Wirth as SS-Sturmbannfuhrer in Totenkopfverbande uniform, wearing the Iron Cross First and Second Class (with 1939 clasp to the latter) and War Merit Cross First Class with Swords.  Yes I know - a repost, but the previous post refers.  Best regards, JR.

Christian Wirth as SS-Sturmbannfuhrer.

This fresh-faced young soldier on his way to the Front in WW1 grew up to be Christian Wirth, one of the leading homicidal psychopaths of the SS.  

After a brief spell in the Kaiser's army, Wirth worked as a policeman before WW1, attaining the status of Detective by 1914.  At the start of WW1 he returned to the Colours.  Wirth had a "good war" earning the Iron Cross, Second and First Class, and being awarded the Wound Badge in Black.  After the war, he returned to the police service, becoming a Detective Sergeant.  He now began his rise through the ranks of the Kriminalpolizei (KRIPO).  At the same time, he was became a member of the Nazi Party very early in its history.  He was forced to distance himself from the Party when it was banned following the "Beer Hall Putch", but rejoined in 1931, and also became a member of the SA.  He continued as a notably successful KRIPO detective, success that was allegedly based on his "vigorous" interrogation methods.  This naturally brought him to the attention of the national security authorities which were, from 1936, consolidating their control over the security police service.  This led Wirth from the SA to the SS, and into the SD, by 1939.

Wirth's subsequent claims to "fame" rested on two subsequent assignment.  The first was to Hitler's long-intended programme of extermination of congenitally ill and intellectually disabled children.  Wirth was part of a mixed "team" of SS administrators, policemen and doctors.  However, he showed considerable inventiveness in devising killing methods in the Programme, including the development of crude gas chambers - disguised as shower cubicles, for disposing of single persons. 

This career move led naturally to another - as Odilo Globocnik's most determined and ruthless sidekick in Aktion Reinhard - a major component of the Jewish Holocaust, that resulted in the murder of a conservatively estimated 1.5 and 1.7 million persons (some estimates are rather higher) - the vast majority Jews - in a period of about 18 months, using a mere three small death factories in Globocnik's SS District of Lublin.  Let out, so to speak, in the open air, Wirth showed a marked talent for brutality and some signs of mental instability.  Most of the victims of "Reinhard" did not really have much chance to get to know him; his staff, however, were understandably terrified of him.  With "Reinhard", Wirth held successively (but with overlap) the post of Commandant of the Belzec camp and that of Inspector of Aktion Reinhard camps.  Many unfortunates would pass to their deaths under his whip.

After Aktion Reinhard was discontinued, Wirth, along with Globocnik and other "Reinhard" veterans, were transferred to northern Italy, where they conducted "Aktion R", a brutal campaign against local partisans and Jews.  In the course of this, Obsturmbannfuhrer Christian Wirth was killed in an ambush by partisans in May, 1944.  He was buried with full military honours.  Best regards, JR.
 