Karl Frenzel

SS-Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant) Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel (20 August 1911 — 2 September 1996) was the commandant of Sobibór extermination camp's Lager I section, which was the section for the Sonderkommando forced-labor prisoner-workers, who also herded victims into the gas chambers. After World War II he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, and served 16 years in prison, but was ultimately released for health reasons.

Biography

Early life

Frenzel was born in Zehdenick, Templin district on 20 August 1911. His father had worked for the railroad and was a local official of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Karl completed primary school from 1918 to 1926 in Oranienburg and then apprenticed as a carpenter. During this time, he was a member of the socialist carpenter's union. However, after passing the qualifying carpentry exam in 1930 he found himself unemployed. Later he found work for a short time as a butcher. The Nazi Party promised that there would be more jobs after the seizure of power, a reason which motivated Frenzel when he joined both the party and the Sturmabteilung (SA) in August 1930. His brother, a theology student, had joined the Nazi Party the previous year. His father would join the party in 1934. Karl claimed that antisemitism was an aspect of the politics to which they were indifferent. He would later claim that he was appalled by the early persecution of Jews in Germany.