Kurt Franz
| Kurt Franz | |
|---|---|
Wearing his Untersturmführer uniform (unknown date after his last promotion on June 1943).
|
|
| Nickname(s) | Doll (Yiddish: Lalke) |
| Born |
17 January 1914 Düsseldorf, German Empire |
| Died | 4 July 1998 (aged 84) Wuppertal, Germany |
| Allegiance |
 Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Schutzstaffel
|
| Years of service | 1935–1945 |
| Rank |
 SS-Untersturmführer (Second Lieutenant) |
| Unit |
 SS-Totenkopfverbände
|
| Commands held | Treblinka (deputy commandant; became camp's third and final Commandant from August 1943 – 19 October 1943) |
| Other work | Cook, labourer |
Kurt Hubert Franz (17 January 1914 – 4 July 1998) was an SS officer and one of the commanders of the Treblinka extermination camp. Franz was one of the major perpetrators of genocide during the Holocaust.
Kurt Franz was born in 1914 in Düsseldorf. He attended public school in Düsseldorf from 1920 to 1928, and then worked as a messenger. He started an apprenticeship as a cook beginning at the age of fifteen (1929) for the restaurant "Hirschquelle", and then at the Hotel Wittelsbacher Hof, before he gave his final exam.
Franz's father, a merchant, died early. Franz also had a sister. His mother was an observant Catholic. When she remarried, it was to a man with a strong right-wing nationalist outlook. Franz joined several right-wing national groups and served in the voluntary labor corps. He also trained with a master butcher for one year.
Franz joined the Nazi Party in 1932, and enlisted in the German Army in 1935. He fulfilled his military obligation and after his discharge, in October 1937, he joined the SS-Totenkopfverbände. First he received training with the Third Death Head Regiment Thuringia at Weimar, and then served as cook and guard at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he attained the rank of Unterscharführer (Corporal).
In late 1939 Franz was summoned to Hitler's Chancellery and detailed to take part in the Action T4 euthanasia program. Franz worked as a cook at Hartheim, Brandenburg, Grafeneck and Sonnenstein. In late 1941, he was assigned as cook at T4 headquarters.
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