Simon Wiesenthal Archiv
Josef Wendl (1910–unknown)
Police officer, employee at the killing sites in Mogilev and Malý Trostinec
The “Anschluss” enabled Josef Wendl to get a job as a lorry driver with the criminal police. As part of the SS, 1942–43 he drove the gas lorry at the death sites Mogilew and Malý Trostinec. There, he killed people from all over Europe inside the back of a lorry into which the exhaust pipe was re-routed.
After the end of the war, a court of law in Austria tried him for participating in the attempted coup by the illegal Nazi Party in 1934. It was only in 1970 that Wendl was tried for the crimes he committed in Malý Trostinec, and despite his complete confession, he was acquitted. He justified the murders he committed by saying that he was just following orders.
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