Christian Wirth's Role In The Holocaust

Christian Wirth was infamous for his work as a Nazi. Born in Germany, Wirth was a well known officer who managed to climb his way up in the rankings and became a very powerful military leader. He introduced new experiments to test things like gasses and other means of killing Jews. Christian Wirth was a brutal man who was responsible for the deaths of many innocent Jews. Christian Wirth was born in Oberbalzheim, Wurttemburg, Germany on November 24, 1885. Wirth went to basic schooling and apprenticed a carpenter until 1910 when he joined the police force. He also joined the military and fought on the western front in World War I. In this war he was awarded with the highest honor, which was the golden military cross. Wirth’s name was becoming
Wirth was an architect in his early years and eventually took part in gas experiments at camps. His first project was planning a euthanasia operation in 1939 (Webb and Tregenza). Wirth was present at the very first gassing experiment in Brandenburg and played a huge role in the killings of mental patients. Brandenburg became the first euthanasia center for mental patients especially children. Carbon Monoxide was used for this experiment and many officers observed from peepholes in the chamber to record affects. Chemist, August Becker, noted that “...people toppled over, or lay on benches all without scenes or commotion” (Friedlander). Many people were skeptical about this experiment, so Wirth made it his priority to make this process more efficient. He added shower heads to the chambers to make the people believe they were really taking showers. He also lowered the gas rate so the noise of the gas coming in was not heard, this was the reason many people did not expect the gasses. Wirth was dedicated to his job and made many improvements to his
As head of the Belzec camp Wirth took it upon himself to be the most brutal and savage officer at the time. Many nicknames came about for him like Christian the Savage and Christian the Terrible . He really lived up to his name and enforced his rules strictly. He was known to constantly whip innocent people and to come up with obscure and gruesome deaths. One of the worst things he did was gather hundreds of children and bury them alive just because they were young and served no purpose in his camp. He was also known to beat his guards and other parts of the Nazi party. Wirth believed the soldiers were lazy and could not get work done (Christian