Karl Streibel (11 October 1903 – 5 August 1986) was the second and last commander of the

Trawniki concentration camp The Trawniki concentration camp was set up by Nazi Germany in the village of Trawniki about southeast of Lublin during the occupation of Poland in World War II. Throughout its existence the camp served a dual function. It was organized on the g ...

– one of the subcamps of the

KL Lublin Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

system of

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...

occupied Poland ' ( Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 Octobe ...

during World War II. Streibel was born in Neustadt,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

(now

Prudnik Prudnik (, szl, Prudnik, Prōmnik, german: Neustadt in Oberschlesien, Neustadt an der Prudnik, la, Prudnicium) is a town in southern Poland, located in the southern part of Opole Voivodeship near the border with the Czech Republic. It is the ...

, Poland).Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich'', Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 608 He joined the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

and the SS at the age of 29, in November 1932. He was promoted to ''Obersturmführer'' just before 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 ...

. He was appointed leader of Trawniki by Globocnik on 27 October 1941 to conduct training of the collaborationist

auxiliary police Auxiliary police, also called special police, are usually the part-time reserves of a regular police force. They may be armed or unarmed. They may be unpaid volunteers or paid members of the police service with which they are affiliated. The po ...

a.k.a. " Hiwis" (''Hilfswilligen'', lit. " those willing to help") for service with Nazi Germany in the General Government. His camp had also imprisoned

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...

condemned to slave labor. The Jews were all massacred in

Operation Harvest Festival Operation Harvest Festival (german: Aktion Erntefest) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian ''Sonderdienst'' on 3–4 Nov ...

on 3 November 1943. The

Trawniki men Trawniki is a village in Świdnik County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the present-day gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Trawniki. It lies approximately south-east of Świdnik and south-east of the regio ...

(German: ''Trawnikimänner'') took part in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi extermination of Jews from across occupied Europe. They conducted executions at

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s and in Jewish ghettos including Belzec,

Sobibor Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As an ...

, Treblinka II,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

(three times, see

Stroop Report The Stroop Report is an official report prepared by General Jürgen Stroop for the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, recounting the German suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the liquidation of the ghetto in the spring of 1943. Originally ti ...

), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lwów,

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975� ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, Białystok (twice),

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

as well as at Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki itself, and the remaining subcamps of KL Lublin/Majdanek including

Poniatowa Poniatowa is a town in southeastern Poland, in Opole Lubelskie County, in Lublin Voivodship, with 10,500 inhabitants (2006). It belongs to the historic province of Lesser Poland. During the existence of the 17th-century Polish–Lithuanian Common ...

, Budzyn, Kraśnik, Puławy, Lipowa, but also during massacres in Łomazy, Międzyrzec,

Łuków Łuków is a city in eastern Poland with 30,727 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2005). Since 1999, it has been situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, previously it had belonged to the Siedlce Voivodeship (between 1975–1998). It is the capital of � ...

, Radzyń,

Parczew Parczew is a town in eastern Poland, with a population of 10,281 (2006). It is the capital of Parczew County in the Lublin Voivodeship. Parczew historically belongs to Lesser Poland (''Małopolska'') region. The town lies 60 kilometers north ...

Końskowola Końskowola is a village in southeastern Poland (historic Lesser Poland region), located between Puławy and Lublin, near Kurów on the Kurówka River. It is the seat of a separate commune ('' gmina'') within Puławy County in Lublin Voivodeshi ...

, Komarówka and all other locations, augmented by the ''SS'' and the

Reserve Police Battalion 101 Reserve Police Battalion 101 (german: Reserve-Polizei-Bataillon 101) was in Nazi Germany a paramilitary formation of the uniformed police force known as Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei'', abbreviated as Orpo), operating under the leadership of th ...

from ''

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...

'' (Orpo). He directed the

Maly Trostenets Maly Trostenets (Maly Trascianiec, , "Little Trostenets") is a village near Minsk in Belarus, formerly the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. During Nazi Germany's occupation of the area during World War II (when the Germans referred to it as ...

extermination camp in Belarus, created on May 7, 1942 and closed on January 10, 1943, where an estimated 206,000 prisoners were murdered.

A free man

On 24 June 1944, Streibel escaped from Trawniki with his own '' SS Battalion Streibel'' toward

and Auschwitz, ahead of the Soviet offensive. They retreated again through Poland and Czechoslovakia to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, Germany, where his battalion was disbanded between 4 March and 12 April 1945. Streibel and his Hiwis blended in with the civilian population and disappeared from sight. Nothing was known about his whereabouts until his

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of a ...

in 1970. Streibel was put on trial in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

for his wartime activities, and in 1976 acquitted of any wrongdoing and set free. German prosecutor Helge Grabitz believed his word, but also granted him partial memory impairment. Streibel was declared innocent of inciting violence; without prosecution right of appeal. Further accounts of his life appear missing.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Streibel, Karl 1903 births 1986 deaths People from Prudnik Chełmno extermination camp personnel Nazi concentration camp commandants SS-Sturmbannführer Trawniki concentration camp