The Amazing Interview That Ended a Nazi Criminal’s Life
And Made A Journalist step into the darkness
The Trial
It was West-Germany’s highest-profile trial of a Nazi war criminal. Franz Stangl, former SS officer, and commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps was charged with the killings of 900,000 people.
Stangl, Austrian born, rose through the ranks of the SS and was described as “the best camp commandant in Poland”. The Nazis operated 4 extermination camps, purposed solely to annihilate the Jews, and Gypsies, of Europe. Stangl commanded two.
After the war, Stangl escaped and ended up in Brazil. He didn’t use an alias, he was there with his family, and work at a local Volkswagen factory. It took years before an arrest warrant was issued, and in 1967 he was finally tracked down and arrested. In a rare agreement, Stangl was extradited from Brazil to West Germany and was put on trial.
“My conscience is clear”, he said throughout the trial and refused to accept his role in the mass killings. Stangl claimed he shouldn’t even be charged, that he was only following orders, and that he did not personally participate in any of the crimes.
On 22 December, Stangl was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Although the prosecution didn’t manage to prove he…
