Fritz Schmidt (SS officer)
Fritz Schmidt was a low-ranking commander in the Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany and Holocaust perpetrator during World War II. He served as a guard and driver at the Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre and at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1940–41 with the rank of Unterscharführer. Schmidt was transferred to Treblinka extermination camp along with other gassing specialists in 1942. At Treblinka, he was in charge of the engine room feeding exhaust to the gas chambers.
After the closing of the camp in 1943 he was moved to Trieste headquarters of the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral where the Risiera di San Sabba killing centre was being set up. After the war he was arrested by the Allies in Saxony and questioned. In December 1949 he was put on trial and sentenced to nine years in prison. He lived in West Germany until his death in 1982.
SS-Oberscharführer Heinrich Matthes, chief of the extermination area at Camp 2 and deputy commandant of Treblinka extermination camp testified later about Schmidt's role in the killing of Jews.
