Josef Janisch

Josef Janisch (born April 22, 1909 in Salzburg , Austria ; † July 26, 1964 at Tuxer Joch , Austria) was an Austrian graduate engineer. During the Nazi era he was a . a. involved in the construction of the concentration camp and crematoria with gas chambers at the time of the German occupation of Poland between 1941 and 1944 as a member of the management staff of the SS Central Construction Office in Auschwitz-Birkenau .

Life

Josef Janisch was a member of the SS during the National Socialist era (SS No. 299.849) and achieved the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (equivalent to captain). From 1941 Janisch was assigned to the central construction management of the Waffen SS and Auschwitz police in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and took over the management of the construction management department 2 , which was initially responsible for the Birkenau prisoner of war camp and then also for the conversion to an extermination camp . In 1943, the task description of site management 2 was supplemented with the addition: "Carrying out special treatment ".

On January 29, 1943, the head of the SS Central Construction Office at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Karl Bischoff , emphasized in a letter the indispensability of his employee Janisch. With regard to the management of the “special construction measures” for Auschwitz-Birkenau, this is indispensable as the “only reliable technical specialist”. The designation "special construction" was chosen as the camouflage designation for the extermination facilities.

Report of June 28, 1943 written by Janisch about the completion of the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the “daily performance” achieved with it (document from the holdings of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau ).

Documentary evidence is u. a. that Janisch visited the construction site of Crematorium II in Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 20, 1942 , the cellar of which served as a gas chamber . On June 28, 1943, Janisch wrote a report about the “completion of crematorium III ” and thus of “all the crematoriums ordered” in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The report was intended for the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS-WVHA) in Berlin and there for the head of construction at the SS, the SS group leader and head of the Office C ("construction"), Hans Kammler . Janisch supplemented his completion report with a list of the "daily [cremation] performance of the various crematoria" that had now been achieved.

In the spring of 1944 Janisch was assigned to the SS command staff in Happurg in Bavaria , which was supposed to supervise the work for the construction of a planned underground factory ( U relocation ) in the tunnel system in the Houbirg mountain under the camouflage name Doggerwerk . In the underground factory, essential BMW aircraft engines were to be produced. From May 1944 to April 1945, prisoners from the Hersbruck satellite camp , a sub-camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp , dug the tunnel using forced labor . Janisch temporarily headed the SS command staff in Happburg, and in November 1944 he was replaced by SS Obersturmführer Horst Schilling .

Then Janisch, meanwhile with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer, was employed in the construction of an underground factory in a tunnel near Wesserling (today Husseren-Wesserling in France ) in the annexed Alsace . This is where the Daimler-Benz aircraft engine plant "Reichshof", originally set up and operated near Reichshof in the then General Government (now Rzeszów in Poland ) , which had been evacuated in late summer 1944 due to the advance of the Red Army , was to be relocated. The construction work was carried out in forced labor by prisoners of the Wesserling concentration camp , a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . The project was led by Janisch, while the concentration camp satellite camp was under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer Arno Bendler .

Towards the end of the Second World War , Janisch left for Austria. After the war, Janisch was on the Allied wanted list, but never had to answer to court.

Josef Janisch died at the age of 55 in a plane crash on the Tuxer Joch in the Eastern Alps in the Austrian state of Tyrol .

literature

Rainer Fröbe: Build and destroy. The central site management Auschwitz and the final solution. In: Christian Gerlach (Ed.): "Average offender." Action and motivation (= contributions to the history of National Socialism , Volume 16). Association - Schwarze Risse - Rote Straße, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-922611-84-2 , pp. 166, 171, 183-186, 206.
Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . 1st edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , p. 197.

Individual evidence

↑ Dieter Zeigert: Hitler's last refuge? The project of a Führer headquarters in Thuringia 1944/45. Literareon im Utz-Verlag , Munich 2003, ISBN 3-8316-1091-6 , pp. 73, 83 (Note: Josef Janisch is listed in an illustrated document of a “ WVHA personnel order for the management of the special inspections and management staff of Kammler ”.) .
↑ ^a ^b Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 6: Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52966-5 , p. 189.
^ Rainer Fröbe: Building and Destroying. The central site management Auschwitz and the final solution. In: Christian Gerlach (Ed.): "Average offender." Action and motivation (= contributions to the history of National Socialism , Volume 16). Association - Schwarze Risse - Rote Straße, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-922611-84-2 , p. 183.
^ Annegret Schüle : Industry and Holocaust. Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz. Published by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation . Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0622-6 , p. 187.
^ Annegret Schüle : Industry and Holocaust. Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz. Published by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation . Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0622-6 , p. 186.
^ Danuta Czech : Calendar of the events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 1939–1945. Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-498-00884-6 , p. 283.
↑ The fact that Kurt Prüfer from Topf & Sons was there is shown as certain in * Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt / M. 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , p. 197; however, described as uncertain by * Jean-Claude Pressac: The Auschwitz Crematoria - The Technique of Genocide. New edition Munich / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 , p. 157.
^ Jean-Claude Pressac : The crematoria of Auschwitz. The technique of genocide. New edition. Piper Verlag , Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 , p. 164.
↑ ^a ^b Gerhard Faul, Eckart Dietzfelbinger: slave labor for the final victory. Hersbruck concentration camp and the Dogger armaments project. Documentation Center Hersbruck e. V., Hersbruck 2003, ISBN 3-00-011024-0 , pp. 37, 159.

personal data
SURNAME	Janisch, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	April 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH	Salzburg
DATE OF DEATH	July 26, 1964
Place of death	at the Tuxer Joch

[1] Dieter Zeigert: Hitler's last refuge? The project of a Führer headquarters in Thuringia 1944/45. Literareon im Utz-Verlag , Munich 2003, ISBN 3-8316-1091-6 , pp. 73, 83 (Note: Josef Janisch is listed in an illustrated document of a “ WVHA personnel order for the management of the special inspections and management staff of Kammler ”.) .

[Benz-2] Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 6: Natzweiler, Groß-Rosen, Stutthof. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52966-5 , p. 189.

[3] Rainer Fröbe: Building and Destroying. The central site management Auschwitz and the final solution. In: Christian Gerlach (Ed.): "Average offender." Action and motivation (= contributions to the history of National Socialism , Volume 16). Association - Schwarze Risse - Rote Straße, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-922611-84-2 , p. 183.

[4] Annegret Schüle : Industry and Holocaust. Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz. Published by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation . Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0622-6 , p. 187.

[5] Annegret Schüle : Industry and Holocaust. Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz. Published by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation . Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0622-6 , p. 186.

[6] Danuta Czech : Calendar of the events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 1939–1945. Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-498-00884-6 , p. 283.

[7] The fact that Kurt Prüfer from Topf & Sons was there is shown as certain in * Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt / M. 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 , p. 197; however, described as uncertain by * Jean-Claude Pressac: The Auschwitz Crematoria - The Technique of Genocide. New edition Munich / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 , p. 157.

[8] Jean-Claude Pressac : The crematoria of Auschwitz. The technique of genocide. New edition. Piper Verlag , Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 , p. 164.

[KZ-Hersbruck-9] Gerhard Faul, Eckart Dietzfelbinger: slave labor for the final victory. Hersbruck concentration camp and the Dogger armaments project. Documentation Center Hersbruck e. V., Hersbruck 2003, ISBN 3-00-011024-0 , pp. 37, 159.