Action Reinhardt

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The so-called Höfle Telegram (1943)

Aktion Reinhardt (also known as Einsatz Reinhardt ; the spellings Reinhard and Reinhart are also found ) is a cover name for the systematic murder of all Jews and Roma in the Generalgouvernement in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War . In the course of "Aktion Reinhardt" between July 1942 and October 1943 around 1.6 to 1.8 million Jews and around 50,000 Roma from the five districts of the General Government ( Warsaw , Lublin , Radom , Krakow and Galicia ) were killed in the three Belzec extermination camps , Sobibor and Treblinka murdered. - The cover name is related to the first name Reinhard Heydrichs , on whom an assassination attempt with fatal outcome was carried out at the end of May 1942. The "honorary designation" also represents a kind of retaliation.

prehistory

When the order to murder Jews and other ethnic groups in Europe was given, it cannot be determined exactly, since apart from a letter from Hermann Göring to Reinhard Heydrich, no written testimony from the highest government circles is known. It is not certain whether Adolf Hitler ever gave a written order to murder the Jews. The SS Einsatzgruppen of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and police battalions began shortly after the German attack on the Soviet Union to murder male Jews between the ages of 17 and 45 in the newly conquered areas. From the end of August 1941 it can be proven that the mobile killing units also started mass murder of women and children; the Kamenez-Podolsk massacre is seen as an essential step towards the Holocaust .

Wannsee Conference

In order to systematically organize the murder of the Jews, Reinhard Heydrich convened the “ Wannsee Conference ” on January 20, 1942 . Fifteen high-ranking representatives from all the institutions involved in the so-called “ Final Solution ” attended the conference. Josef Bühler , Hans Frank's deputy , openly stated that the Generalgouvernement would welcome it if the "final solution" of this question were started in the Generalgouvernement, because the transport problem does not play a major role here and work-related reasons do not prevent this action would hinder. Jews would have to be removed from the general government area as quickly as possible, because it is precisely here that the Jew, as the carrier of the disease, represents an eminent danger. In addition, the majority of the approximately two and a half million Jews in question are unable to work.

The result of this conference meant that an agreement had been reached within the management level on the form of the deportation of the Jews of Europe to the east and their systematic murder there.

It was about the division of the individual steps towards this goal between state and party offices. Heydrich was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in Prague on May 27, 1942 and died eight days later. So he could no longer continue the overall direction of the genocide of the European Jews, which he had won with this conference.

Order placed by Himmler

Heinrich Himmler commissioned the Lublin SS and police leader Odilo Globocnik to carry out the action . Globocnik had been appointed SS and Police Leader of the Lublin District in Poland in 1939. In him Himmler saw someone who was “made for the colonization of the East like no other ,” as he wrote in a letter to his brother-in-law Richard Wendler on August 4, 1943, when it came to the replacement of Globocnik and his transfer. On July 21, 1941, Himmler called everything that Globocnik had already created and planned in the Lublin district " Program Heinrich ". Here he distinguished himself through a particularly cruel occupation policy. In this sphere of activity and as part of the “Heinrich Program”, the “Reinhardt Campaign” also took place.

The question of whether the spelling “Aktion Reinhardt”, which is often used in the sources, refers to State Secretary Fritz Reinhardt is now considered decided: The designation actually goes back to Heydrich's first name, which in contemporary sources and even by Himmler himself instead of “Reinhard “Was erroneously written“ Reinhardt ”.

Problematic dating

When Odilo Globocnik, the head of "Aktion Reinhardt", received the order to murder the Jews from Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer SS (RFSS), can only be inferred indirectly. Adolf Eichmann testified in Jerusalem that Reinhard Heydrich told him two to three months after the attack on the Soviet Union:

“'The Führer has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews' ...' And then he said to me: Eichmann, go to Globocnik, Lublin ... The Reichsführer has already given Globocnik appropriate instructions and you can see how far he came with his plan '. "

Eichmann was taken to a camp in Lublin, where Christian Wirth explained the facilities for gassing Jews to him. Wirth was the first commandant of the Belzec death camp and later the inspector of all the "Aktion Reinhardt" camps. Before that he was involved in the “ euthanasia ” program, Aktion T4 . Globocnik could therefore have been entrusted by Himmler with the murder of the Jews as early as the summer of 1941.

This is also supported by the fact that Wirth was transferred to the Lublin area in the late summer of 1941. A few weeks later he was followed by other, at the moment, “unemployed murder experts” in the “euthanasia” program that Hitler had interrupted in August. When the “experts” arrived, the construction of the first warehouse in Belzec soon began. There were two months in between. At the beginning it was not known exactly how to carry out the murder of the Jews technically and organizationally. The experiences from the “euthanasia” program could only be used to a limited extent, as the scope of the “Aktion Reinhardt” was many times larger.

In the literature, the date of the order to Globocnik is often given as July 1941. More recent research is based on the assumption that, after consulting Hitler in autumn 1941, Himmler gave the order to murder all Jews in the Generalgouvernement if they could not be used as slave labor .

aims

The action aimed at the murder of the Jews from the Generalgouvernement as completely as possible.

According to its director Odilo Globocnik, the "economic part of Aktion Reinhardt" comprised four areas:

  • the relocation itself
  • the utilization of labor
  • the asset utilization
  • bringing in hidden values ​​and real estate.

execution

Three additional extermination camps

The Jews were murdered in three camps. The Belzec extermination camp (in operation from March 1942) and the Sobibor extermination camp (in operation from May 1942) were in the Lublin district, the Treblinka extermination camp (in operation from July 1942) in the Warsaw district . The camps were located in sparsely populated areas near railway lines. They were rather small in size, between 300 and 400 meters wide and 400 to 500 meters long.

The bearings made a rather provisional impression. Each camp was initially equipped with three gas chambers . In the Belzec extermination camp, deaths were initially carried out with carbon monoxide from steel bottles. This gas was probably chosen because the staff had gained experience with it during the “euthanasia” campaign. However, it was difficult to obtain. Therefore, the deadly gas was later produced by internal combustion engines. The capacity of the gas chambers did not meet the requirements, so that enlargements were made very soon.

20 to 30 German personnel were active as cadres in each camp. 100 to 120 so-called Trawniki men were assigned to each camp to guard . Today the extermination camps are memorials.

staff

The National Socialists needed little staff to murder around 1.6 to 1.8 million Jews and around 50,000 Roma during Aktion Reinhardt. The first team consisted of the “Einsatzstab Reinhardt” in Lublin under the direction of Hermann Höfle , namely 153 SS men and police officers, another 205 men from other units and 92 German “experts” from the “euthanasia” program. The best known are Christian Wirth , Franz Stangl , Irmfried Eberl , Franz Reichleitner , Gottlieb Hering and Kurt Hubert Franz . There were also around 1000 Ukrainian and Lithuanian volunteers, so-called Trawnikis. In Trawniki was the training camp .

According to recent research, 121 men who had previously carried out the “euthanasia” program as part of “ Aktion T4 ” were transferred to the extermination camps in the course of “Aktion Reinhardt” . Construction specialists from "Aktion T4" were called in to set up the Sobibor camp. All continued to be looked after from Berlin. Leading functionaries of the organization T4 and the organization “ Chancellery of the Führer ” came to inspections. The former T4 employees sent requests for leave of absence or recall to their old office in Berlin. Once a week, a courier from T4 from Berlin delivered additional wages and mail to the Wirth office and to the warehouse.

These men received their pay from their old office, but were under Globocnik's direct orders. They were appointed members of the SS, given SS ranks and had to sign a confidentiality agreement in Hermann Höfle's office. Franz Stangl, commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, declared that he had been able to decide whether he wanted to go to Lublin. Since, according to his statements, he had no idea what to expect, he agreed.

Camp management

"Aktion Reinhardt" extermination camp Camp commandant Beginning The End
Belzec extermination camp Christian Wirth December 1941 July 31, 1942
Gottlieb Hering August 1, 1942 December 1942
Sobibor extermination camp Richard Thomalla March 1942 April 1942
Franz Stangl May 1942 September 1942
Franz Reichleitner September 1942 October 1943
Treblinka extermination camp Richard Thomalla May 1942 June 1942
Irmfried Eberl July 1942 September 1942
Franz Stangl September 1942 August 1943
Kurt Franz August 1943 November 1943

Beginning of the murder operation

Globocnik had set up its own staff under the direction of Hermann Höfle to organize the deportations . Before the start of the deportations, he informed an employee of the office of the Lublin district that it would be advisable to divide the transports of Jews coming into the Lublin district into workable and non-workable Jews at the departure station. Unfit for work Jews would all come to Belzec. 4 to 5 transports with 1,000 Jews each could be taken from Belzec every day.

On March 17, 1942, the deportations from the Lublin and Lemberg ghettos to the completed Belzec death camp began. This fact was not only known to the people involved in the action. Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary on March 27, 1942:

“Starting at Lublin, the Jews are now being deported to the East from the General Government. A rather barbaric and unspecified procedure is used, and not much remains of the Jews themselves. On the whole, one can say that 60% of it has to be liquidated, while only 40% can be used in work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna [Globocnik], who carried out this action, did so with considerable caution and also with a procedure that did not seem too conspicuous. [...] The prophecy that the Führer gave them for the bringing about of a new world war is beginning to be realized in the most terrible way. "

However, 40 percent of the Jews deported to the "Aktion Reinhardt" camps were never left alive. Only a few Jews, young and particularly strong, or specialists in an area required by the SS, were left alive for a short time as "working Jews". These "working Jews" - up to 1,000 people per camp - collected, sorted and packed the clothes and valuables of the murdered, emptied the gas chambers and buried the bodies until they were murdered themselves.

Difficulties soon arose. The capacity of the camps was not up to the number of deportees, and the Wehrmacht claimed all the trains for themselves. In May 1942, Wirth and the rest of the German staff also left Belzec without logging out. At the beginning of May Viktor Brack arrived from the “ Chancellery of the Führer ” in Lublin. He negotiated with Globocnik about the further implementation of the extermination of the Jews. Brack explained that the "euthanasia" was coming to an end and that people from "Aktion T4" would come to Lublin. Brack Himmler informed about this meeting in a letter dated June 23, 1942:

“On the instructions of Reichsleiter Bouhler, I made some of my men available to Brigadefuehrer Globocnik to carry out his special task a long time ago. Due to another request from him, I have now assigned additional staff. On this occasion, Brigadefuehrer Globocnik took the view that the whole Jewish action should be carried out as quickly as possible, so that one day you would not get stuck in the middle if any difficulties made it necessary to stop the action. "

These additional men were needed because Sobibor started operations in May and Treblinka in July. The "transport problem" could also be solved. Karl Wolff from the RFSS Personal Staff obtained an assurance from State Secretary Albert Ganzenmüller , who was responsible for the Reichsbahn , that from July 22, 1942, a daily train with 5,000 Jews each from Warsaw to Treblinka, as well as a twice-weekly train with 5,000 Jews from Przemyśl to Belzec. Wolff took note of this news with particular pleasure. This means that the action can be carried out at an “accelerated pace”.

Himmler had ordered this acceleration on July 19, 1942, when he ordered that the "resettlement" (cover word for murder) of the entire Jewish population of the Generalgouvernement must be completed and completed by December 31, 1942. As of December 31, 1942, no longer any persons of Jewish origin were allowed to reside in the General Government.

Nobody was happier with this acceleration than Globocnik. He thanked Himmler for his visit and for all the work he had received. With the new job all of his secret wishes would come true. What these secret wishes looked like in reality is passed down through an eyewitness report by Kurt Gerstein : Globocnik proudly showed him the death camps on August 17, 1942. He willingly explained the function of the camps to his visitors.

In order to rationalize the murder of the Jews , Christian Wirth was appointed inspector of all three camps in August 1942. In fact, the three camps were fully operational by late summer 1942. The number of gas chambers had been increased and the mass murder was organized according to the division of labor . It was a nearly smoothly functioning machine with high capacity and speed. A prisoner train arrived at the ramp in the morning, in the afternoon or at night the corpses were burned and the clothes were brought to the warehouse. Only the lack of transport space could lead to delays. In the so-called Höfle telegram , an intercepted radio message, the number of 1,274,166 Jews murdered was reported for the end of 1942.

The action also included various measures to disguise them internally and externally: the corpses were initially buried in huge pits, later exhumed and cremated during the so-called Aktion 1005 .

In the summer of 1943 "Aktion Reinhardt" was drawing to a close. The Belzec camp had already been closed. The last remaining Jews were taken to the other camps and murdered there.

In Treblinka and Sobibor there were revolts of the prisoners, which at least saved the lives of some Jews. Overall, fewer than 200 prisoners in all three camps are likely to have survived the Second World War . In order to cover up traces of the murder, the buildings of the death camps were completely demolished and their areas greened; in addition, farms were laid out there for camouflage and were inhabited by Trawniki members.

Balance sheet

The “Aktion Reinhardt” actually also includes the “ Aktion Erntefest ”. However, this action was no longer carried out by the original “Aktion Reinhardt” staff. At the beginning of November 1943, almost all Jews still alive in the camps in the Lublin area were shot within three days.

The number of Jews murdered in the three extermination camps is based on estimates that vary widely. Stephan Lehnstaedt considers it realistic to assume 1,520,000 victims, taking into account “the latest research results”; in addition, there were those who were murdered from numerous ghettos during this period. Odilo Globocnik said in May 1945, when he turned up at a former acquaintance on the run at Lake Wörthersee , that two million had been "taken care of".

On November 4, 1943, Globocnik reported to Himmler from Trieste that on October 19, 1943, he had completed the Reinhardt campaign, which he had led in the Generalgouvernement, and had closed all camps. He also sent a final presentation.

In his reply, Himmler thanked Globocnik and expressed his gratitude and appreciation for the great and unique services he had earned for the entire German people in carrying out “Aktion Reinhardt”.

In fact, the "Aktion Reinhardt" brought enormous assets to the German Reich . As early as the summer of 1942 there were around 50,000,000 Reichsmarks (RM) in paper, foreign currency, coins and jewelry, as well as around 1,000 wagons of textiles, 300,000 of which were new clothes.

These numbers are certainly underestimated. There are also no numbers about those values ​​- e.g. B. Real estate - contains that were stolen from people prior to their deportation. In addition, the valuables withheld by the guards are missing. It is known that the overseer Walter Nowak sent watches and jewelry to his wife.

Globocnik had ordered a central file to be created in order to record the Jewish assets, in which all the values ​​arising from the resettlement of Jews were to be recorded and kept.

The final statement of January 5, 1944 resulted in the following values:

Overall composition
Funds Delivered 73,852,080.74 RM
Precious metals 8,973,651.60 RM
Foreign exchange in notes 4,521,224.13 RM
Foreign exchange in minted gold 1,736,554.12 RM
Jewels and other values 43,662,450 RM
Textile fibers 46,000,000 RM
total 178,745,960.59 RM

Odilo Globocnik was the one who pushed “Aktion Reinhardt” forward. Against the economic interests of other Reich authorities and the Wehrmacht, he also asserted the murder of Jews who worked for companies that were important to the war effort.

The "Aktion Reinhardt" represents the climax of the National Socialist extermination policy against the Jews. More people were murdered in the "Aktion Reinhardt" camps than in Auschwitz. There were no selections . The camps were organized as real death factories in such a way that only a few perpetrators were needed. Timothy Snyder therefore takes the view that "a proper view of the Holocaust should put Operation Reinhardt, the murder of Polish Jews in 1942, at the center of history."

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Aktion Reinhard  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Höfle was chief of staff of "Aktion Reinhard". :  The new reminder call. Journal for Law, Freedom and Democracy / The new warning call. Journal for Freedom, Law and Democracy , 1961, p. 59 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dnm
  2. ↑ See the writing in the Höfle telegram
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : Euthanasia in the Nazi state. The destruction of life unworthy of life. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-10-039303-1 ; P. 374 on Stw. "Aktion Reinhard".
  4. ↑ Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Heerführer , 2007, p. 573; Klaus-Michael Mallmann: The qualitative leap. 2001, p. 239; GH Bennett: Exploring the World. 2011, p. 6.
  5. ^ Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , p. Roman 17.
  6. ↑ Richard Breitmann / Shlomo Aronson : An unknown Himmler speech from January 1943 . In: VfZ 38 (1990), p. 340.
  7. ^ Jochen von Lang: The Eichmann Protocol. Tape recordings of the Israeli interrogations. Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88680-036-9 , p. 69.
  8. ↑ Barbara Schwindt: The Majdanek Concentration and Extermination Camp. Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3123-7 , p. 72. / Date between October 1 and 17, 1941 according to Bogdan Musial : Origins of 'Aktion Reinhardt' - planning the mass murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement. P. 70. In: Bogdan Musial (Ed.): 'Aktion Reinhardt'. The genocide of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement 1941–1944. Osnabrück 2004, ISBN 3-929759-83-7 .
  9. ↑ Document 4024-PS in: IMT : The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals… . fotomech. Emphasis. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2525-7 , vol. 34, p. 72.
  10. ↑ to the motors see Achim Trunk: Die fodbringenden Gase. In: Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , pp. 35–37 as well as Dieter Pohl: Mass killings through poison gas as part of the 'Action T4' . ibid, pp. 191–192.
  11. ↑ Patricis Heberer: A Continuity of Killing Operations . T4 perpetrators and the 'Action T4' . In: Bogdan Musial (Ed.): 'Aktion Reinhardt'. The genocide of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement 1941–1944. Osnabrück 2004, ISBN 3-929759-83-7 , p. 294.
  12. ^ Sara Berger: Experts of the destruction. The T4 Reinhardt network in the Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka camps. Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86854-268-4 , pp. 401-415.
  13. ↑ Ralf Georg Reuth (Ed.): Joseph Goebbels Diaries. 3rd edition Munich 2003, ISBN 3-492-21414-2 , Vol. 4, p. 1776.
  14. ↑ Eugen Kogon et al. (Ed.): National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. FiTb, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, ISBN 3-596-24353-X , pp. 149 f.
  15. ^ Raul Hilberg : Special trains to Auschwitz. Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-921426-18-9 , p. 177 / see also Ganzenmüller letter .
  16. ↑ Stephan Lehnstaedt: The core of the Holocaust. Belzec, Sobibór, Treblinka and Aktion Reinhardt. .München 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-70702-5 , pp. 84–85.
  17. ↑ Document 4024-PS in: IMT : The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, Vol. 34, ISBN 3-7735-2525-7 , pp. 58-92.
  18. ↑ Julius Scharnetzky: "After all, we all [...] came out of euthanasia." On the personal connection between "Aktion T4" and "Aktion Reinhardt" using the example of the staff at the Sonnenstein killing center. In: Günther Heydemann, Jan Erik Schulte u. Francesca Weil (Ed.): Saxony and National Socialism . V&R, Göttingen 2014, p. 209.
  19. ↑ Document 4024-PS in: IMT : The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, vol. 34, ISBN 3-7735-2525-7 , p. 63 / see VEJ 9/281.
  20. ↑ Timothy Snyder: The Holocaust. The hidden reality ( memento of October 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Eurozine , February 18, 2010, printed in: Transit , Heft 38, 2009, pp. 6–19, quotation p. 7; ders .: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin . CH Beck, Munich 2011, p. 261 ff.