Editing Gustav Wagner (section)

==After World War II==
Initially unknown, Wagner, disguising himself as a regular military motorcyclist was held and then released from a prisoner of war camp. He found labouring work on houses and eventually was [[sentenced to death]] ''[[trial in absentia|in absentia]]''. [[Franz Stangl]] by chance passed Wagner as he worked on a building site demolishing a house and Wagner immediately joined his former commandant and crossed into Italy. Clergy at the ''[[Collegio Teutonico]] di [[Santa Maria dell'Anima]]'' sheltered both men in Rome and arranged for them to leave for Syria via the [[Ratlines (World War II)|Ratlines]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Walters |first=Guy |year=2010 |title=Hunting Evil |location=London |publisher=Bantam Books |page=240 }}</ref> Later both men with Stangl's wife and children fled to Brazil, where Wagner was admitted as a permanent resident and Brazilian passport was issued in the name of "Günther Mendel".<ref name="Blatt" /> He worked as a house-helper for a wealthy Brazilian family and then as a maker of concrete fence posts on a farm. He married a local woman who was a widow and raised her children and lived outside [[São Paulo]].

Wagner was arrested on 30 May 1978 after an investigation by [[Simon Wiesenthal]]. When Stangl had been put on trial in Germany, he testified that Wagner was living in Brazil, but the Brazilian police failed to locate him. When a journalist showed Wiesenthal a photograph of a group of German-Brazilians celebrating Hitler's eighty-ninth birthday, Wiesenthal falsely identified one of the men as Wagner, thinking that he could spook Wagner into fleeing and inadvertently revealing himself. However, Wagner instead surrendered himself to the Brazilian authorities, who then refused [[extradition]] requests from Israel, Austria, Yugoslavia, West Germany, and Poland.{{sfn|Rashke|2013|pp=425-426}}

Wagner, in a 1979 [[BBC]] interview, showed no [[remorse]] for his activities in running the camp, remarking:<ref>{{cite news |last=Bower |first=Tom |date=19 August 1979 |title=The Tracking And Freeing Of a Nazis Killer |others=(reprinted from a BBC television program) |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/08/19/the-tracking-and-freeing-of-a-nazis-killer/c50b9591-da25-485e-a579-b56d8d8708eb/ }}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=I had no feelings. ... It just became another job. In the evening we never discussed our work, but just drank and played cards.}}

In October 1980, Wagner was found dead with a knife in his chest in [[Atibaia]]. Wagner's attorney reported his death as a [[suicide]]{{r|SobiborInterview|Arad}} though [[Stanisław Szmajzner]] implied to [[Jules Schelvis]] and [[Richard Rashke]] that there may have been more to the story. Several historians, including Rashke himself, have speculated that Szmajzner himself murdered Wagner. {{sfn|Rashke|2013|p=427}}{{sfn|Schelvis|2007|p=264}} Wagner's date of death was determined to be 3 October 1980.{{r|SobiborInterview|Arad}}