Gustav Wagner
| Gustav Wagner | |
|---|---|
.gif) |
|
| Birth name | Gustav Franz Wagner |
| Nickname(s) | The Beast, Wolf (Yiddish: װאָלף, Volf) |
| Born |
18 July 1911 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 3 October 1980 (aged 69) São Paulo, Brazil |
| Allegiance |
 Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 SS
|
| Years of service | late 1930s—1945 |
| Rank | Oberscharführer |
| Unit | Death's Head Units |
| Commands held | Sobibór extermination camp |
Gustav Franz Wagner (18 July 1911 – 3 October 1980) was an Austrian member of the SS with the rank of Staff sergeant (Oberscharführer). Wagner was a starter deputy commander of the Sobibór 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".
Born in Vienna, 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 SA and later the SS in the late 1930s.
In May 1940, Wagner was part of the Action T4 euthanasia program at Hartheim with administrative functions . Due to his experience in T4, Wagner was assigned to help establish the Sobibór 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 Sobibór, Wagner was responsible for the daily interactions with prisoners. Wagner supervised the routine and daily life at Sobibór, 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:
...
Wikipedia