'' SS-Unterscharführer'' Gustav Münzberger (17 August 1903 – 23 March 1977), born in Weißkirchlitz (''Sudetenland''), was a carpenter and factory worker before his involvement in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Following the Nazi German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

at the onset of World War II he was posted as a serviceman in August 1940 at the

Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre The Sonnenstein Euthanasia Clinic (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Sonnenstein; literally "National Socialist Killing Institution Sonnenstein") was a Nazi euthanasia or extermination centre located in the former fortress of Sonnenstein Castle near Pirn ...

at Schloss Sonnenstein in

Pirna Pirna (; hsb, Pěrno; ) is a town in Saxony, Germany and capital of the administrative district Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. The town's population is over 37,000. Pirna is located near Dresden and is an important district town as well as ...

. He arrived at the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

in late September 1942 and became assistant to deputy commandant '' SS-Oberscharführer'' Heinrich Matthes, in charge of leading

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

into the gas chambers and gassing them. Treblinka was built as part of the most deadly phase of the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

, known as Operation Reinhard. The camp operated between and .Treblinka Death Camp Day-by-Day
Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, H.E.A.R.T. Retrieved August 11, 2013. During this time, more than 800,000 people – men, women, and children – were murdered there, with other estimates exceeding 1,000,000 victims.Donat, Alexander, ed. ''The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary''. New York: Holocaust Library, 1979. LOC 79-53471

Franciszek Ząbecki Lieutenant Franciszek Ząbecki (; 8 October 1907 – 11 April 1987) was a station master at the village of Treblinka. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, Ząbecki worked as a dispatcher for the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn''; he also ...

, ''Wspomnienia dawne i nowe'',

PAX Association The PAX Association () was a pro-communist Catholic organization created in 1947 in the People's Republic of Poland at the onset of the Stalinist period. The association published the ''Słowo Powszechne'' daily for almost fifty years between 19 ...

Publishing, Warsaw, 1977. Münzberger was an operator of the gas chambers at the ''Totenlager'', and later Chief of the ''Leichentransportkommando'' corpse transport team. On 21 June 1943 he was promoted from the rank of ''SS-

Rottenführer ''Rottenführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in the year 1932. The rank of ''Rottenführer'' was used by several Nazi paramilitary groups, among them the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) a ...

'' to the rank of ''SS-

Unterscharführer ''Unterscharführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives. That event caused an SS reorganisation and the creation of ...

''. During the Treblinka revolt he was on holiday at home. After the closure of Treblinka, he was sent to Trieste in Italy at the end of November or early December 1943. The

Risiera di San Sabba Risiera di San Sabba ( sl, Rižarna) is a five-storey brick-built compound located in Trieste, northern Italy, that functioned during World War II as a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners, and a transit ca ...

killing centre was being set up there. Münzberger was arrested twenty years later in West Germany on 13 July 1963. He was charged with war crimes at the

Treblinka trials The two Treblinka trials concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Je ...

lasting from 12 October 1964 till 24 August 1965, and sentenced for 12 years imprisonment. He served six years and was released on good behavior in 1971. He died six years later.S.J. (2007)
First Treblinka Trial
holocaustresearchproject.org; accessed 26 April 2016.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Munzberger, Gustav SS non-commissioned officers Treblinka extermination camp personnel 1903 births 1977 deaths People convicted in the Treblinka trials People from Teplice District

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