Forensic Institute of the Security Police

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As the Forensic Institute of the Security Police ( KTI ), often abbreviated as the Kriminaltechnisches Institut , a department of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) was run from 1939 . Employees of the Forensic Institute developed and tested the technical possibilities of gassing people en masse. They were directly involved in the first euthanasia killings by carbon monoxide gas , undertook experiments with engine exhaust gases and explosives in Mogilev and developed the gas vans , which in the Einsatzgruppen and in the Chelmno extermination camp were used. The CTI was also involved in the procurement of carbon monoxide or morphine scopolamine and Luminal , which were used to kill disabled people.

organization

The Forensic Institute of the Security Police emerged from the Stuttgart State Chemical Institute, whose department for forensic chemistry and forensic technology had been headed by Walter Heeß since 1935 . In April 1938, Heeß was appointed head of the newly created KTI in the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA). The RKPA formed the Office V in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which was newly created in 1939, and was headed by the SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police Arthur Nebe .

According to the business distribution plan of 1941, Walter Heeß headed the "Group VD: Forensic Institute of Sipo", which consisted of three sections: Section VD 1 - trace identification (SS-Hauptsturmführer Walter Schade ), Section VD 2 - chemistry and biology (SS-Untersturmbannführer Albert Widmann ) and Unit VD 3 - Certificate examination (Kriminalrat Felix Wittlich). In the spring of 1943, the botanist Otto Martin took over the management of the biological department in Section VD 2.

The KTI was located in the new RKPA building on “Werderscher Markt” in Berlin. In August 1943, the CTI was relocated to the Grambow manor near Schwerin .

Development of methods for mass killing using poison gas

Already at the planning stage of the so-called child euthanasia and Action T4 , the Führer’s office switched to the CTI to find a suitable method of killing. The department head Albert Widmann carried out animal experiments and recommended the use of pure carbon monoxide gas. Reichsärzteführer Leonardo Conti , who refused to give syringes with barbiturates , expressed his approval. Widmann then discussed the technical details with Viktor Brack .

In January 1940, a "test gassing" took place in the old prison in Brandenburg , at which, in addition to Widmann, August Becker was also present. In December 1939, the CTI sent him to the Fuehrer's office and later returned from there. According to Becker, Widmann carried out the first gassing himself; he regulated the amount of gas and instructed two doctors.

According to witnesses, the Lange Sonderkommando used a tractor unit with a trailer as a mobile gas chamber as early as the end of 1939 in order to “clear” Polish sanatoriums for the mentally ill as hospitals or to provide space for SS replacement units. Pure carbon monoxide from gas cylinders was introduced into this mobile gas chamber. Although no documentary evidence has been preserved, evidence suggests that the CTI was involved in the development of this first gas vehicle.

In mid-August 1941, the Reich leader SS Heinrich Himmler in Baranovichi and Minsk , watching one of Nebe at his request conducted mass shooting in the area of Einsatzgruppe B . He then asked Arthur Nebe to look for methods of killing that would be less stressful for the men in the firing squads.

Arthur Nebe turned to Albert Widmann from the subordinate KTI through his Berlin deputy Paul Werner and ordered Widmann's appearance with explosives. The subsequent attempt to blow up an improvised bunker with the "mentally ill" failed. As a result, Widmann and Nebe tried to kill patients using car exhaust fumes in an institution in Mogilew in an improvised gas chamber. In one building, the windows were walled up and pipes laid to let in the exhaust gases. The exhaust gases from the car initially used did not have the desired effect. Nebe also connected the exhaust of a police force's truck with a hose to the gas chamber; the patients died.

The murder with carbon monoxide from car exhaust fumes had technical and organizational advantages for the perpetrators compared to the use of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide in gas bottles had to be procured from Ludwigshafen .

Reinhard Heydrich provided the CTI with the necessary technical aids to build the gas vans. At the beginning of October 1941 he turned to SS-Obersturmführer Walter Rauff , head of Group II D 3 (Technical Affairs) in the RSHA, whose Section II D 3a (Security Police Motor Vehicles) was headed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Pradel .

The CTI provided the suggestions for building the gas vans, the engine exhaust gases of which were discharged into the interior of the box body, recorded measured values ​​and determined the most favorable engine speeds . Section II D 3a, which was responsible for the deployment of the security police vehicles, prepared two series of cars: six small ( Diamond and Opel-Blitz ) and then thirty large ( Saurer ) cars. On orders from Rauff, SS-Untersturmführer Becker drove to the Einsatzgruppen to check that the gas vans were working and to rectify any defects.

The first of the 30 ordered gasification vehicles were tested in the courtyard of the RKPA and the gas composition was measured. In one of the first "test gassing" a few weeks later in Sachsenhausen concentration camp with a prototype of the gas truck, Theodor Friedrich Leiding, Helmut Hoffmann and Walter Heeß took part on the part of the CTI. The chemist Leiding testified in 1959: “I once got into this car with a gas mask on, with the order to continuously take air samples. These air samples were then analyzed in the laboratory. "Widmann himself later explained:" The point of the analysis was to determine within which time the CO content in the car reached 1%. With this CO level, deep unconsciousness and then death occurs in a short time. "

Supplier of killing agents

The Führer’s office needed large quantities of medicine to supply the euthanasia doctors. The CTI was turned on for camouflage. At the beginning of 1940, Widmann, the head of the department for chemical investigations, sent high-dose morphine scopolamine to Richard von Hegener from the KdF for the first time . After the start of the war , the CTI obtained large amounts of Luminal , Morphine and the like without any problems . Ä. from the medical office of the Waffen-SS and passed it on.

The deadly carbon monoxide gas, which BASF had to deliver in pressurized gas cylinders to Ludwigshafen , was also ordered and distributed via the CTI.

At the end of 1943 or beginning of 1944, the CTI received a Soviet poison bullet from Minsk for investigation. Widmann himself developed poison projectiles in the spring of 1944, which were outlawed under the Hague Land Warfare Regulations . In September 1944 Joachim Mrugowsky undertook a human experiment with poisoned ammunition in the presence of Widmann , in which three out of five victims died.

Apparently, the KTI had workshops in both the troop and prisoner camps of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Allegedly the CTI manufactured the gassing apparatus there that was used in Sachsenhausen for killings with poison gas.

The KTI also produced the glass vials with potassium cyanide, which were initially blown up by German agents and later used by high-ranking Nazi officials during the collapse of the Third Reich to kill themselves. With these, Hitler later killed himself among numerous other Nazi celebrities, including Hitler, his wife Eva Braun. The children of the Goebbels family were murdered with them. After his arrest, Himmler also killed himself with the contents of a KTI glass vial.

Dental gold

According to Friedrich Lorent , at that time the main business head of the euthanasia center and also the recovery of jewelry and gold teeth from concentration camps of Operation Reinhard entrusted, this was sent before fusing to Albert Widmann from CTI. Paul Werner , Arthur Nebe's deputy and thus Widmann's superior, recalled during his interrogation that it had not been technically easy to remove the gold from the teeth. According to another statement, collected gold teeth were delivered to the central office T4 by special couriers .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Felix Wittlich (* 1905 in Reval ), doctorate court chemist, information from Michael Wildt: Generation des Unbedingten. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Revised and updated new edition. Hamburg 2003, p. 326.
  2. ↑ Business distribution plan of the RSHA of March 1, 1941 In: Topography of Terror: Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office on the "Prince Albrecht site" - a documentation . Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-922912-21-4 , p. 80.
  3. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA , Cologne 2001, p. 221f
  4. ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Revised and updated new edition. Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930908-87-5 , pp. 326 and 699.
  5. ↑ Henry Friedlander: The Road to Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 , p. 153.
  6. ^ Astrid Ley: The beginning of the Nazi murder in Brandenburg on the Havel. On the importance of the 'Brandenburg trial killing' for the 'Action T4'. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtsforschung 58 (2010), pp. 321–331.
  7. ↑ Ernst Klee: 'Euthanasia' in the Nazi state. Frankfurt / Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-24326-9 , p. 111.
  8. ↑ Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of life' in the Reichsgauen Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland 1939/40. Frankfurt / M. 1995 (= Diss. 1993), ISBN 3-631-47784-8 , pp. 279 and 290f.
  9. ↑ Matthias Beer: The development of the gas truck during the murder of the Jews. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 35 (1987), H. 3, S. 404-407.
  10. ^ Peter Longerich: Politics of Destruction. The overall presentation of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03755-0 , p. 442 / Mathias Beer: Gaswagen. From 'euthanasia' to genocide. In: Günter Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , pp. 158/159.
  11. ^ Testimony of Widmann and other eyewitnesses at the Düsseldorf public prosecutor AZ: 8 Js 7212/59 after Eugen Kogon (ed.): National Socialist mass killings through poison gas. Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 81f.
  12. ↑ Peter Longerich: Politics of Destruction ... p. 442 / Matthias Beer: The development of gas vans ... p. 408.
  13. ^ Matthias Beer: The development of the gas vans ... VfZ 35 (1987), p. 415/16.
  14. ↑ PROCESSES / GAS TROLLEY MURDERS In .: The Mirror of March 27, 1967
  15. ↑ a b Quoted from Matthias Beer: The development of gas vans ... VfZ 35 (1987), p. 411.
  16. ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. P. 328 / Henry Friedlander: The road to genocide ... , p. 108.
  17. ↑ Henry Friedlander: The way to genocide…. P. 338 / Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, Adalbert Rückerl (eds.): National Socialist mass killings through poison gas. A documentation. Frankfurt / M. 1983, ISBN 3-596-24353-X , p. 52.
  18. ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. P. 332f.
  19. ^ Günter Morsch: Killings by poison gas in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In: Günter Morsch , Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , p. 269.
  20. ↑ Ronald Rathert (2001): Crime and Conspiracy. Arthur Nebe the chief of police in the Third Reich. LIT Verlag Münster p. 83.
  21. ↑ Ernst Klee: What they did - What they became. Frankfurt / Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 , p. 76.
  22. ↑ Henry Friedlander: The way to genocide…. P. 339.
  23. ↑ Henry Friedlander: The way to genocide…. P. 170.