Josef Hirtreiter

Josef Hirtreiter
At the Treblinka extermination camp (left to right): Paul Bredow, Willi Mentz, Max Möller, Josef Hirtreiter
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Rank	Scharführer
Unit	SS-Totenkopfverbände
Commands held	Treblinka extermination camp

SS-Scharführer Josef Hirtreiter (1 February 1909 – 27 November 1978) nicknamed "Sepp", was a member of the German SS in World War II and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland.

Hirtreiter was born in Bruchsal. After elementary school, he worked as unskilled construction worker and bricklayer. He failed the exam in lock-picking. On 1 August 1932 he became a member of the Nazi Party and Sturmabteilung (SA). After the invasion of Poland, in October 1940 he was assigned to the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre where he worked in the kitchen. In summer 1942 he joined the army. Four weeks later he was sent back to Hadamar, and then to Berlin from where Christian Wirth transferred him to Lublin reservation camp complex back in occupied Poland. There, he acquired the rank of SS-Scharführer and was shipped to Treblinka death camp. Hirtreiter served at Treblinka II from October 1942 till October 1943 at the camp-zone 2 Auffanglager receiving area. He monitored naked women, before gassing them. Later, he served at the Sobibór extermination camp.

After the closing of Treblinka in October 1943, Hirtreiter was ordered to Italy where he joined a police unit for the so-called anti-partisan "cleansing" operations. His death camp superior, Franz Stangl, went there in order to set up the Risiera di San Sabba killing centre in Trieste.