Gustav Wagner was a Nazi criminal. An SS officer, he was deputy commandant of Sobibór death camp. In charge of "selections", he ordered the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

After war ended, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Nuremberg Trials, but escaped with Franz Stangl with the help of some officiers of the Vatican to Brazil, where Wagner was admitted as a permanent resident on April 12, 1950. There he lived happily and freely until his arrest on 30 May 1978.

Extradition requests from Israel, Austria (where Wagner had been a citizen) and Poland were rejected by Brazil's Attorney - General. On 22 June 1979, the Brazilian Supreme Court also rejected a West German extradition request.

Wagner, a dedicated Nazi, showed no remorse for his crimes. In a television interview about the exterminations at Sobibór (BBC, 18 June 1979), he commented: 'I had no feelings.... It just became another job. In the evening we never discussed our work, but just drank and played cards'.