Karl Frenzel

SS-Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant) Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel (20 August 1911 — 2 September 1996) was the commandant of Sobibor 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. 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...