Treblinka Perpetrators

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Eddy Marz
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#271

Post by Eddy Marz » 28 Mar 2014, 18:48

Paul Lantos wrote:or even Belzec once Hering took over (and who seems to have been about as brutal).
True. And Hering was a friend of Wirth's from the latter's Stuttgart Kriminalpolizei days. However, according to Rudolf Reder (Belzec survivor) : "Hering was rarely present in the camp, and only came over for special events" (REDER, Rudolf. Belzec C.Z.K.H., Cracow 1946, pp. 59-60). Even in August 1942, during Gerstein's visit to Belzec, Hering was already Kommandant of the camp, replacing Wirth. But seeing that the Gerstein-Pfannenstiel mission concerned possibility of changing the killing technique, Wirth came over personally to handle it and supervise the gassings that day. According to Gerstein, episodes of violence from Wirth on both personel and prisoners occured.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#272

Post by Paul Lantos » 28 Mar 2014, 20:04

Yup -- anyway, to the point of Treblinka (and Sobibor) for that matter, I have not come across anything to suggest that Wirth was an important presence or figure in either camp with the exception of when they went in to replace Eberl. Neither Stangl nor Reichleitner had anything like Wirth's personality. The dominant figures in those camps were people like Franz and Wagner, who were not really in a position to adjudicate reassignment requests.

At any rate, there isn't as far as I can tell evidence to suggest that at Treblinka and Sobibor Wirth had much if anything to do with terrifying staff into compliance.


trespasser07
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#273

Post by trespasser07 » 02 Apr 2014, 12:34

I have read that in regards to Treblinka, Stangl was afraid of Wirth and Franz. Is there any information to elaborate on this?

Kind regards.
"We believe in what we do!" - written in Friedrich Rainer's Guestbook by Odilo Globocnik in April 1943.

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Eddy Marz
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#274

Post by Eddy Marz » 02 Apr 2014, 12:43

trespasser07 wrote:I have read that in regards to Treblinka, Stangl was afraid of Wirth and Franz. Is there any information to elaborate on this?

Kind regards.
Hi Trespasser07;
I think you'll find quite alot of information about Stangl's relations with both Wirth and Franz in Gitta Sereny's "Into that Darkness", as he describes his Treblinka and Sobibor days quite extensively; or else in Stangl's trial transcripts which are somewhere in this forum's Holocaust section.

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Eddy

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#275

Post by Paul Lantos » 02 Apr 2014, 16:43

I've read Into That Darkness 3 or 4 times, I'm pretty sure that Stangl was not afraid of Franz. He (and Suchomel) describe Wirth's barbarity and perversity, but it is not accurate to say that Stangl expressed real fear of him. In fact he says when he first met Wirth at Belzec and was told he would command Sobibor, he told Wirth that he couldn't accept such an assignment and Wirth basically replied something like oh well, we'll just find someone else. Of course Stangl certainly lied throughout the interviews with Sereny that he had tried to get transferred away from Sobibor and Treblinka, I mean there isn't a shred of evidence that that happened.

Stangl DID credit Wirth with the system of terror that made the AR camps operate efficiently. He presented himself as responsible just for movements of siezed goods and money from the Jews, but the extermination system was all Wirth's doing.

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Eddy Marz
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#276

Post by Eddy Marz » 02 Apr 2014, 17:42

Hi Paul;
As a matter of fact, Stangl's first meeting with Wirth wasn't at Belzec, but in 1939, at Hartheim, during T4. While discussing euthanasia, Wirth told him that 'any sentimentality about these people made him feel like throwing up'.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#277

Post by Paul Lantos » 02 Apr 2014, 18:47

Yes, I'm aware, I meant first met in the context of AR and his assignment. Stangl never really makes a point that he commanded these camps out of fear of reprisal -- the point he makes is to "sterilize" his own actions and cast the blame on Wirth. It's a very different sort of argument than contending that he was terrorized and threatened into cooperating.

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Eddy Marz
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#278

Post by Eddy Marz » 02 Apr 2014, 20:30

I'm fully aware of that. I never thought that Stangl was 'coerced' into commanding either Sobibor or Treblinka out of fear of Wirth, nor did he ever say that that was the case; he was proud of the way he ran Treblinka (and was commended as 'best camp commandant'); yet his fear and loathing of Wirth transpires throughout the Sereny interviews, thereby buttressing statements of other AR personel who were in permanent contact with him.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#279

Post by Paul Lantos » 02 Apr 2014, 21:13

I don't see very much of that at all in the Sereny interviews with Stangl. Revulsion, sure, but fear and loathing? In maybe 2 or 3 anecdotes, one from T4 and one from Belzec, but I'm afraid I don't see much other than that.

"I said [to Wirth] I couldn't do it," he said, "I simply wasn't up to such an assignment. There wasn't any argument or discussion. Wirth just said my reply would be reported to HQ and I was to go back to Sobibor."

Again, I have yet to see any significant anecdote about Wirth at Sobibor or Wirth at Treblinka (even anecdotes about him visiting at all) other than the ~ 2 week visit to Treblinka when they replaced Irmfried Eberl, cleaned up the camp, and installed Stangl as kommandant. For all its commonality as a program, AR was still different camps and each of the camps had different phases unto themselves.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#280

Post by trespasser07 » 25 Sep 2014, 23:16

Franz was a father to 4 children outside of his marriage according to his trial record, was he part of the Lebensborn program possibly?
"We believe in what we do!" - written in Friedrich Rainer's Guestbook by Odilo Globocnik in April 1943.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#281

Post by steve248 » 27 Sep 2014, 08:20

Christian Wirth did have an overbearing attitude towards most people, thus:

Fritz Bleich worked as a clerk, February 1940 and June 1944, under SS-general and physician Dr. Karl Brandt as a clerk at
the Government Public Health Office (Reichskommissar für das Sanitäts- und Gesundheitswesen) in Berlin.
"Bleich also mentioned Christian Wirth, the “Inspector” of Aktion Reinhard in Poland. Wirth, Bleich observed, was “very over-bearing in the office, loud voice, always yelling, very brutal against mentally deficient, tubeculous [sic] and other ill persons, whom he used to club to death personally, [he] used to kick women in their stomach in front of everyone... .” This widely accepted picture of Wirth is supported by scholarly research."
Source for statement: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987), 182–84; and Michael Tregenza, “Christian Wirth: Inspekteur der SS-Sonderkommandos ‘Aktion Reinhardt,’” Zeszyty Majdanka 15, (1993): 7–57. Bleich interrogations in the London District Cage, April 1945, UK National Archives/Kew, WO 208/3655 and WO 208/4209
Above published in my article: "Allied Intelligence Agencies and the Holocaust: Information Acquired from German Prisoners of War". Genocide and Holocaust Studies (USHMM & Oxford University Press), Vol. 22 No. 1 (spring 2008), pp 1-24

I could have put more in the article about Wirth's daily brutality whether with the police in Stuttgart before the war, or in Poland during the war. Anyone who came into contact with Wirth did not want to meet him again.

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#282

Post by Paul Lantos » 12 Oct 2014, 20:26

That still does not prove that AR personnel worked out of mortal fear of him, esp at Treblinka and Sobibor where he was almost never there at all.

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Ponury
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#283

Post by Ponury » 25 Oct 2014, 22:30

Wirth was superior Stangl, he could at any moment fall and remove it from the function, as it happened with Eberl. Stangl afraid to send to the front or to the penal camp SS eg. In Gdansk-Mackau for failure to execute commands (to the camp was getting many SS). Wirth had a fatal opinion, when he was killed in Italy in 1944. SS AR somehow terribly after him crying ...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafvollz ... ig-Matzkau

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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#284

Post by Colon » 30 Dec 2014, 23:50


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Ponury
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Re: Treblinka Perpetrators

#285

Post by Ponury » 31 Jan 2015, 18:18

Nice jacket :)

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