Karl Streibel

Karl Streibel (11 October 1903 – 5 August 1986) was the second and last commander of the Trawniki concentration camp – one of the subcamps of the KL Lublin system of Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland during World War II.[2]

Not to be confused with Karl Steubl from Sobibór extermination camp.
Karl Streibel
Streibel at Trawniki (centre) inspects a company of Hiwis (some still wearing Soviet Budionovkas)
Born11 October 1903
Neustadt, Silesia, German Empire
DiedAugust 5, 1986(1986-08-05) (aged 82)[1]
Hamburg, West Germany
Allegiance Nazi Germany
Service/branch Schutzstaffel
Years of serviceuntil 1945
RankSturmbannführer
Unit SS-Totenkopfverbände

Streibel was born in Neustadt, Silesia (now Prudnik, Poland).[3][4] He joined the NSDAP and the SS at the age of 29, in November 1932. He was promoted to Obersturmführer just before the Nazi German invasion of Poland. He was appointed leader of Trawniki by Globocnik on 27 October 1941 to conduct training of the collaborationist auxiliary police a.k.a. "Hiwis" (Hilfswilligen, lit. "those willing to help") for service with Nazi Germany in the General Government. His camp had also imprisoned Polish Jews condemned to slave labor. The Jews were all massacred in Operation Harvest Festival on 3 November 1943.[2][5][6]

The Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) took part in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi extermination of Jews from across occupied Europe. They conducted executions at extermination camps and in Jewish ghettos including Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw (three times, see Stroop Report), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lwów, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as at Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki itself,[7] and the remaining subcamps of KL Lublin/Majdanek including Poniatowa, Budzyn, Kraśnik, Puławy, Lipowa, but also during massacres in Łomazy, Międzyrzec, Łuków, Radzyń, Parczew, Końskowola, Komarówka and all other locations, augmented by the SS and the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Ordnungspolizei (Orpo).[8][9]

Further information: Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland and The Holocaust in Poland

He directed the Maly Trostinek camp in Belarus, created on May 7, 1942 and closed on January 10, 1943, where an estimated 206,000 prisoners died.

A free man

On 24 June 1944, Streibel escaped from Trawniki with his own SS Battalion Streibel toward Kraków and Auschwitz, ahead of the Soviet offensive. They retreated again through Poland and Czechoslovakia to Dresden, Germany, where his battalion was disbanded between 4 March and 12 April 1945. Streibel and his Hiwis blended in with the civilian population and disappeared from sight.[10]

Nothing was known about his whereabouts until his indictment in 1970. Streibel was put on trial in Hamburg for his wartime activities, and in 1976 acquitted of any wrongdoing and set free.[11] German prosecutor Helge Grabitz believed his word, but also granted him partial memory impairment.[12] Streibel was declared innocent of inciting violence; without prosecution right of appeal.[11][13] Further accounts of his life appear missing.[14]

Notes
  1. Dieter Pohl: Von der "Judenpolitik" zum Judenmord. Der Distrikt des Generalgouvernements 1939-1944. Lang, Frankfurt 1993, p. 186
  2. Mgr Stanisław Jabłoński (1927–2002). "Hitlerowski obóz w Trawnikach". The camp history (in Polish). Trawniki official website. Retrieved 2013-04-30.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. "Karl Richard Josef Streibel. Komendant Obozu szkoleniowego SS w Trawnikach (SS-Ausbildungslager Trawniki) 1942–1944". Przystanek Historia (in Polish). Retrieved 2020-11-13.
  4. Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 608
  5. Jack R. Fischel (Jul 17, 2010). Trawniki labor camp. Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust. Scarecrow Press. pp. 264–265. ISBN 978-0810874855. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
  6. Donald L. Niewyk, Francis R. Nicosia (2012). Trawniki. A labor camp. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. Columbia University Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-0231528788. Retrieved 2013-04-30.
  7. "Trawniki". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved July 21, 2011.
  8. Browning, Christopher R. (1992–1998). "Arrival in Poland" (PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete). Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Penguin Books. pp. 52, 77, 79, 80. Retrieved May 1, 2013. Also: PDF cache archived by WebCite.
  9. ARC (2004). "Erntefest". Occupation of the East. ARC. Retrieved 2013-04-26.
  10. David Bankir, ed (2006). Police Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard by Peter R. Black (Google Books). Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust. Enigma Books. pp. 331–348. ISBN 192963160X. Retrieved 2013-06-02.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  11. Ralph Hartmann (2010). "Der Alibiprozeß". Den Aufsatz kommentieren. Ossietzky 9/2010. Archived from the original on 2013-12-02. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
  12. Matthias Janson (2008). "Strafsache Trawniki". Veröffentlicht in konkret 11/2009, S. 38f. Matthias Janson. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
  13. Kimberly C. Partee (20–22 October 2011). "Ukrainian Collaboration on Trial and the Trawniki Men Delivering Justice and Writing History" (PDF file, direct download 126 KB). Danyliw Research Seminar in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies. Clark University, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
  14. Ian Dixon (June 1990). "Streibel, Karl". Retrieved 2013-05-31.
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