BRUTAL Death of Christian Wirth - Extremely Sadistic NAZI Commandant of Belzec Killed by His Own Men
BRUTAL Death of Christian Wirth - Extremely Sadistic NAZI Commandant of Belzec Killed by His Own Men
Brutal Death of Christian Wirth - Extremely Sadistic Nazi Commandant of Belzec Killed by His Own Men. Christian Wirth was born on 24 November 1885 in Oberbalzheim, then part of the German Empire. After completing his education, Wirth was employed as an apprentice carpenter at a timber company in Oberbalzheim and from 1905-1910 he served his military duty with Grenadier Regiment 123 in Ulm. In 1910 he married Maria Bantel, with whom he had two sons and then moved to Stuttgart, where he worked as a police detective.
The First World War began on the 28th of July 1914. In October of the same year, Wirth volunteered to serve in the army of Kaiser Wilhelm II and saw action on the Western Front in Flanders and northern France. Christian Wirth distinguished himself in battle, was wounded, and highly decorated for bravery. The First World War ended on the 11th of November 1918 when the German leaders signed the armistice in the Compiègne Forest in France. In June of the following year, Wirth returned to Stuttgart and a short time later was promoted back to police detective sergeant.
He earned a reputation for solving difficult tasks often by using brutal methods of interrogation.
After World War I ended, Germany experienced great political turmoil. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms on Germany, which had lost the war. In addition, the country saw the overthrow of its monarchy. In its place was the new Weimar Republic, a democratic government. Racist and antisemitic groups sprang up on the radical right and they falsely claimed that Jews and Communists were to blame for Germany’s problems. One such group was the Nazi Party which Wirth joined in 1923, becoming one of its original members.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in January 1933, they made the stab-in-the-back myth – an antisemitic conspiracy theory, which maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home front—especially Jews and revolutionary socialists - an integral part of their official history of the 1920s. The Nazis denounced the German government leaders who had signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918 as the “November criminals” who had “stabbed the nation in the back” in order to seize power. Historians inside and outside of Germany unanimously reject the myth, pointing out that the Imperial German Army was out of reserves, was being overwhelmed by the entrance of the United States into the war, and had already lost the war militarily by late 1918.
In 1933 Wirth joined the SA and in 1937 was recruited by the SD, Reinhard Heydrich’s Security Service, as an agent, spying and informing on his Party and police comrades. On 10 August 1939, Wirth transferred from the SA to the SS, attaining the rank of Obersturmführer which was equivalent to First Lieutenant.
The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The last operational Polish unit surrendered on the 6th of October.
The German occupation of Poland was exceptionally brutal. The Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior and they launched a campaign of terror intended to destroy the Polish nation and culture and to reduce the Poles to a leaderless population of peasants and workers laboring for German masters…
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Content
0.9 -> The 1st of September 1939. After a false
accusation that the Poles attacked the
7.74 -> German radio station, Nazi Germany launches a
“retaliatory” campaign against Poland triggering
13.32 -> World War 2. After defeating the Polish army,
the Germans ruthlessly suppress the Poles whom
19.08 -> they consider to be racially inferior and, in the
weeks, that follow the German attack on Poland,
23.88 -> German SS, police, and military units shoot
thousands of Polish civilians, including
29.82 -> many members of the Polish nobility, clergy, and
intelligentsia. In the fall of 1941, Nazi Germany
37.14 -> begins to implement a plan codenamed “Operation
Reinhard” to systematically murder almost two
42.78 -> million Jews living in the German-administered
territory of occupied Poland, called the
47.52 -> General Government. Three killing centers are
established as part of this plan: Belzec, Sobibor
53.82 -> and Treblinka. One of the main perpetrators
of this operation becomes Christian Wirth.
59.16 -> Christian Wirth was born on 24
November 1885 in Oberbalzheim,
65.82 -> then part of the German Empire. After
completing his education, Wirth was
70.74 -> employed as an apprentice carpenter at a timber
company in Oberbalzheim and from 1905-1910 he
76.68 -> served his military duty with Grenadier Regiment
123 in Ulm. In 1910 he married Maria Bantel,
83.58 -> with whom he had two sons and then moved to
Stuttgart, where he worked as a police detective.
88.02 -> The First World War began on the 28th of
July 1914. In October of the same year,
94.68 -> Wirth volunteered to serve in the army of Kaiser
Wilhelm II and saw action on the Western Front
100.02 -> in Flanders and northern France. Christian Wirth
distinguished himself in battle, was wounded, and
106.02 -> highly decorated for bravery. The First World War
ended on the 11th of November 1918 when the German
112.8 -> leaders signed the armistice in the Compiègne
Forest in France. In June of the following year,
118.08 -> Wirth returned to Stuttgart and a short time later
was promoted back to police detective sergeant.
124.02 -> He earned a reputation for solving difficult tasks
often by using brutal methods of interrogation.
129.18 -> After World War I ended, Germany
experienced great political turmoil.
134.76 -> The 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms
on Germany, which had lost the war. In addition,
140.52 -> the country saw the overthrow of its monarchy.
In its place was the new Weimar Republic,
145.68 -> a democratic government. Racist and antisemitic
groups sprang up on the radical right and they
151.68 -> falsely claimed that Jews and Communists
were to blame for Germany’s problems. One
156.12 -> such group was the Nazi Party which Wirth joined
in 1923, becoming one of its original members.
161.76 -> When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power
in January 1933, they made the stab-in-the-back
168.36 -> myth – an antisemitic conspiracy theory, which
maintained that the Imperial German Army did
173.34 -> not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was
instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home
178.38 -> front—especially Jews and revolutionary socialists
- an integral part of their official history
183.72 -> of the 1920s. The Nazis denounced the German
government leaders who had signed the Armistice
190.38 -> of 11 November 1918 as the "November criminals"
who had "stabbed the nation in the back" in
195.6 -> order to seize power. Historians inside and
outside of Germany unanimously reject the myth,
201.12 -> pointing out that the Imperial German Army was
out of reserves, was being overwhelmed by the
206.28 -> entrance of the United States into the war, and
had already lost the war militarily by late 1918.
212.4 -> In 1933 Wirth joined the SA and
in 1937 was recruited by the SD,
218.46 -> Reinhard Heydrich’s Security Service, as
an agent, spying and informing on his Party
223.02 -> and police comrades. On 10 August 1939,
Wirth transferred from the SA to the SS,
229.5 -> attaining the rank of Obersturmführer
which was equivalent to First Lieutenant.
234.12 -> The Second World War began on the 1st of
September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.
240.42 -> The last operational Polish unit
surrendered on the 6th of October.
244.5 -> The German occupation of Poland
was exceptionally brutal. The
248.94 -> Nazis considered Poles to be racially
inferior and they launched a campaign
252.9 -> of terror intended to destroy the Polish
nation and culture and to reduce the Poles
257.58 -> to a leaderless population of peasants
and workers laboring for German masters.
261.96 -> In the end of 1939, Wirth started to work for the
Nazi Euthanasia Program, code-named T4, which was
268.92 -> the systematic murder of institutionalized
patients with disabilities in Germany.
273.72 -> The patients were transported by bus or by
rail into 6 killing centers where they were
278.52 -> murdered. In these centers the Nazis gassed,
shot, or killed by lethal injections those
284.7 -> who were deemed “unworthy of life “such
as residents of welfare institutions,
288.84 -> some concentration camp inmates, the chronically
sick, the mentally and physically disabled,
294.12 -> homosexuals, and even sick German soldiers.
In December 1939 or January 1940 Wirth was
302.76 -> present when twenty to thirty German mental
patients were subjected to the first known
306.48 -> gassing experiment using carbon monoxide. This
is where the idea to disguise the gas chambers
312.48 -> as showers was introduced. Wirth continued
to participate as a troubleshooter in the
317.52 -> T-4 killing centers. For instance, when
at Brandenburg killing center a group of
322.38 -> suspecting mental patients refused to enter
the disguised gas chamber, Wirth coaxed them
326.7 -> into the room by telling them that they had
to enter it in order to receive clothing.
330.72 -> On another occasion, when four female patients
at Hartheim killing center were suspected of
335.52 -> having contracted typhus, Wirth shot them to
prevent the spread of disease to the staff.
340.86 -> In the second half of 1940 Wirth was promoted
to become the head of the euthanasia program in
346.74 -> Germany and Austria. Franz Stangl, the commandant
of the Sobibór and Treblinka extermination camps,
352.44 -> described Wirth in a 1971 interview saying: “When
he spoke about the necessity of this euthanasia
358.08 -> operation, he was not speaking in humane or
scientific terms. He laughed. He spoke of 'doing
364.38 -> away with useless mouths', and that 'sentimental
slobber' about such people made him 'puke'.”
370.2 -> The T4 program predated the genocide of European
Jewry, the Holocaust, by approximately two years.
376.44 -> Historians estimate that the program
claimed the lives of 250,000 men, women,
381.96 -> and children. In the fall of 1941, Nazi Germany
implemented a plan to systematically murder the
388.62 -> 2 million Jews living in German-occupied Poland.
This plan was codenamed Operation Reinhard and
394.5 -> as part of this action, three killing centers
were established: Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.
400.26 -> Because of his experience in the
T4 program in December 1941 Wirth
405.3 -> was sent to the Belzec concentration
camp where he worked as a commandant.
409.44 -> It was during his time at the Belzec camp
that Wirth earned his nickname “Christian the
414.36 -> Savage”. He was so-called by the SS staff because
of his extreme, unforgiving approach to his work.
421.02 -> Wirth ran the Belzec death camp
with an iron grip and he was feared
424.86 -> by the staff, Germans and Ukrainians alike.
Werner Dubois, SS guard at Belzec described
431.88 -> him as follows: “Wirth was more than brutal. In
my opinion, his brutality was grounded more in
438.06 -> his human nature than his political mentality.
He bellowed, screamed and threatened us, and hit
444 -> members of the German garrison in the face. There
was no-one at Belzec who was not afraid of Wirth.”
449.7 -> In Belzec, he established the regime of terror
and death which was carried out in all Operation
454.68 -> Reinhard camps more than any other camp
commander. During his time at Bełżec,
459.66 -> Wirth carried out experiments to determine
the most efficient method of handling the
463.62 -> transports of Jews from the time of their
arrival at the camp until their murder and
467.64 -> burial. He developed some basic concepts for the
process of extermination and for camp structure.
472.98 -> The basic structure of the camp and the various
actions the victims were made to do as soon as
477.9 -> they left the train were intended to ensure that
they would not grasp the fact that they had been
482.4 -> brought for extermination. The aim was to give
the victims the impression that they had arrived
487.14 -> at a labor camp or a transit camp from where they
would be sent to a labor camp. The deportees were
492.78 -> to believe this until they were closed into the
gas chambers which were camouflaged as baths.
497.58 -> The second principle of the extermination process
was that everything should be carried out with
502.2 -> the utmost speed. The victims should be rushed
in, made to run, so that they would not have
507.24 -> time to look round, to reflect, or to understand
what was going on. This also supported the basic
512.88 -> principle of deceiving the victims. They should be
shocked, and their reactions paralyzed in order to
518.1 -> prevent escape or resistance. In order to achieve
this, Wirth decided that newly arrived prisoners
523.74 -> to be murdered should be beaten with whips
incessantly to drive them into the gas chambers,
527.88 -> thus creating a sense of panic and terror in
which the prisoners felt forced to comply.
532.14 -> The speed of the extermination process served
yet an additional purpose: it increased the
537.54 -> killing capacity of the camp. More transports
could be brought and annihilated in one day.
543.12 -> According to Wirth's annihilation
scheme, the Jews themselves should
546.6 -> carry out all physical work involved in
the extermination process of a transport.
551.22 -> After ensuring that Bełżec
was operating efficiently,
553.74 -> on 01 August 1942 Wirth was appointed
to the post of ‘Inspector of Operation
558.66 -> Reinhard camps,‘ and was based at the
headquarters of Operation Reinhardt,
562.2 -> on the Old Airfield just outside Lublin
and close to Majdanek concentration camp.
567.06 -> Beginning in March 1942, Jews from
various parts of the General Government,
571.08 -> which was an annexed territory of
Poland run by German authorities,
574.62 -> were deported to Belzec, where they were
murdered in gas chambers with carbon monoxide
578.94 -> gas generated by large diesel engines.
On one occasion, Wirth would whip the
583.86 -> Jewish prisoners to get them into the gas
chambers while he also beat a guard who
587.22 -> had failed to start up the engine which was to
release the carbon monoxide into the chamber.
591.72 -> Rudolf Reder, a survivor from Belzec described
Wirth as follows: “He was a tall, broad-
597.4 -> shouldered man in his middle forties with a vulgar
face. He was a born criminal, the extreme beast.”
604.5 -> The authorities at the Belzec killing center
consisted of a small staff 20-30 of German SS
609.66 -> and police officials. Between March and December
1942, when the last transport of people arrived,
615.54 -> the Germans deported approximately 434,500 Jews
and an undetermined number of Poles and Roma
621.84 -> people to Belzec, where they were killed. When
the camp was liquidated in June 1943, the Jewish
628.2 -> forced laborers were either shot or deported to
the Sobibor killing center to be gassed. Belzec
634.14 -> was the third- deadliest extermination camp,
exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only
639.6 -> seven Jews performing slave labor with the camp's
Sonderkommando – special detachments working in
644.58 -> the killing area - survived World War II. The
lack of viable witnesses able to testify about the
650.16 -> camp's operation is the primary reason why Belzec
is little known, despite the victim number count.
656.22 -> After the Belzec camp was dismantled, the
Germans ploughed over the site and they built
660.78 -> a manor house and planted trees and crops to
disguise the area as a farm. A former auxiliary
666.12 -> police guard was placed on the site to farm the
property in order to further camouflage the site.
670.68 -> During the construction of Sobibór in the spring
of 1942., Wirth visited the incomplete site,
676.74 -> and conducted an experimental gassing of 25
Jewish slave-labourers. He liked to carry a whip,
682.98 -> and he used it on both Jewish victims and guards.
When the transport of 40 to 60 freight cars
688.92 -> arrived at the Sobibor railway station, only
20 cars at a time were taken into the camp,
693.42 -> while the rest of the victims remained locked in
the rail cars. The victims were then brought into
697.92 -> the so-called arrival area where an SS man would
give a speech welcoming them saying that they had
702.42 -> reached a transit camp on their way to the labor
camps. They were also told that before embarking
707.46 -> on the next part of their journey, they were to
take showers, have their clothes disinfected and
711.9 -> get a meal. The men and women were then separated,
and the children were sent with the women.
717.36 -> The Nazis ordered the victims to remove their
clothing and hand over their valuables. The Jews
722.58 -> were then marched on the run to the gas chambers.
The honking of the geese would obscure the cries
726.48 -> of victims from those still sitting in the locked
rail cars as they were being beaten, screamed at,
731.4 -> and having warning shots fired at them.
About 450-550 Jews were forced into the
737.64 -> chambers at a time. The gas chambers were then
sealed once the maximum number of victims was
742.68 -> inside. Poisonous gas was then piped in. Within
20-30 minutes, all those inside were dead. Those
750.18 -> who were too ill, weak, or elderly to make the
walk to the gas chambers were shot in an open pit.
755.88 -> From April 1942 until mid-October 1943,
759.42 -> the German SS and their auxiliaries
killed at least 167,000 people at Sobibor.
765.06 -> From mid-August 1942, Wirth played a leading role
in the re-organization of Treblinka, including
770.7 -> the construction of the new gas chambers,
and thereafter visited the camp frequently.
774.804 -> SS-Unterscharführer Franz Suchomel testified the
following about Wirth: “From my activity in the
781.38 -> camps of Treblinka and Sobibor, I remember that
Wirth in brutality, meanness, and ruthlessness
787.38 -> could not be surpassed. We therefore called him
'Christian the Terrible' or 'The Wild Christian'.
794.4 -> The Ukrainian guardsmen called him 'Stuka',
which was a German dive bomber. The brutality
800.16 -> of Wirth was so great that I personally see it
as a perversity. I remember particularly that on
806.22 -> each occasion, Wirth lashed Ukrainian guardsmen
with the whip he always kept. If only someone
811.86 -> had had the courage to kill Christian Wirth –
then Operation Reinhard would have collapsed.
816.84 -> Berlin would not have found another man
with such energy for evil and nastiness.”
822 -> Franz Stangl, former commandant of Treblinka and
Sobibor, later recalled one of Wirth's inspection
827.82 -> visits to Treblinka as Inspector of Operation
Reinhard, around September 1942: ”To tell the
833.88 -> truth, one did become used to it... they were
cargo. I think it started the day I first saw
839.82 -> the extermination area in Treblinka. I remember
Wirth standing there, next to the pits full of
845.28 -> black-blue corpses. It had nothing to do with
humanity – it could not have. It was a mass – a
851.58 -> mass of rotting flesh. Wirth said 'What shall
we do with this garbage?' I think unconsciously
857.34 -> that started me thinking of them as cargo. “
From late July 1942 through September 1943,
863.94 -> the camp personnel murdered an estimated
925,000 Jews at the Treblinka killing center.
870.18 -> When Operation Reinhard was terminated after three
million Polish Jews and thousands of Gypsies were
875.28 -> murdered, Wirth was sent to Trieste in Italy along
with the other former Operation Reinhard staff.
880.38 -> From autumn 1943, Wirth's role was to oversee
the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp
885.48 -> as well as to combat partisans over
the border in occupied Yugoslavia.
890.04 -> Wirth had not lost his touch or commitment
to the Jewish Question and introduced the
894.66 -> necessary accoutrements for mass murder
by establishing gas van facilities and
898.5 -> crematoria. The Nazi staff under Wirth command
continued to use the methods used in Poland:
904.02 -> beating prisoners to death, torturing,
906.42 -> and ordering young children to collect firewood
to light the fires for their own cremation.
911.1 -> Christian Wirth was 58 years
old when he died on 26 May 1944.
917.94 -> There are two contradictory accounts
of the circumstances of Wirth’s death.
921.54 -> One states that he was killed in May 1944
by Yugoslav Partisans while travelling in
927.12 -> an open-topped car on an official trip to Fiume.
However, according to the previously mentioned SS
933 -> commandant Franz Stangl, who served in Trieste
towards the end of the war and saw him after he
938.28 -> had died, Christian Wirth was taken care of and
killed by his own men because they despised him.
944.22 -> Wirth was buried with full military honors in the
German Military Cemetery in Opcina, near Trieste.
950.58 -> In 1959 his remains were transferred to the German
953.4 -> Military Cemetery at Costermano,
near Lake Garda, northern Italy.
957.96 -> Wirth, a man who supervised the
murders of more than 1.5 million Jews,
962.34 -> never faced justice for his crimes.
965.82 -> There were no tears shed for Christian Wirth.
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