Christian Wirth Christian Wirth ( ; 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 . 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 later killed by Yugoslav partisans in Hrpelje - Kozina near Trieste . Early life . Christian Wirth was born on 24 November 1885 in Oberbalzheim , Baden - 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 . During the First World War , at his own request , he served as a non - commissioned officer in the army on the Western front , distinguished himself in battle , was wounded , and was highly decorated . Wirth was awarded the Iron Cross First Class , Iron Cross Second Class , and the Order of the Crown ( Württemberg ) . After the war Wirth returned to Stuttgart in June 1919 and was promoted back to police detective sergeant a short time later . Early Nazi career . Wirth was one of the original members of the Nazi Party , joining for the first time in 1923 , before following the unsuccessful Hitler Beer Hall Putsch . He again joined the Nazi Party as an " old fighter " on 1 January 1931 ( # 420 , 383 ) . He joined the Sturmabteilung ( SA ) on 30 June 1933 . From 7 December 1937 he was a volunteer of the " Sicherheitsdienst " ( SD ) . On 10 August 1939 , Wirth would transfer from the SA to the SS , attaining the rank of " Obersturmführer " ( First Lieutenant ) by October ( SS # 354 , 464 ) . After the Nazi party rose to power in Germany , Wirth served in the Württemberg police force . He had joined the uniformed police ( " Orpo " ) in 1910 before the onset of World War I . Wirth rose to become the captain of detectives ( ) of the Kriminalpolizei ( " Kripo " ) in Stuttgart . As the head of the Kripo he obtained results through the use of force . In one case , a suspect who was known to be responsible for a crime but who would not confess was left alone for a time with Wirth ; not only did Wirth get a full confession to this crime , he also obtained confessions to six others . Wirth was also involved politically in the National Association of Police Officers Württemberg , a nonpartisan police union . Aktion T4 . At the end of 1939 , Wirth , along with other Kripo police officers , was detached from the police for service with the Action T4 euthanasia program . These police officers served as nonmedical supervisors at the killing centers of the euthanasia program , and Wirth was chief among them . At the age of fifty - five , Wirth was among the oldest personnel involved in T - 4 . Wirth first set up office procedures at the " euthanasia " center at Grafeneck Castle in Württemberg . Shortly thereafter Wirth was transferred to administrative director of the euthanasia institution at Brandenburg an der Havel in Prussia ( the medical director was Dr . Irmfried Eberl ) . In December 1939 or January 1940 , Wirth was present when twenty to thirty German mental patients were subjected to the first known gassing experiment using carbon monoxide . At Brandenburg , the idea to disguise the gas chambers as shower rooms was introduced . Wirth continued to participate as a troubleshooter in the T - 4 killing centers . For instance , when at Brandenburg a group of suspecting mental patients refused to enter the ( disguised ) gas chamber , Wirth coaxed them into the room by telling them that they had to enter it in order to receive clothing . But Wirth ' s most intimate connection with T - 4 was at Hartheim , where he was chief of the office staff and director of personnel . At Hartheim , Wirth oversaw paperwork as head of the registry office , directed the killing process as the individual responsible for security , and commanded the junior staff as director of personnel . Wirth was coarse and brutal , feared by his subordinates and known to use any means necessary to assure a smooth killing operation . When four female patients at Hartheim were suspected of contracting typhus , Wirth simply shot them to prevent the spread of disease to the staff . Wirth ' s responsibility for killing Jews began in September 1940 , when crippled and insane Jews were first gassed at Brandenburg . In mid - 1940 , Wirth was appointed as an inspector of a dozen euthanasia institutions in the Third Reich . He frequented Hartheim Euthanasia Centre , where Franz Stangl worked . Stangl , who was later the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camp s , described Wirth in a 1971 interview : In mid - 1941 , Wirth was involved in the euthanasia program in western areas of Poland ; his activity during this time is obscure . In August 1941 Wirth was transferred out of T - 4 . He was appointed to be Commandant of the newly built Chełmno extermination camp . In September , Wirth was sent to Chełmno to start gassing Jews and Gypsies there . By late March 1942 , gassing of Jews and Gypsies was conducted daily in gas van s at Chełmno . Aktion Reinhard . After the T - 4 Euthanasia program was terminated due to an outcry from the German church , Nazi leadership came up with the " Final Solution to the Jewish Question " . The first phase of the " Final Solution " was Operation Reinhard ( ) , headed by Odilo Globocnik . The first out of three Aktion Reinhard extermination camp s was Bełżec . Since Wirth had previous experience in killing with gas in the forced euthanasia program , Globocnik appointed him as the commandant of Bełżec in December 1941 . Belzec became fully operational for gassing on or about 17 March 1942 . Fellow SS man Erich Fuchs described his impression of Wirth from his brief interaction with him during T4 and at Belzec : On 1 August 1942 , Globocnik appointed him to the post of Inspector of Aktion Reinhard camps , which would grant Wirth overall command of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps as well . Wirth ' s official title in this capacity was " Abteilung Reinhard - der Inspekteur des SS - Sonderkommandos beim SS - und Polizeiführer Lublin " . Wirth was noted for his unusually brutal rule . He established the regime of terror and death which was carried out in all Operation Reinhard camps more than any other camp commander . During his time at Bełżec , Wirth experimented with different methods to most efficiently deal with prisoners . He developed much of the systematic policy for interaction with the prisoners . For instance , Wirth decided that newly arrived prisoners to be murdered should be beaten with whips incessantly to drive them into the gas chambers , thus creating a sense of panic and terror in which the prisoners felt forced to comply . Such policies were soon implemented at the other death camps . " SS - Unterscharführer " ( Corporal ) Franz Suchomel testified about Wirth : During the construction of Sobibor , the second " Aktion Reinhard " camp , Wirth visited the incomplete site , and conducted an experimental gassing of 25 Jewish slave - labourers . He liked to carry a whip , and he used it on both Jewish victims and guards . When Treblinka ( the last and most efficient " Reinhard " camp ) was set up , Wirth took a direct role in reorganizing it when the first Commandant , Dr . Irmfried Eberl , was replaced by Franz Stangl . Stangl recalled one of Wirth ' s inspection visits to Treblinka as Inspector of Operation Reinhard , around September 1942 : In May 1943 , after Himmler ' s visit to Sobibor and Treblinka , Wirth was promoted to the rank of " SS - Sturmbannführer " ( Major ) . On November 3 , 1943 , after the Sobibor uprising , SS and police units shot all of the Jewish labor forces still incarcerated at Trawniki , Poniatowa , and Majdanek concentration camp s during Aktion Erntefest ( " Operation Harvest Festival " ) ; 42 , 000 prisoners in all . After Operation Reinhard was terminated after three million Polish Jews and thousands of Gypsies were murdered , Wirth was sent to Trieste in Italy along with the other former Aktion Reinhard staff . From autumn 1943 , Wirth ' s role was to oversee the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp as well as to combat partisans over the border in occupied Yugoslavia . He commanded " SS Task Force R " , which engaged in antipartisan and anti - Jewish actions in the Trieste - Fiume - Udine area of northern Italy . The Jews of this area were to be concentrated at San Sabba and eventually killed . Upon Wirth ' s order a crematorium was built at San Sabba . Allegedly to remove potential future witnesses , their superiors assigned former death camp staff to the most dangerous job they could find : anti - partisan combat . While in prison in 1971 , Stangl stated in an interview , " We were an embarrassment to our [ superiors ] . They wanted to find ways and means to ' incinerate ' us . " Wirth was killed in May 1944 by Yugoslav Partisans while travelling in an open - topped car on an official trip to Fiume . He was buried with full military honours in the German Military Cemetery in Opcina , near Trieste . His remains were transferred in 1959 to the block 15 , tomb 716 of the German Military Cemetery at Costermano , near Lake Garda , northern Italy . Other quotes . To the SS personnel at Sobibor :