Wirth, Christian

(1885–1944)

   Wirth was one of the first technicians of the Nazi Euthanasia Program. Because of the experience he gained using gas in the euthanasia killing process, he was assigned to Lublin, where he organized the first euthanasia center outside of Germany. Wirth was then given the responsibility of exterminating Jews at Chelmno. Working in tandem with Odilo Globocnik, Wirth was responsible for supervising the gassing of about 1,700,000 Jews in the Aktion Reinhard camps.

   A brutal and often sadistic person, Wirth perfected the system by which the victims were led to the gas chambers. For example, Wirth introduced the method of disguising the gas chambers as shower stalls in order to lure his unsuspecting victims to their death. Wirth also took credit for the use of Jewish Sonderkommandos (prisoners), who were assigned to the gas chambers and crematoria, for the purpose of “burying” the dead. His primary contribution to the extermination of the Jews, however, was his development of new gassing techniques at Belzec, which were viewed by his superiors as an improvement over the methods used at Chelmno. Wirth’s “expertise” in the use of carbon monoxide gas as a killing agent was subsequently applied to the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps. The enormous number of Jews who were killed by Wirth’s techniques solidified his reputation as the most notorious of the Nazi war criminals.