
commandant of the camp under Commandant Franz Stangl. His official title was
quartermaster-sergeant of the camp.
Wagner
was in charge of selecting which prisoners from the newly arrived transports
would be used as slave laborers in and outside the camp, and which would be
sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. When Wagner was on vacation or
attending to duties elsewhere, Karl
Frenzel assumed his role within the camp.
More
than any other officer at Sobibór, Wagner was responsible for the daily
interactions with prisoners. Wagner supervised the routine and daily life at
Sobibór, and he was one of the most brutal SS officers. Survivors of the camp
described him as a cold-blooded sadist. Wagner was known to beat and thrash
camp inmates on a regular basis, and to kill Jews without reason or restraint.
Inmate Moshe Bahir described him:
“He was a handsome man, tall and blond — a pure Aryan. In civilian life he was, no doubt, a well-mannered man; at Sobibor he was a wild beast. His lust to kill knew no bounds... He would snatch babies from their mothers' arms and tear them to pieces in his hands. I saw him beat two men to death with a rifle, because they did not carry out his instructions properly, since they did not understand German. I remember that one night a group of youths aged fifteen or sixteen arrived in the camp. The head of this group was one Abraham. After a long and arduous work day, this young man collapsed on his pallet and fell asleep. Suddenly Wagner came into our barrack, and Abraham did not hear him call to stand up at once before him. Furious, he pulled Abraham naked off his bed and began to beat him all over his body. When Wagner grew weary of the blows, he took out his revolver and killed him on the spot. This atrocious spectacle was carried out before all of us, including Abraham's younger brother.”
Erich
Bauer would later remark:
“I estimate that the number of Jews gassed at Sobibor was about 350,000. In the canteen at Sobibor I once overheard a conversation between Karl Frenzel, Franz Stangl and Gustav Wagner. They were discussing the number of victims in the extermination camps of Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor and expressed their regret that Sobibor "came last" in the competition.”
Inmate
Eda Lichtman wrote that on the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur,
Wagner appeared at roll call, selected some prisoners, gave them bread and
forced them to eat it. As the prisoners ate the bread, Wagner laughed loudly,
enjoying his joke because he knew that these Jews were pious.
One
of the Sobibór prisoners improvised a song which ironically described camp life
(quite the opposite was the truth):
Wie lustig ist da unser LebenMan tut uns zu essen gebenWie lustig ist im grünen WaldWo ich mir aufhalt
translated to English:
How fun is our life there,They give us food to eat that's fair,What fun it is in the green wood,Where I am stood.
Wagner
enjoyed this song and he forced the prisoners to sing it frequently.
After
two Jews escaped from Sobibór in the spring of 1943, Wagner was put in charge
of a group of soldiers from the Wehrmacht, who laid down minefields around the
camp so as to prevent further escapes. However, these efforts did not prevent
another escape, which took form in the Sobibór revolt. Wagner was not present
at the camp on the day of the Sobibór revolt (14 October 1943). The inmates
knew of Wagner's absence and believed that it would improve their chances of
success. Wagner was considered the strictest in terms of prisoner supervision
at the camp. After the successful revolt, Wagner was ordered to aid in closing
the camp. He helped to dismantle and remove evidence of the camp by ruthlessly
commanding the Jewish prisoners who performed this task. For instance, after
the Arbeitsjuden ("worker Jews") had been transported from Treblinka
and had successfully torn down the Sobibór barracks, Wagner killed them.
Heinrich Himmler considered Wagner to be "one of
the most deserving men of Operation Reinhard" (German: einer der verdientesten Männer der Aktion Reinhard).
After
Sobibór, Wagner was transferred to Italy, where he participated in the
deportation of Jews.
After
World
War II, Gustav Wagner was sentenced to death in
absentia, but escaped with Franz Stangl to Brazil. It is speculated
that the Vatican helped Wagner to flee to Syria and then to Brazil. Wagner was
admitted as a permanent resident on 12 April 1950. Wagner was issued a
Brazilian passport on 4 December 1950. He lived in Brazil under the pseudonym Günther
Mendel until he was exposed by Simon Wiesenthal and arrested on 30 May
1978. Extradition
requests from Israel, Austria and Poland were rejected by Brazil's Attorney
General. On 22 June 1979 the Brazilian Supreme Court also rejected a West
German extradition request.
Wagner,
in a 1979 BBC interview, showed no remorse for his activities in running the
camp, remarking:
“I had no feelings.... It just became another job. In the evening we never discussed our work, but just drank and played cards.”
In
October 1980, Wagner was found with a knife in his chest in São Paulo.
According to his attorney, Wagner committed suicide. But evidence suggest that
he was killed. At the time of death his fingers of his right hand were cut off
and a knife was stuck in his chest. Additionally he was beaten. His date of
death was determined to be 3 October 1980.
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