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August Wilhelm Miete (born 1 November 1908) was a member of the SS who rose to the rank of ''Scharführer'' (sergeant). He worked at the Grafeneck and Hadamar Euthanasia Centres, and then at Treblinka extermination camp. Miete was arrested in 1960 and tried in West Germany for participating in the mass murder of at least 300,000 people. In 1965, he was found guilty and sentenced to the maximum penalty, life imprisonment. ==Biography== Miete was born in 1908 in Westerkappeln of the German Empire, the son of a miller and farmer. Miete completed elementary school before his father died in 1921. Together with his brother, Miete worked on the family farm and as a grinder in the flour mill. Miete was married and had three children. At the beginning of 1940, Miete joined the Nazi Party, and he soon became involved in the T-4 Euthanasia Program. The local Münster agriculture chamber advised Miete about a job at Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre, and he accepted an offer to work on the farm that was attached to this killing center.〔Henry Friedlander (1995). ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 242. ISBN 0-8078-2208-6〕 From May 1940 to October 1941 he worked at Grafeneck. Miete then became more involved in the killing process at Hadamar Euthanasia Centre, where he worked as a stoker; that is, one who removed corpses from the gas chambers, broke out gold teeth, burned the bodies and performed other tasks around the gas chambers and crematoria.〔 At the end of June 1942, he was transferred to occupied Poland in order to take part in Operation Reinhard, and dispatched to Treblinka. At Treblinka, Miete gained a notorious reputation for his cruelty. He was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" by the prisoners. Miete was in charge of the fake infirmary known as ''Lazarett'', a small barracks surrounded by the barbed wire fence where the sick, elderly and ''difficult'' prisoners were taken away from view directly from newly arrived transports. The children of sick women and children who arrived alone on the transports were sent with them.〔''Shoah'' (1985).〕 They were shot point blank at the edge of a burial ditch seven metres deep. Miete carried out most of these killings with his own hand,〔〔Yitzhak Arad (1987). ''Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 194-195.〕 aided by his subordinate Willi Mentz nicknamed "Frankenstein" by the inmates,〔 who alone killed thousands, as well as Max Möller, the "Amerikaner". Dressed as medic, Miete "cured each one with a single pill".〔 Miete also supervised the nearby "selection" square for forced labor ''Sonderkommando'' in the camp. He would walk about, checking Jewish prisoners. Those whom he deemed too sick or weak to work at the required pace were taken from the selection area to the ''Lazarett''. Miete would stand each man near a pit where a fire was constantly burning, calmly aim his gun and shoot them. Sometimes Miete would instruct the victim to undress first.〔 Miete would also search prisoners. If Miete found money, food, or anything at all, he would beat them brutally before marching them to the ''Lazarett''. In events where Miete found nothing incriminating, he would still fabricate a reason to beat the prisoner and bring him to the ''Lazarett''. Miete also visited the living barracks and hospital room for the prisoners, where he would remove the sick and shoot them.〔〔Shperling, Heniek. ''Fun Letzten Churbn'', No. 6, Munich, 1947, p. 11.〕 Miete described his own actions in testimony: Miete also sought out victims from other parts of the camp to be brought to the ''Lazarett'' and shot; victims whom Kurt Franz had injured with his hunting rifle or boxing gloves, prisoners who had been whipped for various "crimes" or other reasons. Miete would decide that these prisoners were too weakened from the blows sustained and no longer fit for work, so he would shoot them.〔 After Treblinka's closure in November 1943, Miete was sent to Trieste.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「August Miete」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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