Franz Stangl: Nazi Commandant of Two Holocaust Death Camps Known as the “White Death”

Franz Stangl was a Nazi camp commandant who played a central role in the Holocaust at Sobibor and Treblinka during World War II. Born on March 26, 1908, in Austria-Hungary, he began his career in law enforcement before joining the Austrian Nazi Party in 1931. After the Anschluss in 1938, he formally joined the SS and soon became a key figure in the T4 Euthanasia Program, helping organize the mass murder of people with disabilities at Hartheim.In April 1942, Heinrich Himmler appointed him the first commandant of Sobibor extermination camp, where over 100,000 Jews were murdered under his watch. Survivors described Stangl as cold, efficient, and disturbingly detached. His sadism was often masked behind a smile. In one chilling incident, he ordered the execution of a Jewish woman searching for her husband, mocking an officer who delegated the task to a Ukrainian guard.In August 1942, he was transferred to Treblinka to restore order, where he oversaw the expansion of the gas chambers and helped systematize mass murder. Known among prisoners as the "White Death" for his all-white uniform and whip, Stangl rarely engaged directly with victims—he saw them as “cargo,” not human beings.Stangl fled after the war, eventually escaping to Brazil with help from Bishop Alois Hudal’s Nazi ratlines. Despite being registered under his real name, it took until 1967 for Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal to locate him. Extradited to West Germany, he was tried and convicted for the murder of hundreds of thousands. He claimed he was merely doing his duty and lacked criminal “intent,” a defense the court rejected. Stangl died in prison in 1971, just after giving a final interview in which he chillingly claimed his only guilt was having survived.This episode is part of the series The Nazi Camp Commandants.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv