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Franz Ziereis
Born	13 August 1905 Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Died	24 May 1945(1945-05-24) (aged 39) Mauthausen-Gusen, Upper Austria, Allied-occupied Austria
Cause of death	Gunshot wounds

Franz Xaver Ziereis (13 August 1905 – 24 May 1945) was the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945.

Early life and SS career

Ziereis was born on 13 August 1905 in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire (now in Bavaria, Germany), where he spent 8 years in elementary school and then began as an apprentice and messenger boy in a department store. In the evenings he studied commerce. In 1922 he went to work as a labourer in a carpentry shop.

Ziereis joined Germany's Reichswehr (army) on 1 April 1924, for a period of 12 years. He was discharged with the rank of sergeant in 1936 and joined the SS on September 30 of the same year. He attained the rank of SS-Obersturmführer and was assigned as a training instructor to the SS-Totenkopfverbände. In 1937 he was given command of a Totenkopfverbände unit and later became a training instructor.

Concentration camp commandant

Zeireis replaced Albert Sauer as commandant of Mauthausen on 9 February 1939 by order of Theodor Eicke, Inspector of Concentration Camps. On 25 August 1939, Ziereis received a promotion to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer and, on 20 April 1944 he received his final promotion to SS-Standartenführer.

Post-war flight and death

Ziereis fled with his wife on 3 May 1945, but was tracked down 100 miles (160 km) away by an American army unit on 23 May 1945. As he attempted to escape, American soldiers proceeded to shoot Ziereis three times in the stomach and brought him to a U.S. military hospital set up at the former Gusen I concentration camp. Enraged prisoners had to be stopped from beating him to death. Ziereis died shortly after interrogation by a former inmate of Mauthausen, socialist Hans Maršálek. In a confession, he had implicated several leading perpetrators at the camp, including Eduard Krebsbach, who had ordered the building of the gas chamber at Mauthausen, Erich Wasicky, who had built the gas van there, and Gauleiter August Eigruber, who was chiefly responsible for the conditions since the area fell under his jurisdiction. His corpse was later hung on the fence of Gusen I by former prisoners of Gusen. Krebsbach, Wasicky, and Eigruber were later tried at the Mauthausen Trial and executed.

References

1. Ziereis, Franz. In: Erich Stockhorst: 5000 Köpfe. Wer war was im 3. Reich. VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1967.
2. "Erinnern – Fotos und Dokumente – 1938–1945 – Schlaglichter: 23. April 1945" (in German). Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW). Retrieved 2021-01-24.
3. "Article clipped from Chicago Tribune". Chicago Tribune. 1945-06-08. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
4. "Where Murder Was a Way of Life: The Mauthausen Concentration Camp". The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. 2020-05-01. Retrieved 2023-10-06.
5. Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich - Wer war was vor und nach 1945, Frankfurt am Main, 2. Auflage, Juni 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8
6. "Mauthausen Concentration Camp (Austria)". www.jewishgen.org. Retrieved 2023-12-29.

• 1905 births
• 1945 deaths
• Mauthausen concentration camp personnel
• SS-Standartenführer
• Deaths by firearm in Austria
• Reichswehr personnel
• German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
• Nazi concentration camp commandants killed in World War II
• Nazi concentration camp commandants who died in prison custody
• Prisoners who died in United States military detention