Gustav Wagner
Encyclopedia
Gustav Franz Wagner was an SS
-Oberscharführer
(Staff Sergeant) from Vienna
, Austria
. Wagner was a starter deputy commander
of the Sobibor 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" .
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 Sobibor 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 Sobibor, Wagner was responsible for the daily interactions with prisoners. Wagner supervised the routine and daily life at Sobibor, 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:
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 Sobibor prisoners improvised a song which ironically described camp life (quite the opposite was the truth):
translated to English:
Wagner enjoyed this song and he forced the prisoners to sing it frequently.
After two Jews escaped from Sobibor 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 Sobibor revolt. Wagner was not present at the camp on the day of the Sobibor 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 aide 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 Sobibor barracks, Wagner killed them.
Heinrich Himmler
considered Wagner to be "one of the most deserving men of Operation Reinhard" .
After Sobibor, 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
by the Nuremberg Trials
, 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 April 12, 1950. Wagner was issued a Brazilian passport on . He lived in Brazil under the pseudonym
Günther Mendel until he was exposed by Simon Wiesenthal
and arrested on May 30, 1978. Extradition
requests from Israel
, Austria and Poland were rejected by Brazil's Attorney General. On June 22, 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:
In October 1980, Wagner was found with a knife in his chest in São Paulo
. According to his attorney, Wagner committed suicide
. His date of death was determined to be October 3, 1980.
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...
(Staff Sergeant) from Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Wagner was a starter deputy commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
of the Sobibor extermination camp
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
in German-occupied Poland
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, where more than 200,000 Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
were gassed during Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
. Due to his brutality, he was known as "The Beast" and "Wolf" .
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 SASturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
and later the SS in the late 1930s.
In May 1940, Wagner first participated in killing during the Action T4
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
euthanasia program at Hadamar and Hartheim
Hartheim Euthanasia Centre
The Hartheim Euthanasia Centre was a Nazi killing centre that was part of their euthanasia programme, since also referred to as Action T4. It was housed in Hartheim Castle in the municipality of Alkoven near Linz in Austria.- Statistics :...
. Due to his killing experience in T-4, Wagner was assigned to help establish the Sobibor extermination camp
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
in March 1942. Once the gassing installations were completed, Wagner became deputy commandant of the camp under Commandant Franz Stangl
Franz Stangl
Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...
. 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
Karl Frenzel
SS-Oberscharführer Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel was the commandant of Sobibor extermination camp's Lager I section, which was the section for the Sonderkommando forced-labor prisoner-workers, who also herded victims into the gas chambers...
assumed his role within the camp.
More than any other officer at Sobibor, Wagner was responsible for the daily interactions with prisoners. Wagner supervised the routine and daily life at Sobibor, 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:
Inmate Eda Lichtman wrote that on the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
, 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 Sobibor prisoners improvised a song which ironically described camp life (quite the opposite was the truth):
Wie lustig ist da unser Leben
Man tut uns zu essen geben
Wie lustig ist im grünen Wald
Wo ich mir aufhalt
translated to English:
Our life is happy here,
We receive good food,
How happy we are in the green forest,
Where I stay.
Wagner enjoyed this song and he forced the prisoners to sing it frequently.
After two Jews escaped from Sobibor 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 Sobibor revolt. Wagner was not present at the camp on the day of the Sobibor 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 aide 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 Sobibor barracks, Wagner killed them.
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
considered Wagner to be "one of the most deserving men of Operation Reinhard" .
After Sobibor, Wagner was transferred to Italy, where he participated in the deportation of Jews.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Gustav Wagner was sentenced to death in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
by the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
, but escaped with Franz Stangl
Franz Stangl
Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...
to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. It is speculated that the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
helped Wagner to flee to Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and then to Brazil. Wagner was admitted as a permanent resident on April 12, 1950. Wagner was issued a Brazilian passport on . He lived in Brazil under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Günther Mendel until he was exposed by Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
and arrested on May 30, 1978. Extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
requests from Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Austria and Poland were rejected by Brazil's Attorney General. On June 22, 1979, the Brazilian Supreme Court also rejected a West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
extradition request.
Wagner, in a 1979 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
interview, showed no remorse
Remorse
Remorse is an emotional expression of personal regret felt by a person after he or she has committed an act which they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or violent. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment...
for his activities in running the camp, remarking:
In October 1980, Wagner was found with a knife in his chest in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
. According to his attorney, Wagner committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. His date of death was determined to be October 3, 1980.