Kurt Hubert Franz (17 January 1914 – 4 July 1998) was an SS officer and one of the commanders of the Treblinka extermination camp. Because of this, Franz was one of the major perpetrators of genocide during the Holocaust. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Treblinka Trials in 1965, he was eventually released in 1993.
The verdict against Franz stated that "a large part of the streams of blood and tears that flowed in Treblinka can be attributed to him alone."
Early career
Kurt Franz was born in 1914 in Düsseldorf. He attended public school in Düsseldorf from 1920 to 1928, and then worked as a messenger and as a cook. Franz's father, a merchant, died early. His mother was an observant Catholic. When she remarried, it was to a man with a strong right-wing nationalist outlook. Franz joined several right-wing national groups and served in the voluntary labor corps. He also trained with a master butcher for one year.
Franz joined the Nazi Party in 1932, and was conscripted in the German Army in 1935. After performing the military service in October 1937, he joined the SS-Totenkopfverbände. First he received training with the Third Death Head Regiment Thuringia at Weimar, and then served as cook and guard at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he attained the rank of Unterscharführer (Corporal).
Action T4
In late 1939 Franz was summoned to Hitler's Chancellery and detailed to take part in the Action T4 euthanasia program. Franz worked as a cook at Hartheim, Brandenburg, Grafeneck and Sonnenstein. In late 1941, he was assigned as cook at T4 headquarters.
On 20 April 1942, Franz was promoted to Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant). In spring of 1942, Franz, along with other veterans of Action T4, went to Lublin concentration camp complex in the Generalgouvernement, and was posted to the Bełżec extermination camp, where he stayed until the end of August 1942.
Treblinka
With a change of command in the Operation Reinhard death camp system, Franz was transferred to Treblinka extermination camp. He quickly became the camp's deputy commandant on the orders of Christian Wirth. He was promoted to serve as the last camp commandant from mid August until November 1943 to conclude the Holocaust in Poland.
In the testimony (27 February 1946) of one Samuel Rajzman at the major war crimes trial held in Nuremberg, Franz was "the commander of the camp" and orchestrated the building of the railway station at Treblinka. Rajzman said, "When the persons descended from the trains, they really had the impression that they were at a very good station from where they could go to Suwalki, Vienna, Grodno, or other cities." Rajzman also stated that Franz was responsible for the death of renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud's sister.
At first, Kurt Franz supervised work commandos, the unloading of transports, and the transfer of Jews from the undressing rooms to the gas chambers. Franz had a baby-like face, and for this he was nicknamed "Lalke" ("doll" in Yiddish) by the prisoners. But Franz's appearance belied his true nature. He was the dominant overseer in day-to-day interactions with prisoners in Treblinka, and he became the most feared man at Treblinka for the cruelty which he visited upon them.
Facts prove otherwise. Despite visible damage to the camp during the revolt, the gas chambers were left intact and the killing of Polish Jews under Kurt Franz continued, albeit at a reduced speed with only ten boxcars "processed" at a time until the last transport of victims arrived on 19 August with 7,600 survivors of the Białystok Ghetto Uprising. Franz followed Globocnik to Trieste in November 1943.
Barry the dog
Franz was known for being unusually cruel and sadistic. He often made his rounds of the camp riding a horse, and would take his St. Bernard dog, Barry, along with him. Barry was trained to follow Franz's command, which was usually to bite the genitalia or buttocks of prisoners.