English source-aligned edition
Willi Mentz
Willi Mentz served as SS-Unterscharführer and gunman at the sham infirmary in Treblinka II. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Treblinka through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- Willi Mentz was born in Schönhagen on 30 April 1904 and died on 25 June 1978; the verified sources do not establish the exact place of death. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- At Treblinka II he carried out executions at the sham infirmary, shooting people selected from transports and labour prisoners in the back of the head. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- With a partial acquittal, the Düsseldorf court sentenced him to life imprisonment for aiding the collective murder of at least 300000 people and aiding the murder of at least 25 people; the appeals were dismissed in 1970. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Place in the chain of responsibility
Mentz’s responsibility is grounded in his personal and repeated performance of executions at the sham infirmary and in the precise scope of the final judgment, not in assigning every Treblinka victim to him. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Key events and mechanisms
- From 1942 he regularly killed people whom the camp staff deemed unable to move or work by shooting them in the back of the head at the Treblinka II sham infirmary. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- He received life imprisonment on 3 September 1965 and was released for poor health on 31 March 1978. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
The 1965 life sentence remained in force after the appeals were dismissed in 1970. Mentz was released for health reasons on 31 March 1978 and died on 25 June 1978. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Limits of the evidence
The judgment distinguished Mentz’s personal shootings from aiding the mass murder and included a partial acquittal; the profile preserves those legal distinctions and does not attribute Treblinka’s total victim count to him. The verified sources establish the date but not the exact place of death. No portrait with clearly documented publication rights was found. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.