Was Chelmno a Ops. Reinhard

[Raistlin]

Hi All,

Was Chelmno a Ops. Reinhard death camp ? I know those ( Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka) along the Bug river were but was Chelmno. I have the book about those camps. If someone could answer this for me I would be very gratful.

Raistlin

[giles120]

Raistlin,

Chelmno, where the genocide began at the end of 1941 with three mobile gas vans, became a cemetery for the Jews of the Warta region, the Lodz Ghetto as well as some coming from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were designated the "Operation Reinhard Camps." Himmler put Odilo Globocnik, SS and Police Chief of the district of Lublin, in charge of the task. He had at his disposal a troop of 450 men, among them 92 "experts" who had already participated in the first "euthanasia" operation, the mass murder of over 70,000 sick and handicapped people in Germany.

Chelmno was a seperate camp, albeit committed to exterminating the Jews and Gypsies in selected areas. It was not a part of the Operation Reinhard program.

Thanks.

[Raistlin]

Hi Mr. giles120,

Thank you for your help.

Is there any books about Chelmno? If so please will someone post them here.

Raistlin

[michael mills]

Raistlin,

Giles120 has given you incorrect information.

"Aktion Reinhardt" was the code-name for the process of collecting the personal property of persons sent to concentration camps and other camps, both of those exterminated and those kept for labour, and processing it for various uses.

It received its name from Fritz Reinhardt, State Secretary of the Department of Finance, who was in overall charge of the operation.

"Aktion Reinhardt" was in operation at all concentration camps and other camps where persoanl property was confiscated from inmates. Hoeß testified that "Aktion Reinhardt" was in operation at Auschwitz; the storing of confiscated property at the part of Birkenau nicknamed "Kanada" was part of "Aktion Reinhardt".

We know from documentary evidence that the personal property of the Jews killed at Chelmno was stored there, and later carted away. It is most likely that that process of storing and carting away came under "Aktion Reinhardt".

Odilo Globocnik, the SSPF Lublin was placed in charge of the operations of "Aktion Reinhardt" within the borders of the Generalgouvernement. he was therefore in charge of its operation at the three extermination camps under his control (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka) and also at Lublin Concentration Camp, which was otherwise under the control of the WVHA.

Globocnik's command over "Aktion Reinhardt" in the G-G has led to the erroneous assumption that he was in command of the whole operation. he set up a staff to run it within his area of jurisdiction, called "Einsatz Reinhardt". That staff however did not control the operation of "Aktion Reinhardt" outside the G-G, eg at Chelmno or Auschwitz.

Fritz Reinhardt was a great enemy of Globocnik and suspected him of corruptly diverting the proceeds of "Aktion Reinhardt" in the G-G for his own purposes, rather than sending it back to the Ministry of Finance. Eventually he succeeded in having Globocnik removed from his post and exiled to the Balkans to risk his life in anti-partisan warfare. Thereafter "Aktion Reinhardt" in the G-G was controlled by the WVHA, through the staff of the Lublin Concentration Camp.

[alf]

I offer an alternative path to check out, Reinhardt was not named after an Adminstration Officer , that merely is a deflection away from death camps.

Here is a link to read

http://deathcamps.org/reinhard/

"Einsatz Reinhard" - code name for the extermination of Polish Jewry in the former General Gouvernement and the Bialystok area, better known as Aktion Reinhard.
The term was taken in remembrance of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the coordinator of the "Endlösung der Judenfrage" (Final Solution of the Jewish Question) - the extermination of the Jews living in the European countries occupied by German troops during WW2. Members of the Czech underground resistance fighters assassinated Heydrich on 27th May 1942

.

Open and click on all the hyperlinks inside the document to get to primary sources documents. click on the word term in the first paragraph and read.

According to the historians Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas (A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of the Jews in the General Gouvernment under "Einsatz Reinhardt") the "Aktion" was referred to Reinhard / Reinhardt Heydrich, chief of Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo), Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).
It was not referred to the State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt.

Witte and Tyas wrote:
...The only interesting reference to the Reich Ministry of Finance to be found in the archives of the IfZ is a Declaration on Oath by Bruno Melmer, Nürnberg, 11th February 1948 (NG-4983). Fritz Reinhardt is not mentioned at all. Another serious problem is that Melmer reported important events for May 1942 which actually took place in mid-August 1942. It will be difficult to explain why Einsatz or Aktion Reinhardt should have been named after a State Secretary whose ministry first became involved in the Aktion over two months after the first known occurrence of the code name...

"Aktion" or "Einsatz"?

Höfle Telegrams
Among recently declassified material at the Public Record Office in Kew, England, two radio messages from SS Major Höfle at SSPF Lublin were uncovered. One was sent to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann at RSHA Berlin, the second one to SS Lieutenant Colonel Franz Heim, the deputy commander of the Security Police and SD for the Generalgouvernement in Cracow.

Witte and Tyas:
...The subject of the radio telegram reads "fortnightly report Einsatz Reinhart...
The term Einsatz was apparently the original one in use from June 1942 on, but certainly less often in 1943; the extermination camps Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were officially called "camps of Einsatz Reinhardt". New personnel assigned to these camps...signed...a secrecy agreement as "specially commissioned persons for the execution of tasks in the resettlement of Jews Einsatz Reinhardt". Officially they were designated "SS-Sonderkommandos Einsatz Reinhard". This is the term the perpetrators on Globocnik's staff used themselves in their correspondance during 1942. On the other hand, the term Aktion did not occur before mid-September 1942 as far as we can ascertain. It seems to have been used first in the SS's Economics and Administration Main Office (WVHA) and its Inspectorate of Concentration Camps,... and only later, in 1943, by Globocnik and Himmler themselves... For these reasons, and because the telegram's subject line itself has Einsatz, the authors prefer using this term instead of Aktion.
Although knowing the results of Witte's and Tyas' investigations, ARC prefer using Action Reinhard because that expression is in common use.

"Reinhard" or "Reinhardt"?
Witte and Tyas:
What is not widely known is that Heydrich apparently used a different spelling of

Swearing-in
his name for some time in the 1930s. In a speech on the occasion of the introduction of Kaltenbrunner as Heydrich's successor on 30th January 1943, Heinrich Himmler himself told his audience how he first met Reinhardt Heydrich in 1930, and specifically mentioned the unusual spelling: "Heydrich had his first name written with a dt." When a rumor arose among party members that the young chief of the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst) might be of Jewish descent, an expert was commissioned to do research for Himmler on Heydrich's family and to come up with an authentic and verifiable family tree. Thus a scholarly "Report and List of Ancestors" on "the racial origin of Naval First Lieutenant Reinhardt Heydrich" was added to Heydrich's personnel files... Every official Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP published by the SS Personnel Main Office between 1934 and 1942 also has Reinhardt as his first name. Heydrich himself tried to have these SS officers' lists changed to Reinhard, but in vain...


Official Stamp
As far as is known, the codename Reinhardt for the mass murder first appeared immediately after Heydrich's death in June 1942... Concerning the spelling, ... one of Globocnik's official stamps displayed the Reich Eagle in the center and the inscription Der SS- und Polizeiführer im Distrikt Lublin - Einsatz Reinhardt. The most extensive and important file on Aktion Reinhardt, the final reports of Globocnik (including two notes by Himmler), have the dt-spelling, in all fifteen times. Much more evidence is available.

So the arguement put above so elegantly by Michael, moving the subject away from death camps to adminstration of clothing and a clerk appears simply wrong. Giles120 appears right after all


Back on topic from the deflection, here are some links on the the camps
http://deathcamps.org/
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/aktion-reinhard/
http://www.nizkor.org/

[Raistlin]

Hi All,

Thank you for all your help.

Mr. Mills,
I have to agree with Mr. Giles120 and Mr Alf one this one.

Mr. Alf ,

Thank you for the links. I found them very helpful. Thanks again.

Once again: Is there any books about Chelmno? If so please will someone post them here.

Raistlin

[David Thompson]

Raistlin -- I've only seen works which mention Chelmno in passing. Academic papers, etc. might help fill in some of the gaps. I'd start looking at the footnotes in texts which mention the Chelmno murder operation. They may lead you to more.

[Raistlin]

Hi Mr. Thompson,

Thank you I will do that. Thanks again for the help.

Raistlin

[Earldor]

Raistlin -- I've only seen works which mention Chelmno in passing. Academic papers, etc. might help fill in some of the gaps. I'd start looking at the footnotes in texts which mention the Chelmno murder operation. They may lead you to more.

Some links on Chelmno:

http://www.zchor.org/EDUT.HTM
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/gmoreinf.html

It seems fairly probable that the Chelmno -operations and Globocnik's empire of death were administratively separate actions, although both had their roots in the Euthanasia -operations. There has been some speculation that Wirth would have had some authority over Chelmno, but nothing solid.

[Raistlin]

Hi All,

Why is there not much wrote about this camp? There seems to be very little wrote about Chelmno unlike the other camps. Was it because there was only one person to live through the camp?

Raistlin

[michael mills]

Raistlin wrote:

Mr. Mills,
I have to agree with Mr. Giles120 and Mr Alf one this one.

As you will.

But you do not have to. You choose to.

Those who refuse to accept data they do not wish to accept will never learn.

Among those data are the facts that

1. Hoeß stated in his post-war interrogation that "Aktion Reinhardt" was in operation at Auschwitz, and that the name referred to the collection and processing of the personal effects confiscated from the transports of Jews that had been destroyed, and

2. "Aktion Reinhardt" was run by the WVHA, which had responsibility for the administration of concentration camps, including that at Lublin, but not for the killing centres under Globocnik's control.

I have seen a reference to an article that contests the view that "Aktion Reinhardt" was named after Heydrich: it is note 25 on page 211 of the book "Auschwitz 17. Juli 1942: Der Weg zur europäischen 'Endlösung der Judenfrage' ", by Professor Emeritus Hans Mommsen.

Die Vermutung, daß die Aktion ursprünglich nach Staatssekretär Fritz Reinhardt im Reichsfinanzministerium benannt worden sei, für die der Umstand spricht, daß Heydrich nicht befaßt war [Hervorhebung von mir], muß offen bleiben. S. Herman Weiß, Offener brief an Wolfgang Benz wegen Reinhard(t), in: Hermann Graml u.a. (Hrsg.), Vorurteil und Rassenhaß. Antisemitismus in den faschistischen Bewegungen Europas. Festschrift für Wolfgang Benz, Berlin 2001, S. 443-450; sowie Bertrand Perz/Thomas Sandkühler, Auschwitz und die "Aktion Reinhard" 1942-45, in: Zeitgeschichte 26 (1999), S. 283-316.

I have asked the Australian National University library to acquire the book edited by Graml, and I look forward to reading the article by Weiß. However, I will not waste my time sharing the material with those with closed minds.

[Raistlin]

Hi Mr. Mills,

I do appreciate your input. But I have only heard of Aktion Reinhard not ( Reinhardt ). I s it not possible that there was a Aktion Reinhardt as well as Aktion Reinhard ? As to my closed mindness ? My mind is open, but you have not made your case for a Aktion Reinhardt as of date. I would be willing to hear everthing you have to say on the matter. You are the first person to have brought up Aktion Reinhardt. Never heard of it before I came to Axis History Forum. So enlighten me Mr. Mills.

Raistlin

[xcalibur]

However, I will not waste my time sharing the material with those with closed minds.

I'd love to believe that's a promise.

[Raistlin]

However, I will not waste my time sharing the material with those with closed minds.

I'd love to believe that's a promise.

Hi All,

?

[Dan]

However, I will not waste my time sharing the material with those with closed minds.

I'd love to believe that's a promise.

Leaving opinions, conclusions and biases aside on all sides, do you believe the amount of factual information presented by you has been comperable to that submitted here by Mills?