Franz Paul Stangl[1] (German: [ˈʃtaŋl̩]; 26 March 1908 – 28 June 1971) was an Austrian police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka in World War II.

In those 16 years he worked for Volkswagen do Brasil before he was arrested in 1967, extradited to West Germany, and tried there for the mass murder of one million people.

He was the son of a night watchman and had such an emotionally distressing relationship with his father that he was deeply frightened by and hated the sight of the elder Stangl's Habsburg Dragoons uniform.

Concerned that this trade offered few opportunities for advancement – and having observed the poor health of his co-workers – Stangl sought a new career.

[5] After Austria's Anschluss, Stangl was assigned to the Schutzpolizei (which was taken over by the Gestapo) in Linz, where he was posted to the Jewish Bureau (German: Judenreferat).

[8] After the onset of World War II, in early 1940, Stangl was instructed to report for work at the Public Service Foundation for Institutional Care (Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Anstaltspflege), a front organization of the T-4 Euthanasia Program.

[7] Stangl purposely solicited for a job in the newly created T-4 program in order to escape difficulties with his boss in the Linz Gestapo.

He travelled to the RSHA in Berlin, where he was received by Paul Werner, who offered Stangl a job as supervisor in charge of security at a T-4 facility, and in the language commonly used during recruitment, described Action T4 as a "humanitarian" effort that was "essential, legal, and secret".

[13] On these occasions he stood out because of the all-white linen riding coat he would wear, an affectation which earned him the nickname "White Death".

[15] He was only ever accused of a single act of hands-on violence,[16] and on one occasion, he convened a meeting to address what he regarded as Kurt Bolender's "bullying" of the Sonderkommando prisoners working in the extermination area.

They were discussing the number of victims in the extermination camps of Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor and expressed their regret that Sobibor "came last" in the competition.Also according to Bauer, Stangl participated in gang rapes of female prisoners prior to killing them: I was blamed for being responsible for the death of the Jewish girls Ruth and Gisela, who lived in the so-called forester house.

They were attended by [Kurt] Bolender, [Hubert] Gomerski, Karl Ludwig, Franz Stangl, Gustav Wagner, and Steubel.

I lived in the room above them and due to these celebrations could not fall asleep after coming back from a journey....[19]On 28 August 1942, Odilo Globočnik ordered Stangl to become Kommandant at the newly opened but disorganized death camp, Treblinka, then under the incompetent[further explanation needed] command of Irmfried Eberl.

[22][page needed] According to Jankiel Wiernik: "When the new gas chambers were completed, the Hauptsturmführer [Stangl] came and remarked to the SS men who were with him: 'Finally the Jewish city is ready' (German: Endlich ist die Judenstadt fertig)".

[20] In August 1943, along with Globočnik, Stangl was transferred to Trieste, where he helped organize the campaign against Yugoslav partisans and local Jews.

Austrian Roman Catholic Bishop Alois Hudal, a Nazi sympathizer, who would be forced to resign by the Vatican in 1952, helped Stangl to escape through a "ratline", and he reached Syria using a Red Cross passport.

After years in other jobs, he found work with the help of friends, at the Volkswagen do Brasil plant in São Bernardo do Campo, still using his own name.

[24] Although Stangl's role in the mass murder of men, women and children was known to the Austrian authorities, a warrant for his arrest was not issued until 1961.

Despite being registered under his real name at the Austrian consulate in São Paulo,[25][page needed] it took another six years before he was tracked by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and arrested by Brazilian federal police on 28 February 1967.

At police training school they taught us that the definition of a crime must meet four requirements: there has to be a subject, an object, an action and intent.

I could apply this to my own situation – if the subject was the government, the "object" the Jews, and the action the gassing, I could tell myself that for me, the fourth element, "intent", (I called it free will) was missing.

[20]Philosopher John Kekes discussed Stangl and the degree of his responsibility for war crimes in chapter 4 of his book The Roots of Evil.

[27] The Schwurgericht Düsseldorf court found Stangl guilty on 22 December 1970 and sentenced him to the maximum penalty, life imprisonment.

[9][page needed] While in prison, Stangl was interviewed extensively by Gitta Sereny for a study of him, published under the title Into That Darkness.

[28] Sereny wrote, quoting him: "My conscience is clear about what I did, myself", he said, in the same stiffly spoken words he had used countless times at his trial, and in the past weeks, when we had always come back to this subject, over and over again.