Franz, Kurt

(b. 1914), SS officer who served as deputy commandant at Treblinka. Franz joined the German army in 1935; after his service he enlisted in the SS. At first he worked at the Buchenwald concentration camp. In late 1939 he moved to the Euthanasia Program. In April 1942 he was transferred to the Belzec extermination camp, and in late summer he was sent to the extermination camp at Treblinka, where he served as deputy to camp commandant Franz Stangl. Franz was the most prominent and most terrifying figure at Treblinka. He would inspect the camp and its prisoners on a regular basis, hitting, abusing, and shooting them at random. Such service was considered "excellent" by the SS, and Franz was promoted to a higher rank in June 1943. A revolt broke out in Treblinka that August, and subsequently the camp was closed down. Stangl left, leaving Franz to take apart the camp and destroy all evidence of the mass murders that had taken place there. In November the Jews who had been forced to help raze Treblinka were themselves killed. After the war Franz was tried along with other officers who had worked at Treblinka. In 1965 he was sentenced to life in prison.