Christian Wirth
| Christian Wirth | |
|---|---|
Christian Wirth
|
|
| Nickname(s) | Christian the Terrible (German: Christian der Grausame), The Wild Christian |
| Born |
24 November 1885 Oberbalzheim, Württemberg, German Empire |
| Died | 26 May 1944 (aged 58) Hrpelje-Kozina, SR Slovenia |
| Buried at | German Military Cemetery, Costermano, Italy |
| Allegiance |
 German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Schutzstaffel
|
| Rank |
 Sturmbannführer, SS (Major) |
| Service number |
NSDAP #420,383 SS #354,464 |
| Unit |
 SS-Totenkopfverbände
|
| Commands held |
Action T4 Inspector of Operation Reinhard camps Bełżec, December 1941 — end of August 1942 |
| Awards |
|
Christian Wirth (German: [vɪʁt]; 24 November 1885 – 26 May 1944) was a German policeman and SS officer who was one of the leading architects of the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard. His nicknames included Christian the Terrible (German: Christian der Grausame) and The Wild Christian.
Wirth worked at scaling up the Action T4 program, in which disabled people were murdered by gassing or lethal injection, and then at scaling up Operation Reinhard, by developing extermination camps for the purpose of mass murder. Wirth served as Inspector of all Operation Reinhard camps. He was the first Commandant of Bełżec extermination camp. He was later killed by Yugoslav partisans in Hrpelje-Kozina near Trieste.
Christian Wirth was born on 24 November 1885 in Oberbalzheim, Württemberg, part of the German Empire. The son of a master cooper, after attending elementary and continuation school, Wirth learned the sawyer's craft. From 1905 to 1910, he was a member of the Württemberg Grenadier Regiment 123. By 1910 Wirth had worked as a policeman in Heilbronn, but he soon moved to Stuttgart, where he was a detective of the police.
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