Polish Business News Magazine

Christian Wirth was the first commandant of the Belzec death camp and in the summer of 1942 became the overseer of the Aktion Reinhard operations which led to the deaths of at least 1.4m people in the death camps of Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor.

Despite being one of the greatest mass murderers in history, very littls is known about him. My friend Mike Tregenza has been writing a biography of him for some time but so sign of it coming out yet.

Before coming to Bełżec, Wirth had previously served in the CID in Stuttgart and was noted for results - probably through the use of beatings to get confessions.  One case stands out.  There was a crook the police ‘knew’ had committed a crime but could not prove it.  Wirth was given the assignment.  Not only did he emerge with a full confession, but also had confessions to six other crimes as well.

His lowly rank, only a captain when he was already at Belzec, was due probably to his non conventional modus operendi.
Wirth originated from southern Germany but unlike his neighbours - and the vast majority of Nazi holocaust criminals - was Protestant.  He served in the first world war on the western front then returned to the police. Also unusually he did not use the victims possessions to enrich himself. He was married with two sons and until his mid forties seemingly led a normal family life, building a home with views over the valley.
Unlike most of the other criminals of the holocaust, Wirth was not a young man. He was born in 1885. Despite being in his mid fifties he possessed a great deal of physical strength which turned to violence probably due to mental problems caused by his asthma.  This asthma could also have taken the effect of causing temporary blindness.  His violence may have been his way of dealing with the problem.

Wirth was extremely brutal and according to witnesses such as Franz Suchomel and Franz Stangl he did not hesitate to use the whip on the Nazi staff as well as his Jewish victims.  He was a sadist, Stangl remarked to Gitta Sereny in 1970 about how Wirth clearly enjoyed what he was doing. He had no pity for the victims, for him they were just ‘getting rid of useless mouths to feed.’
Wirth remarked to other Reinhard staff in August 1942 that the Jews were there to die, and that then the Ukrainian guards would probably also be killed as well.  He suggested that their fate could be the same.  As it happened many of those involved in the Reinhard murders were transferred to Trieste and then found themselves fighting Slovenian partisans in the Alps.  Wirth, travelling in an open car, was killed in May 1944 between Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka) only a few weeks after receiving the Iron Cross.

Many of those involved in the Reinhard killings stated that without the barbarism and drive of Wirth then the whole killing system would have broken down.

This film shows the house where he lived in Belzec during his time as commandant there before moving to a flat in Lublin airport when he was replaced by his deputy Gottlieb Hering as commandant. The house became vacant following the death of the occupier in December 2006.  It is now up for sale through the privatisation process associated with the Polish railways PKP.