Franz Karl Reichleitner (2 December 1906 – 3 January 1944) was an Austrian member in the SS of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

who participated 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 ...

during

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. Reichleitner served as the second and last commandant of Sobibór extermination camp from 1 September 1942 until the camp's closure on or about 17 October 1943.The Holocaust: Lest we forget: Extermination camp Sobibor
/ref> As the commanding officer of the camp, Franz Reichleitner directly perpetrated the

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

SS career

Reichleitner joined the

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

in 1936 as member number 6,369,213 and the ''

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (; ; SS; also stylised with SS runes as ''ᛋᛋ'') was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It beg ...

'' (SS) in 1937 as member number 357,065. He began his career as a ''Kriminalsekretär'' of the

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 ...

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

. Later Reichleitner was assigned to work in the

Action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of Homicide#By state actors, mass murder by involuntary euthanasia which targeted Disability, people with disabilities and the mentally ill in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-WWII, war trials against d ...

euthanasia program at the nearby Hartheim Euthanasia Centre. He first served as an assistant supervisor (together with Franz Stangl) under officer Christian Wirth before assuming Wirth's position of chief supervisor at Hartheim. Reichleitner was also partly responsible for getting Stangl a supervising job in T-4. Henry Friedlander (1995). ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 100, 204-206. Reichleitner married Anna Baumgartner from

Steyr Steyr (; ) is a statutory city (Austria), statutory city, located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. It is the administrative capital, though not part of Steyr-Land District. Steyr is Austria's 12th most populated town and the 3rd lar ...

. Gitta Sereny. ''Into That Darkness: from Mercy Killing to Mass Murder, a study of Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka'' (1974
second edition 1995

Sobibor death camp

On 1 September 1942, at the rank of SS-''

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary ranks, Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the Sturmabteilung, SA, Schutzstaffel, SS, National Socialist Motor Corps, NSKK and the ...

'' (first lieutenant), on the orders of Wirth and Odilo Globocnik, Reichleitner took command of the Sobibór extermination camp with Franz Stangl's departure to Treblinka. Reichleitner rarely showed his face in the camp, and it has been claimed that he was a heavy drinker, but his command at Sobibór was even more strict than that of his predecessor. Moshe Bahir, a camp inmate, wrote:

Reichleitner, a man in his late forties, with an Austrian accent, was dressed always with great elegance and wore gloves. He did not have direct contact with the Jews and the transports. He knew that he could rely on his subordinates, who were very frightened of him. He ran the camp with German precision. During his time the ''Aktionen'' went smoothly, and all the transports that arrived on a certain day were liquidated. He never left them for the following day... Yitzhak Arad (1987). ''Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 188-189.

On one occasion, when an old man from the transports slapped SS officer Karl Frenzel, Reichleitner took the man aside and shot him on the spot in front of his family and the entire convoy of people.

Sobibor revolt

After ''

Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest Uniforms and insignia of the Schut ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...

visited Sobibór on 12 February 1943, he promoted Reichleitner to SS-'' Hauptsturmführer'' (captain). Reichleitner was on leave on the day of the successful Sobibór revolt, 14 October 1943. With about 300 of the 600 prisoners having escaped, the remainder were shot dead per the direct orders of Himmler. Sobibór was closed within a few days and the Nazis attempted to remove any traces of its existence. In autumn 1943, like so many of the perpetrators of Operation Reinhard, Reichleitner was then transferred to the Fiume area of Italy to kill Jews and quell the partisan resistance movement there. Reichleitner was killed by partisans on 3 January 1944 at Fiume,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reichleitner, Franz 1906 births 1944 deaths People from Kirchdorf an der Krems District Aktion T4 personnel Gestapo personnel Austrian mass murderers Austrian military personnel killed in World War II Austrian Nazis Austrian police officers Austrian war criminals Nazi concentration camp commandants Sobibor extermination camp personnel Sonderabteilung Einsatz R personnel SS-Hauptsturmführer Holocaust perpetrators in Poland