Talk:Franz Stangl

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Didn't know that his membership in the Nazi Party pre-Anschluss was taken for a fact. But perhaps I'm only remembering his denials in Sereny's book and forgetting some more definitive statement... 70.179.101.33 03:38, 24 November 2005 (UTC)Wilhelm

I can't find any confirmation of Stangl joining the Austrian Nazi Party before the Anschluss. In the Sereny interviews (from 'The German Trauma') he claims that a friend added his name to the lists of Austrian Nazis from 1936 and 1937, in order to help his career (and possibly save his life) after he found a Nazi weapons cache before the Anschluss. I'll try to find a definite confirmation one way or the other. --Squiddy 12:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It is a somewhat complicated and disputed matter. Franz Stangl claimed that he got anti-dated membership card of the Nazi party after the Anschlusss that made him look as an early member. He claimed to Sereny that he was not a member before the Anschluss. He said that he became a member of the Nazi party out of fear, because he was well aware as a member of the police department that anti-Nazis were dealt with in a brutal manner. However, people tended not to believe Stangl's story and believed instead that he was an early secret member of the then illegal Nazi party. Personally I think Stangl's version could very well be true, because it correspondends with his character i.e. that of a human, but in this case tragically fatal combination of exaggerated fear of superiors, obedience to superiors, industriousness, and ambition. Andries 11:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stangl on Stangl

The whole article seems to hinge upon the probably self-serving thoughts of Stangl on Stangl about his life and crimes. Maybe a perspective from his colleagues and victims would be valuable....as in most other biographies...Colin4C 14:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

He confessed to standing next to the pits used to bury thousands ( huge pits ) but a wiki article on Krege says that ground penetrating radar was not able to find even small pits - what's up. Do holocaust historians doubt GPR or Stangl's confession ( one or the other is bogus but luckily the GPR could be tried again so historians could get the facts correct.) Would there be far reaching consequences if Stangl was found to be a false confessor. Why only life in prison for killing 900,000? Given the tenor of the time and the other sentences given out, he seems to have been treated differently - was his confession the reason? Bouncing from one wiki article to another creates more questions than answers - but real historians could clear this up quickly - probably in calmer times ( years in the future ) this will be done quitely. Lots of rewrite jobs to be open in wiki - what's the hourly pay?

Why only life in prison for killing 900,000?

He was sentenced to life imprisonement in 1970. The death penalty was abolished in Germany in 1949.--84.175.92.222 (talk) 14:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

On why ground penetrating radar was not able to find pits with bodies:

Because in Spring 1943 work was started at Treblinka to obliterate traces of mass graves (continuing the work done in other places where mass murders had taken place). So he could very well have stood next to a mass grave with rotting bodies, which were subsequently obliterated. Testimony on the obliteration (by Heinrich Matthes): an installation was built for burning the corpses. The incineration was carried out by placing railroad rails on blocks of concrete. The corpses were then piled up on these rails. Brush wood was placed under the rails. The wood was drenched with gasoline. Not only the newly obtained corpses were burnt in this way, but also those exhumed from the ditches. The burning of corpses proceeded day and night. When the fire had died down, whole skeletons or single bones remained behind on the grating. Mounds of ash had accumulated underneath it. A different prisoner commando, the "Ashes Gang," had to sweep up the ashes, place the remaining bones on thin metal sheets, pound them with round wooden dowels, and then shake them through a narrow-mesh metal sieve; whatever remained in the sieve was crushed once more. Bones not burnt and which could not easily be split were again thrown into the fire.

Also, as the article in Krege indicates, there is serious doubt about his claims of having done research at Treblinka.165.189.169.190 (talk) 14:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

^ Are you serious? I dont think ALL the germans in the world together could put even 900,000 bodies through that process in seven years! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zensky (talk • contribs) 10:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am serious, as was the individual whose testimony I referenced, SS Oberscharführer Heinrich Matthes, who served at Treblinka. However, they weren't entirely successful: In 1959, Third Reich historian Martin Gilbert visited the camp: "From Treblinka village we proceeded for another mile or two, along the line of an abandoned railway through a forest of tall trees. Finally we reached an enormous clearing, bounded on all sides by dense woodland. Darkness was falling, and with it, the chill of night and a cold dew. I stepped down from the cart on to the sandy soil: a soil that was gray rather than brown. Driven by I know not what impulse, I ran my hand through that soil, again and again. The earth beneath my feet was coarse and sharp: filled with the fragments of human bone." All present in the vicinity, even fifteen years after the fact, discovered literal heaps of evidence pointing to what had occurred there.

Yes, it is indeed mindboggling what the Nazis did. 165.189.169.190 (talk) 14:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)