Kurt Hubert Franz ( Düsseldorf , 17 of January of 1914 - Wuppertal , 4 of July of 1998 ) was an officer in the SS , a participant in the Holocaust of the Second World War .
Participation in the Holocaust
Franz enlisted in the Wehrmacht in 1935 to fulfill the Mandatory Military Service. On leaving, he voluntarily joins the SS , with the file number 316.909, was highlighted in 1938 , the team of administrators of the Buchenwald concentration camp . In 1940 , he was assigned to the Euthanasia program known as Aktion T4 where he was directly involved in the killing of patients and persons with mental retardation at the centers of Grafeneck , Sonnenstein, Hartheim and Brandenburg.
The 20 of April of 1942 , newly promoted to the rank of SS Scharführer was transferred to the death camp of Belzec and in September of that year, turn to Staff officers extermination camp of Treblinka under the direct orders of Commander Franz Stangl . Franz was distinguished by his excessive cruelty and mistreatment towards the prisoners who called him Lalka “Doll” in Polish because, it had feminine aspect . He was promoted to the rank of officer, as SS Untersturmführer ( Second Lieutenant ) by direct instructions from Heinrich Himmler . Franz was not present during the revolt in Treblinka , the 2 of August of 1943 , where he was one of the main objectives of the resistance of the field. Later he was in charge of the dismantling of the structures of the field and the execution of the last contingents of prisoners who carried out this task. After this, he was sent to Trieste to fight against the partisans and armed Jews in the forests of Italy , where he was wounded in action.
The end
After the war, Franz lived working as a laborer in construction and as a chef until he was arrested in 1959 and brought to trial. The trial was conducted between 1964 and 1965 and was charged with crimes against humanity by directly killing at least 139 detainees and collaborating in the gassing of 300,000 people. Although he was sentenced to life in prison , Franz was released in 1993 for health reasons, after 34 years in prison.
He died on 4 as July as 1998 , in Wuppertal, Germany .
References
- “The Camp Men”, by French L. MacLean. Ediciones Schiffer Military Book, ISBN 0-7643-0636-7
- “Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka”, by Yitzhah Arad, Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-21305-3
- Information and photos about Kurt Franz at the Axis Forum History