Franz Stangl
Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka and Sobibor, died in prison in 1970, only six months after he was sentenced. The story of the capture of Stangl is far more exciting than those of the Nazis captured and taken into custody in the days and weeks following VE day.
Stangl first worked as part of the T-4 Euthanasia program, which killed the disabled, then took over control of Sobibor. Initially, he was unaware of its function as an extermination camp, but he claimed to have found a gas chamber in the woods nearby. Stangl was responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths at Sobibor before transferring to Treblinka. At Treblinka, he focused on efficiency, describing those killed as cargo to be disposed of and taking pride in his work.
At the end of the war, Stangl fled, using his own name. He was detained in 1945 by the Americans, who believed he had had some involvement with the T-4 program. In May 1948, he escaped to Italy, and with the help of a Catholic bishop who supported the Nazis, fled Europe. He was able to reach Syria using a Red Cross passport provided by one of the ratlines helping Nazis escape. He and his family lived in Syria for three years, before moving to Brazil in 1951.
A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1961, and with the help of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, Stangl was located and arrested in Brazil on February 28, 1967. It is, in fact, unclear why it took so many years to locate and arrest Stangl; he never attempted to hide his identity.
After his arrest, he was extradited to West Germany and charged with the deaths of 900,000 people. He claimed to simply have been doing his duty, and claimed no intent to have committed a crime. He did, in the final hours before his death from heart failure in prison in Dusseldorf, appear to admit that he bore guilt for his actions.