View source for Gustav Wagner

{{Short description|Austrian SS member (1911–1980)}}
{{about|the deputy commander of Sobibor extermination camp|other people named Gustav Wagner|Gustav Wagner (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox military person
|name         = Gustav Wagner
|birth_name   = Gustav Franz Wagner
|birth_date   = {{birth date|df=y|1911|7|18}}
|death_date   = {{death date and age|df=y|1980|10|3|1911|7|18}}
|birth_place  = [[Vienna]], [[Austria-Hungary]]
|death_place  = [[São Paulo]], Brazil
|image        = Gustav Wagner (SS officer).gif
|nickname     = The Beast, Wolf ({{langx|yi|װעלפֿל}}, ''Volf'')
|allegiance   =  {{flag|Nazi Germany}}
|branch       =[[File:Flag Schutzstaffel.svg|20px]] ''[[Schutzstaffel]]''
|serviceyears = late 1930s—1945
|rank         = ''[[SS-Hauptscharführer]]''
|commands     = [[Sobibor extermination camp]]
|unit         = [[SS-Totenkopfverbände|Death's Head Units]]
|battles      = 
|awards       = [[War Merit Cross]] 2nd Class With Swords (1942-1943)
|laterwork    = 
|spouse       = 
|parents      = 
|children     = 
}}

'''Gustav Franz Wagner'''<ref name=Blatt>[http://www.sobibor.info/murderers.html Sobibor - The Forgotten Revolt]</ref> (18 July 1911 – 3 October 1980) was an Austrian member of the ''[[Schutzstaffel|SS]]'' with the rank of [[Master Sergeant]] (''[[Hauptscharführer]]'').<ref name=Klee1991>{{cite book |editor-last1=Klee |editor-first1=Ernst |editor-last2=Dressen |editor-first2=Willi |editor-last3=Riess |editor-first3=Volker |year=1991 |title=The "Good Old Days" – The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators and Bystanders |others=(trans. by Deborah Burnstone) |publisher=Konecky & Konecky |isbn=978-1568521336 |page=302 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACWKeRF49UYC&q=Wagner }}</ref>{{r|Klee2011}} Wagner was a deputy [[commander]] of [[Sobibor extermination camp]] in [[General Government|German-occupied Poland]], where 200,000-250,000 [[Jews]] were murdered in the camp's [[gas chamber]]s during [[Operation Reinhard]]{{fact|date=October 2024}}. Due to his brutality, he was known as "'''The Beast'''" and "'''Wolf'''".{{r|Klee1991}}<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://memoria.bn.br/pdf/030015/per030015_1978_00054.pdf |title=1978 Brazilian newspaper article}}</ref>

==Biography==
Wagner was born in [[Vienna]], Austria. He served as a soldier in the Austrian army from 1928 and joined the then illegal 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 [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] and later the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'' in the late 1930s, serving as a guard at an unknown concentration camp.<ref name=Reich>Christian Zentner, Friedemann Bedürftig.  ''The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'', p. 1,014.  Macmillan, New York, 1991.   {{ISBN|0-02-897502-2}}</ref>

In May 1940, Wagner was part of the [[Aktion T4]] euthanasia program at [[Hartheim killing centre]] with administrative functions and cremating the bodies of murdered patients.{{r|Klee2011}} Due to his experience in T4, Wagner was assigned to help establish the [[Sobibor extermination camp]] in March 1942 and oversaw the construction of the camp. Once the gassing installation, barracks, and fences were completed, Wagner became deputy commandant of the camp under Commandant [[Franz Stangl]].<ref name=Reich/> His official title was quartermaster-sergeant of the camp.<ref name=SobiborInterview>[http://www.sobiborinterviews.nl/en/extermination-camp/biographies-of-ss-men Sobibor Interviews: Biographies of SS-men]</ref><ref name=Arad>{{cite book |last=Arad |first=Yitzhak |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |year=1987 |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |url=https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz |url-access=registration |location=Bloomington |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-21305-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz/page/191 191]–2 }}</ref>

Wagner was in charge of selecting which prisoners from the newly arrived transports would be used as slave laborers in and outside the camp, from among the newly arrived ghetto inhabitants.{{r|Reich|SobiborInterview}} When Wagner was on vacation or attending to duties elsewhere, [[Karl Frenzel]] assumed his role within the camp.

More than any other officer at Sobibor, Wagner was responsible for the daily interactions with prisoners. Survivors of the camp described him as a cold-blooded sadist.<ref name=Reich/> 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:{{r|Arad}}
{{Blockquote|text=He was a handsome man, tall and blond — a pure [[Aryan]]. In civilian life he was, no doubt, a well-mannered man; at Sobibor he was a wild beast.  His lust to kill knew no bounds... He would snatch babies from their mothers' arms and tear them to pieces in his hands.  I saw him beat two men to death with a rifle, because they did not carry out his instructions properly, since they did not understand German.  I remember that one night a group of youths aged fifteen or sixteen arrived in the camp.  The head of this group was one Abraham.  After a long and arduous work day, this young man collapsed on his pallet and fell asleep.  Suddenly Wagner came into our barrack, and Abraham did not hear him call to stand up at once before him.  Furious, he pulled Abraham naked off his bed and began to beat him all over his body.  When Wagner grew weary of the blows, he took out his revolver and killed him on the spot.  This atrocious spectacle was carried out before all of us, including Abraham's younger brother.}}

[[Erich Bauer]] later remarked:{{sfn|Klee|Dressen|Riess|1991|p=232}}
{{Blockquote|text=I estimate that the number of Jews gassed at Sobibor was about 350,000. In the canteen at Sobibor I once overheard a conversation between [[Karl Frenzel]], [[Franz Stangl]] and Gustav Wagner. They were discussing the number of victims in the extermination camps of [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Treblinka]] and [[Sobibor]] and expressed their regret that Sobibor "came last" in the competition.}}

Also according to Bauer, Wagner participated in gang rapes of female prisoners prior to killing them:
{{blockquote|I was blamed for being responsible for the death of the Jewish girls Ruth and Gisela, who lived in the so-called forester house.  As it is known, these two girls lived in the forester house, and they were visited frequently by the SS men.  [[Orgies]] were conducted there.  They were attended by [Kurt] Bolender, [Hubert] Gomerski, Karl Ludwig, [[Franz Stangl]], Gustav Wagner, and [[Karl Steubel|Steubel]].  I lived in the room above them and due to these celebrations could not fall asleep after coming back from a journey....<ref>[[Yitzhak Arad]] (1987). ''Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 116-117.</ref>}}

Inmate [[Eda Lichtman]] wrote that on the Jewish fast day of [[Yom Kippur]], Wagner appeared at roll call, selected some prisoners, gave them bread and forced them to eat it. As the prisoners ate the bread, Wagner laughed loudly, enjoying his joke because he knew that these Jews were pious.{{r|Arad}}

One of the Sobibor prisoners improvised a song which ironically described camp life (original text with English translation):

{{Verse translation|lang=de
|Wie lustig ist da unser Leben
Man tut uns zu essen geben
Wie lustig ist im grünen Wald
Wo ich mir aufhalt

|How joyful is our life there
They give us food to eat that's fair
How joyful it is in the green wood,
Where I am staying.{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=230}}}}

Wagner enjoyed this song and he forced the prisoners to sing it frequently.{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=230}}

After two Jews escaped from Sobibor in the spring of 1943, Wagner was put in charge of a squad of soldiers from the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'', who laid minefields around the camp so as to prevent further escapes. However, these efforts did not prevent another escape, which took form in the [[Sobibor uprising|Sobibor revolt]]. Wagner was not present at the camp on the day of the Sobibor revolt on 14 October 1943, having taken a holiday with his then wife Karin to celebrate the birth of a daughter, Marion. The inmates knew of Wagner's absence and believed that it would improve their chances of success. Wagner was considered the strictest in terms of prisoner supervision at the camp. After the successful revolt, Wagner was ordered to aid in closing the camp. He helped to dismantle and remove evidence of the camp by ruthlessly commanding the Jewish prisoners who performed this task. For instance, after the ''Arbeitsjuden'' "worker Jews" had been transported from Treblinka and had successfully torn down the Sobibor barracks, Wagner killed them.{{r|SobiborInterview}}

[[Heinrich Himmler]] considered Wagner to be "one of the most deserving men of [[Operation Reinhard]]" ({{langx|de|einer der verdientesten Männer der Aktion Reinhard}}).<ref name=Klee2011>{{cite book |last1=Klee |first1=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Klee |year=2011 |title=Das Personen Lexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945? |location=Koblenz |publisher=Edition Kramer |isbn=978-398114834-3 |page=649 |language=de }}</ref>

After Sobibor, Wagner was transferred to Italy, where he participated in the deportation of Jews with other staff from the extermination camps and T4.{{r|Reich}}

==After World War II==
Initially unknown, Wagner, disguising himself as a regular military motorcyclist was held and then released from a prisoner of war camp. He found labouring work on houses and eventually was [[sentenced to death]] ''[[trial in absentia|in absentia]]''. [[Franz Stangl]] by chance passed Wagner as he worked on a building site demolishing a house and Wagner immediately joined his former commandant and crossed into Italy. Clergy at the ''[[Collegio Teutonico]] di [[Santa Maria dell'Anima]]'' sheltered both men in Rome and arranged for them to leave for Syria via the [[Ratlines (World War II)|Ratlines]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Walters |first=Guy |year=2010 |title=Hunting Evil |location=London |publisher=Bantam Books |page=240 }}</ref> Later both men with Stangl's wife and children fled to Brazil, where Wagner was admitted as a permanent resident and Brazilian passport was issued in the name of "Günther Mendel".<ref name="Blatt" /> He worked as a house-helper for a wealthy Brazilian family and then as a maker of concrete fence posts on a farm. He married a local woman who was a widow and raised her children and lived outside [[São Paulo]].

Wagner was arrested on 30 May 1978 after an investigation by [[Simon Wiesenthal]]. When Stangl had been put on trial in Germany, he testified that Wagner was living in Brazil, but the Brazilian police failed to locate him. When a journalist showed Wiesenthal a photograph of a group of German-Brazilians celebrating Hitler's eighty-ninth birthday, Wiesenthal falsely identified one of the men as Wagner, thinking that he could spook Wagner into fleeing and inadvertently revealing himself. However, Wagner instead surrendered himself to the Brazilian authorities, who then refused [[extradition]] requests from Israel, Austria, Yugoslavia, West Germany, and Poland.{{sfn|Rashke|2013|pp=425-426}}

Wagner, in a 1979 [[BBC]] interview, showed no [[remorse]] for his activities in running the camp, remarking:<ref>{{cite news |last=Bower |first=Tom |date=19 August 1979 |title=The Tracking And Freeing Of a Nazis Killer |others=(reprinted from a BBC television program) |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/08/19/the-tracking-and-freeing-of-a-nazis-killer/c50b9591-da25-485e-a579-b56d8d8708eb/ }}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=I had no feelings. ... It just became another job. In the evening we never discussed our work, but just drank and played cards.}}

In October 1980, Wagner was found dead with a knife in his chest in [[Atibaia]]. Wagner's attorney reported his death as a [[suicide]]{{r|SobiborInterview|Arad}} though [[Stanisław Szmajzner]] implied to [[Jules Schelvis]] and [[Richard Rashke]] that there may have been more to the story. Several historians, including Rashke himself, have speculated that Szmajzner himself murdered Wagner. {{sfn|Rashke|2013|p=427}}{{sfn|Schelvis|2007|p=264}} Wagner's date of death was determined to be 3 October 1980.{{r|SobiborInterview|Arad}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Works cited===
* {{cite book |last1=Rashke |first1=Richard |author-link=Richard Rashke |title=Escape from Sobibor |date=2013 |orig-year=1982 |publisher=Open Road Integrated Media, Incorporated |isbn=978-1-4804-5851-2 |language=en}}
*{{cite book |author-link=Jules Schelvis |last=Schelvis |first=Jules |title=Sobibor: A History of a Nazi Death Camp |publisher=Berg, Oxford & New Cork |date=2007 |isbn=978-1-84520-419-8}}

{{Sobibor extermination camp}}
{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{Nazis South America}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagner, Gustav}}
[[Category:1911 births]]
[[Category:1980 suicides]]
[[Category:1980 deaths]]
[[Category:Aktion T4 personnel]]
[[Category:Austrian exiles]]
[[Category:Austrian expatriates in Brazil]]
[[Category:Austrian mass murderers]]
[[Category:Austrian military personnel who died by suicide]]
[[Category:Austrian Nazis]]
[[Category:Austrian rapists]]
[[Category:Austrian war criminals]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Vienna]]
[[Category:Nazis in South America]]
[[Category:Nazis who died by suicide]]
[[Category:Nazis sentenced to death in absentia]]
[[Category:Sturmabteilung personnel]]
[[Category:Sobibor extermination camp personnel]]
[[Category:SS non-commissioned officers]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of Brazil]]
[[Category:Suicides by sharp instrument in Brazil]]
[[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Poland]]