Siegfried Seidl

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Siegfried Seidl (born 24 August 1911 in Tulln, Lower Austria; then Austria-Hungary; executed 4 February 1947 in Vienna) was a World War II Commandant of the Theresienstadt concentration camp located in what is now the Czech Republic.

Siegfried Seidl interrupted his law studies after a few semesters and took on various odd jobs. In 1930, he joined the Nazi Party and in 1932 the SS. In late 1939, Seidl was called into the police as a result of his SS membership. As of January 1940, he was attached to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) – in fact Department IVB4 under Adolf Eichmann's command – and posted to the SS lead section in Posen. In 1941 he graduated from his studies, which he had taken up in 1935, to the philosophy faculty. In October 1941, Seidl was charged by the RSHA with building the Theresienstadt Ghetto.

From 1941 until 1943, he was the Ghetto's Commandant, and as such the one responsible for mishandling and murdering thousands of people. In 1944-1945 as acting leader of the SS Special Deployment Command, Outpost Vienna, Seidl exercised control over the forced-labour camps for Hungarian Jews that had been built in Vienna and Lower Austria.

On 14 November 1946, Seidl was sentenced by the Volksgericht in Vienna to death. The penalty was carried out on February 4, 1947.