Christian "The Wild" Wirth (1885-1944)

Trained as a carpenter, petty officer during World War I and highly decorated. Employed with the criminal police in Stuttgart after the end of World War I. Member of the Nazi Party in 1922, of the SA in 1931 and of the SS in 1939. In 1939 employed at the Euthanasia Programme, Operation T4, from 1941 as inspector of all six euthanasia killing-centers. In 1942 Wirth was transferred to Aktion Reinhard (the extermination of the Polish Jews) as commandant of the extermination camp Belzec and inspector of all three Aktion Reinhard extermination camps. In 1943 Wirth, together with his superior, Odilo Globocnik, was transferred to Trieste by the Adriatic Sea. Here, he soon led the deportation of the local Jews to Auschwitz. Wirth was either shot by Yugoslavian partisans or his own men on 26 May 1944. Eyewitnesses have described him as incredibly violent and barbaric.