Franz Reichleitner

Who was Franz Reichleitner?

Franz Karl Reichleitner was an Austrian SS-Hauptsturmführer who served in Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. Reichleitner served as the second and last commandant of Sobibór extermination camp from 1 September 1942 until the camp's closure on or about 17 October 1943. As the commanding officer of the camp, Franz Reichleitner directly perpetrated the genocide of Jews.

Reichleitner joined the Nazi Party in 1936 as member number 6,369,213 and the Schutzstaffel in 1937 as member number 357,065. He began his career as a Kriminalsekretär of the Gestapo in Linz. Later Reichleitner was assigned to work in the Action T4 euthanasia program at the nearby Hartheim Euthanasia Centre. He first served as an assistant supervisor under officer Christian Wirth before assuming Wirth's position of chief supervisor at Hartheim. Reichleitner was also partly responsible for getting Stangl a supervising job in T-4.

Reichleitner was married to Anna Baumgartner from Steyr.

On 1 September 1942, at the rank of SS-Obersturmführer, on the orders of Wirth and Odilo Globocnik, Reichleitner took command of the Sobibór extermination camp with Franz Stangl's departure to Treblinka.