Hermann Höfle (SS member, 1911)

Hermann Julius Höfle , incorrectly also Hans Höfle , (born June 19, 1911 in Salzburg ; † August 21, 1962 in Vienna ) was responsible for coordinating this action in the Nazi state as SS-Sturmbannführer and head of the main department “ Aktion Reinhardt ” the civil administration of the General Government . He was one of the rather unknown but authoritative technocrats for the so-called final solution , the murder of millions of Jews.

Life

Origin and early political activity

Hermann Höfle attended elementary and community school and completed a three-year apprenticeship as a car mechanic. He then worked for a year as a mechanic's assistant and as a machinist in the Salzburg waterworks. He then drove a taxi and two years later founded his own taxi company.

From the age of 12 to 16 he was a member of the workers' association. On August 1, 1933, at the age of 22, he joined the Austrian NSDAP (membership number 6,341,469) and at the same time the SS (membership number 307,469). A year later he became the storm money manager and deputy of the storm leader.

On October 29, 1933 he married Berta Dühr (born October 25, 1912 in Salzburg), with whom he had four children by the end of the war. A pair of twins died of diphtheria in 1943 when they were young .

He was imprisoned in the Salzburg police prison from May 25, 1935 to January 1, 1936 for unauthorized political activity.

In January 1937 he took over the leadership of SS-Sturmbannes 1/76 and made such a difference in the pogroms on November 9, 1938 that he was the SD leader in the SD Upper Section Danube with the establishment of the central office for Jewish emigration in Vienna instructed Adolf Eichmann to recommend Odilo Globocnik , then Gauleiter of Vienna , as a capable employee.

In February and March 1939, Höfle attended the SS leadership school in Munich-Dachau. In his assessment of March 31, 1939, the responsible SS-Oberführer and headmaster noted that Höfle had to appear more self-confident and take more care of himself in suit and cleanliness. For his 27 years of age, his demeanor was described as too insecure, and his overall personality as too soft. His physical effort must also become more active and harder, and his mental agility is not yet sufficiently developed. However, qualities such as ambition, modesty, honesty and hard work were also attested to him. His thesis at the driving school was censored with barely enough . After that he was deployed in the Sudetenland for construction work for the 99th SS standard in Znaim .

Used by the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district during the Reinhardt campaign

During the German attack on Poland , Höfle took part in the 8th SS infantry regiment. He was then from December 10, 1939 to September 1, 1940 leader of the ethnic German self-protection in New Sandez (Nowy Sącz).

On September 1, 1940, Höfle was transferred to Lublin to work for the already known Odilo Globocnik as SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in the Lublin district. Globocnik was commissioned to build fortifications on the German-Soviet demarcation line. From November 1, 1940, Höfle headed a camp for the forced laborers employed here . Now the assessment by his superiors turned out to be much better, as virtues such as easy comprehension for practical things, independence and moderation in the consumption of alcohol and nicotine were now given a higher priority than before.

Höfle's later activities included property management, the management of various forced labor camps, the establishment of SS and police bases in the Lublin district and assistance with the expansion of the SS training camp for “ foreign nationals ” personnel in Trawniki . In Lublin Höfle lived and worked in the Julius-Schreck-Kaserne, the former Stefan-Batory-Kolleg at Pierackistraße 17, which served as the headquarters of the " Aktion Reinhardt ".

When Globocnik was commissioned to head Aktion Reinhardt by the " Reichsführer SS " Heinrich Himmler on October 13, 1941, Höfle became his Jewish advisor . As such, he was privy to the plans for the factory killing of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement from the very beginning . He was responsible for coordinating this monstrous murder operation with the civil administration of the Generalgouvernement under their boss Hans Frank , the evacuation of the ghettos in the Generalgouvernement, the coordination and the sequence of the transports to the individual extermination camps and the utilization of the property of the victims. For this purpose, a warehouse for clothes and personal belongings was set up in the old airport at Chopinstrasse 27 in Lublin. SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Wippern meticulously recorded the values ​​for precious stones and foreign exchange in a central file , while the clothes, shoes and the like were registered by Höfle.

The duty of secrecy for the emergency services involved in Aktion Reinhardt was carried out by Höfle. For this purpose, a form had to be signed which stated, among other things:

" I was informed in detail by SS-Hauptsturmführer Höfle as head of the Reinhardt Deployment Department at SS- and Police Leader in the Lublin district that under no circumstances should I contact Reinhardt with anyone outside the group of employees on deployment may report verbally or in writing to the resettlement of Jews [...] that the processes involved in the resettlement of Jews are the subject of a secret Reich matter [...] I know that the duty of secrecy continues even after I have left my service. "

Aktion Reinhardt began in mid-March 1942 with the evacuation of the ghettos in Lemberg and Lublin , after a joint meeting between the SS and the police and civil administration in Lublin took place on March 16, 1942, in which Höfle had also participated. The very next day, 3,000 Jews were gassed in the Belzec extermination camp . From May 1942 the Sobibor extermination camp went into operation and from July 1942 Treblinka .

On July 22nd, 1942, the “ Great Action ” started the evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto , the largest ghetto in the Generalgouvernement. Here, as well as during the evictions and transport to the extermination camps from the Mielec, Lublin and Rzeszow ghettos , Höfle played a key role as an organizer and had Jews in Lublin able to work selected for the forced labor camps located in this area . He also organized the arrival of transports from the Theresienstadt concentration camp and from Slovakia. He accompanied Adolf Eichmann on a visit to Belzec and Treblinka .

In the staffing plan for the staff of the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district in personal union with the General SS staff in the Lublin district, Höfle is listed under his SS no. 307,469 listed as a consultant for Jewish affairs (Reinhardt special campaign). In the personnel list of the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District SS-Gruppenführer Odilo Globocnik from 1940 to July 1943 Höfle is referred to as a staff leader in the close staff. The list of personnel for Globocnik's successor in Lublin, SS-Gruppenführer Jakob Sporrenberg , from August 1943 to July 22, 1944, takes on this description of Höfle's function.

Höfle's “enthusiasm” was finally rewarded on April 20, 1943 with the award of the War Merit Cross, 1st class with swords.

Participation in the harvest festival

Even after Globocnik was transferred to Trieste in September 1943 as Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in the Adriatic Coastal Operation Zone and the “Aktion Reinhardt” ended in November 1943, Höfle remained in Lublin and was again involved in the “ Aktion Harvest Festival ”, the two-day mass shooting of Jews from forced labor camps in the Lublin district.

On February 15, 1944, Höfle was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from that day until March 7, 1944, he was assigned to the SS Totenkopf Guard Battalion Sachsenhausen. From March 8 to 17, 1944, he was the first protective custody camp leader. Here, however, they were not satisfied with their performance. After an interim assessment by the camp commandant on March 17, 1944, he was unable to meet the demands placed on the leader of the guard. Nevertheless, with effect from the same day, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class. With effect from June 13, 1944 he was appointed specialist leader of the Waffen-SS at the SS main office, department recording. Associated with this was his transfer to the SS main office.

After the end of the war

After the end of the war , Höfle was taken prisoner by the English on May 31, 1945 on the Möslacher Alm on Lake Weissensee in Carinthia, where he had hidden together with Globocnik and SS Sturmbannführer Ernst Lerch and Georg Michalsen . After two years in British internment camps , Höfle was released from Wolfsberg camp in Carinthia in August 1947 and handed over to the Austrian judiciary. On October 30, 1947, he was released on pledge and returned to his job as a car mechanic in his native Salzburg.

When Poland applied for his extradition on July 9, 1948, he fled to Italy. He lived there under a false name until 1951. After that, he returned to Austria in order to move to the Federal Republic of Germany. Here he was briefly used as an informant for the defense service of the US Army CIC .

In January 1961 he was arrested again in Salzburg. Shortly before his trial began , Höfle hanged himself in a Vienna prison on August 21, 1962.

Decoded radio message from Höfles on January 11, 1943.

In 2000 the British secret service released documents that had previously been kept under lock and key. Among them was a radio message from Höfles - the so-called Höfle telegram - from January 11, 1943 to Eichmann in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which had been decrypted by the British, but only a list of numbers that combined a total of 1,274. 166 resulted, included. Only after the release of this radio message was its meaning recognized. The total reported represents the number of Jews killed in the extermination camps of the Generalgouvernement up to December 31, 1942. In addition to this annual balance sheet, reports on the status of the Jews murdered as part of Aktion Reinhardt were sent to Section IV B 4 of Adolf Eichmann every 14 days to send in the RSHA.

literature

• Marcel Reich-Ranicki : My life. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-12830-5 , pp. 235–242.
• Peter Witte, Stephen Tyas: A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942. In: Holocaust Genocide Studies. 15, 2001, pp. 468-486.
• Josef Wulf : The Third Reich and its executors. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-598-04603-0 , pp. 275-287.

Web links

• Hermann Höfle's biography at www.deathcamps.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ As Hans Höfle with Martin Broszat , Gerald Reitlinger , Dominique Venner : Mercenaries without pay. The German Freikorps 1918–1923. Neff, Vienna 1974. However, the relevant files or questionnaires from the SS clearly show that the correct first names are Hermann Julius.
2. ^ The failure of the "little Eichmann trial" in Austria. Suicide of the Salzburg SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle in the Vienna Criminal Court. In: nachkriegsjustiz.at. Retrieved June 3, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors. unchangeable Emphasis. Ullstein TB, 1984, ISBN 3-548-33039-8 , p. 278.
4. ↑ Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors. unchangeable Emphasis. Ullstein TB. 1984, ISBN 3-548-33039-8 , p. 281 Printed in full as Document VEJ 9/95 In: Klaus-Peter Friedrich (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 9: Poland: General Government August 1941–1945. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-486-71530-9 , pp. 336–337.
5. ↑ Document VEJ 9/48 In: Klaus-Peter Friedrich (arr.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 (source book), Volume 9: Poland: General August 1941-1945. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-71530-9 , pp. 218-219.
6. ↑ Instructions to the Judenrat in Warsaw VEJ 9/98 In: Klaus-Peter Friedrich (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection), Volume 9: Poland: Generalgouvernement August 1941–1945 . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-71530-9 , pp. 340–342.
7. ↑ staffing plan at www.deathcamps.org
8. ↑ personnel preparation at www.deathcamps.org
9. ↑ personnel preparation at www.deathcamps.org