Through a direct order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler issued in November 1940, Stangl became the deputy office manager (Police Superintendent) of the T-4 Euthanasia Program at Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, and in late summer 1941 at Bernburg Euthanasia Centre, where mentally and physically disabled people, as well as political prisoners, were sent to be killed. Next Stangl met with Viktor Brack, who offered him a choice of work between Hartheim and Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centres naturally, Stangl picked Hartheim, which was near Linz. Werner offered Stangl a job as supervisor in charge of security at a T4 killing facility, and in the language commonly used during recruitment, described Action T4 as a "humanitarian" effort that was "essential, legal, and secret". He traveled to the RSHA in Berlin, where he was received by Paul Werner. Stangl purposely solicited for a job in the newly created T-4 program in order to escape difficulties with his boss in the Linz Gestapo. T-4 Euthanasia ProgrammeĪfter the onset of World War II, in early 1940, Stangl was instructed to report for work at the Public Service Foundation for Institutional Care ( Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Anstaltspflege), a front organization of the T-4 Euthanasia Program. He would ultimately reach the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain). After Austria's Anschluss Stangl was assigned to the Schutzpolizei (which was taken over by the Gestapo) in Linz, where he was posted to the Jewish Bureau (German language: Judenreferat). In 1935, Stangl was accepted into the Kriminalpolizei as detective in the Austrian town of Wels. It was later discovered that Stangl had Nazi Party number 6,370,447 and SS number 296,569. Records suggest that Stangl contributed to a Nazi aid fund at the time but he said that he was misled as to the purpose of the fund. He later denied that he had been a Nazi in 1931, claiming that he enrolled as member of the party only to avoid arrest after the Germans had seized power in the Anschluss of Austria into Nazi Germany in May 1938.
Stangl became a member of the NSDAP in 1931, which was illegal for an Austrian police officer at the time. He was accepted in early 1931 and trained for two years at the federal police academy in Linz. Stangl later suggested that he liked the security and cleanliness that the police uniforms represented to him. He moved to Innsbruck in 1930 and applied for an appointment in the Austrian federal police. Concerned that this trade offered few opportunities for advancement – and having observed the poor health of his co-workers – Stangl sought a new career. In his teens he secured an apprenticeship as a weaver, qualifying as a master weaver in 1927. Stangl completed his public schooling in 1923. To help support his family Franz learned to play the zither and earned money giving zither lessons. Stangl claimed that his father died of malnutrition in 1916. He was so deeply frightened of him that Stangl developed a hatred for his Habsburg Dragoons uniform. The son of a nightwatchman, his relationship with his father was emotionally distressing. Stangl was born on 26 March 1908 in Altmünster, located in the Salzkammergut region of Austria.
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