Josef Hirtreiter

SS-Scharführer Josef Hirtreiter (1 February 1909 - 27 November 1978) nicknamed "Sepp", was a member of the German SS in World War II and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland.

Background
Hirtreiter was born in Bruchsal. After elementary school, he worked as unskilled construction worker and bricklayer. On 1 August 1932 he became member of the NSDAP and SA. After the invasion of Poland, in October 1940 he was assigned to the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre where he worked in the kitchen. In summer 1942 he joined the army. Four weeks later he was sent back to Hadamar, and then to Berlin, from where Christian Wirth transferred him to Lublin reservation camp complex. There, he became the SS-Unterscharführer and was assigned to Treblinka. Hirtreiter served at Treblinka II from October 1942 till October 1943 in Camp II. Later, he also served at Sobibor.

After the closing of Treblinka in October 1943 Hirtreiter was ordered to Italy where he joined an anti-partisan police unit. He was arrested by the Allies in July 1946, and charged with having served at the euthanasia centre in Hadamar. He became the first of the Treblinka extermination camp hangmen to be tried in Frankfurt am Main. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 3 March 1951 for killing many children aged one to two, during the unloading of the transports notably, by grabbing them by their feet and smashing their heads against the walls of boxcars. Hirtreiter was released from prison in 1977 due to illness. He died 6 months later at an old peoples home in Frankfurt.