Franz Murer

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Franz Murer (24 January 1912 – 5 January 1994),^[1] also known as the "Butcher from Vilnius", was an Austrian SS officer, who set up, organized, and ruled Vilna Ghetto.^[2]

He joined the NSDAP in 1938. Murer was trained with Hitler Youth in Nuremberg.^[3] He was then transferred to Vilnius and was from 1941 to 1943 responsible for Jewish affairs as deputy of Territorial Commissioner (Gebietskommissar) Hans Hingst.^[4] He was known as a sadist who showed special cruelty towards the Jews. Vilnius, which was known as "the Jerusalem of Lithuania" before the war, had a Jewish population of about 80,000. After the war around 250 Jews were living there. The rest had been murdered by the SS and Murer was instrumental in organizing these killings. On July 1, 1943 Murer was replaced by Gestapo man Bruno Kittel to liquidate the ghetto.^[5]

After the war Murer moved to Steiermark in Austria. Near his residence in Admont there was a camp for displaced persons. In 1947 one of these DPs recognized Murer and British forces arrested Murer. In December 1948 he was deported to the Soviet Union since Vilnius had been under Soviet jurisdiction. He was found guilty of having murdered Soviet citizens and sentenced to 25 years of hard labour.^[6] As a part of the Austrian State Treaty, he was released in 1955 and thus returned to Austria. Simon Wiesenthal managed to get him prosecuted again in 1963.^[7] The trial that took place in Graz, Austria, lasted for a week and ended with the acquittal of Murer.^[6]

Murer was born in Sankt Georgen ob Murau in 1912. He died in Gaishorn am See in 1994.

References

v t e The Holocaust in Lithuania

Main article The Holocaust Related articles by country Belarus Estonia Latvia Norway Poland Russia Ukraine

Crimes	Ninth Fort Kaunas June 1941 Kaunas 29 October 1941 Ninth Fort November 1941 Ponary

Prominent victims	Zelig Kalmanovich Elchonon Wasserman Jacob Wygodzki

Major perpetrators	Erich Ehrlinger Karl Jäger Ernst Kaltenbrunner Hinrich Lohse Franz Murer Adrian von Renteln Alfred Rosenberg Rudolf Joachim Seck Franz Walter Stahlecker Martin Weiss

Nazi occupation and organizations	Einsatzgruppen Reichskommissariat Ostland Rollkommando Hamann

Collaborators	Algimantas Dailidė Algirdas Klimaitis Lithuanian Security Police Schutzmannschaft TDA Ypatingasis būrys

Ghettos, camps and prisons	HKP 562 Kaunas fort ring Kovno Ghetto Lukiškės Prison Marcinkonys Ghetto Šiauliai Ghetto Vilna Ghetto

Resistance and survivors	Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje Jay M. Ipson Abba Kovner Ephraim Oshry Ona Šimaitė Abraham Sutzkever

Documentation, concealment, and justice	Einsatzgruppen Trial Jäger Report Sonderaktion 1005

Righteous among the Nations	Kazys Binkis Karl Plagge Chiune Sugihara Lithuanian Righteous among the Nations

Occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany History of the Jews in Lithuania

Persondata
Name	Murer, Franz
Alternative names
Short description	SS officer
Date of birth	24 January 1917
Place of birth
Date of death	5 January 1995
Place of death

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