Franz Mürer (24 January 1912 – 5 January 1994) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n SS NCO (SS-''Oberscharführer''). Also known as the "Butcher of Vilnius", he created and ruled the

Vilna Ghetto The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered . During the approximately two years of its existen ...

until July 1943, shortly before its liquidation.

Early life

Murer was born in Sankt Georgen ob Murau,

, in 1912, and joined the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

at the age of 26. He trained with the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

before being transferred to

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, where between 1941 and 1943 he was the deputy of Territorial Commissioner (''Gebietskommissar'') Hans Christian Hingst in charge of "Jewish affairs". He was known as a sadist who showed special cruelty towards the Jews. Vilnius, which was known as "the Jerusalem of Lithuania" before the war, had a Jewish population of about 80,000. After the war around 250 Jews were living there. The rest had been murdered by the SS and Murer was instrumental in organizing these killings. On 1 July 1943 Murer was replaced by

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

Oberscharführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberscharführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between 1932 and 1945. ''Oberscharführer'' was first used as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions ...

'' Bruno Kittel, who was brought in to liquidate the ghetto.

Post war

After the war, Murer moved to

Steiermark Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and clockwise, from the southwest, ...

. Near his residence in Admont there was a camp for

displaced person Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of perse ...

s. In 1947 one of these DPs recognized Murer and British forces arrested Murer. In December 1948 he was deported to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

since Vilnius had been under Soviet jurisdiction. He was found guilty of having murdered Soviet citizens and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. As a part of the

Austrian State Treaty The Austrian State Treaty ( ) or Austrian Independence Treaty established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on 15 May 1955 in Vienna, at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the Uni ...

, he was released in 1955 and thus returned to

Simon Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture, and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Janowska concentration camp (la ...

managed to get him prosecuted again in 1963. The trial that took place in

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

, Austria, lasted for a week and ended with the acquittal of Murer. The trial was the subject of the 2018 film ''Murer – Anatomie eines Prozesses'' (''Murer – Anatomy of a Trial''). Murer died in Gaishorn am See,

, in 1994. In 1980, Israeli intelligence had made plans to assassinate Murer. The Mossad planned to raid his farm and shoot him with his own rifle. The never-implemented plan became known in 2018 after former Mossad agent Yossi Chen (Chinitz) published documents on the operation. The Mossad had also planned to assassinate Ernst Lerch, who had had a major role in

Operation Reinhard Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...

. Neither assassinations were carried out since the new Mossad chief, Yitzhak Hofi, feared that attacks on Austrian soil would endanger relations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murer, Franz 1912 births 1994 deaths Jewish Lithuanian history SS non-commissioned officers Holocaust perpetrators in Lithuania Vilna Ghetto Hitler Youth members Austrian Nazis convicted of war crimes People acquitted of murder People from the Duchy of Styria Austrian people imprisoned in the Soviet Union