As many of you know, Paul Blobel, an SS Colonel, was instructed by Heydrich and Muller to begin a campaign in around May 1942 to eradicate (mostly by incineration) the mass-graves of the Einsatzgruppen that they had created in the previous year or so in the east, and thence presumably henceforward too.
I was interested by the timing of this - I was always aware of this project, but always assumed it was initiated, probably by Himmler, later in the war when they knew the game was up and all involved were especially anxious about the future.
Though the Nuremburg files make clear when he was ordered to do this, it does not say why. Was it initiated as an afterthought - "oh yes, we'd better get rid of all these mass graves etc., as they might be embarassing after we've won the war" - or as a result of fear, even at that fairly early stage, that they might not win and should try and reduce the consequences.
Also - did Hitler know about this project? I know he was careful about the Holocaust vis-a-vis his public image with the German people (having had his fingers burnt somewhat by 'T4'), but as far as I can see, when all involved knew they were losing, he didn't seem to care at all that he had done this and that the Allies were surely going to discover all about it.
Indeed, in his 'last will and testament' he refers almost directly to it ("settling scores with the jews... albeit by more humane means" etc.).
I seem to recall that he was keen to remind all his senior people that they had "burnt their boats" - there was no going back because of what they had done - and as a result probably authorised Himmler's Posen speech in Oct 43, the subtext of which was fairly clear - "you can't deny you knew about all this - so you'd better make sure we win." [It seems Speer probably did deny it anyway, though I still can't decide from the evidence whether he heard the speech or not].
Any thoughts on this one?
WT
Destroying the evidence - Hitler, Himmler, Blobel etc.
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webtoy100
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michael mills
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I think you have got the date wrong.
The large-scale exhumation and incineration of corpses at various killing sites commenced at the beginning of 1943. For example, at Belzec the exhumations did not begin until well after the camp had been closed at the end of 1942, and even then it was only partial, as recent excavations have shown.
Exhumation and open-air incineration of corpses began at Birkenau in the autumn of 1942, but that action was initiated because the accumulated corpses were polluting the groundwater which supplied the nearby city of Auschwitz.
As to Hitler's knowledge, I find it extremely unlikely that he would have got involved in such minor details as methods of corpse disposal. He was in no way a micro-manager; rather, he set broadly defined goals and gave his subordinates full latitude to get on with the job.
With regard to the Jewish question, Hitler operated at the highest macro-level, as exemplified by the brief summary of the Korherr Report given to him early in 1943; that summary stated that between 1933 and the end of 1942, the Jewish population of the German sphere of influence had been reduced by half, with half the reduction being due to emigration and flight, implying that the other half of the reduction had been due to increased mortality, although that was not made explicit. That is the sort of information Hitler was interested in, not the nitty-gritty of where the bodies were buried.
The large-scale exhumation and incineration of corpses at various killing sites commenced at the beginning of 1943. For example, at Belzec the exhumations did not begin until well after the camp had been closed at the end of 1942, and even then it was only partial, as recent excavations have shown.
Exhumation and open-air incineration of corpses began at Birkenau in the autumn of 1942, but that action was initiated because the accumulated corpses were polluting the groundwater which supplied the nearby city of Auschwitz.
As to Hitler's knowledge, I find it extremely unlikely that he would have got involved in such minor details as methods of corpse disposal. He was in no way a micro-manager; rather, he set broadly defined goals and gave his subordinates full latitude to get on with the job.
With regard to the Jewish question, Hitler operated at the highest macro-level, as exemplified by the brief summary of the Korherr Report given to him early in 1943; that summary stated that between 1933 and the end of 1942, the Jewish population of the German sphere of influence had been reduced by half, with half the reduction being due to emigration and flight, implying that the other half of the reduction had been due to increased mortality, although that was not made explicit. That is the sort of information Hitler was interested in, not the nitty-gritty of where the bodies were buried.
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Bill Medland
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Hi "Webtoy", I am interested in the Holocaust from the technical/operational details.
My opinon is that the exhumation of the corpses had nothing to do with a "cover-up" or destruction of evidence.
The main reason was that the bodies were buried closely packed, and not very deep. In the winter of 1941 the bodies were frozen, but the summer of 1942 was very hot and the corpses gave off hugh amounts of body gases, which caused the earth to move constantly.
Seeing these ground movements and parts of bodies coming to the surface would have played a large role in the reason for the exhumation.
The Einsatzgruppen learned by their mistake and it was not repeated.
regards,Bill.
My opinon is that the exhumation of the corpses had nothing to do with a "cover-up" or destruction of evidence.
The main reason was that the bodies were buried closely packed, and not very deep. In the winter of 1941 the bodies were frozen, but the summer of 1942 was very hot and the corpses gave off hugh amounts of body gases, which caused the earth to move constantly.
Seeing these ground movements and parts of bodies coming to the surface would have played a large role in the reason for the exhumation.
The Einsatzgruppen learned by their mistake and it was not repeated.
regards,Bill.
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Hans
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As webtoy100 has pointed out, Blobel was INSTRUCTED to dispose the physical evidence of the mass killings in the East in mid 1942. According to his affidavit, he was instructed by Müller in June 1942 in Berlin to carry out this task.michael mills wrote:I think you have got the date wrong.
We know that Blobel was already operating open air incineration facilities in Chelmno in September 1942, since the Auschwitz commandant Höss, Hössler and Dejaco (from the construction office) were inspecting Blobel's incineration facilities in mid September according to SS correspondence as well as to their own post war accounts.
These facilities were called "test station for field ovens Aktion Reinhard" ("Versuchstation für Feldöfen Aktion Reinhard") in a radio signal from the WVHA to Auschwtiz, dated September 15, 1942. This designation suggests that Blobel was testing methods of body disposal in Chelmno for the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.
Last edited by Hans on 17 Nov 2002 11:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Hans
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Here is an extract of a report ("Arrival at Litzmannstadt at 9 a.m") by SS-Untersturmführer Walter Dejaco about their trip to Chelmno inspecting Blobel's incineration facilities. This extract was quoted at the Eichmann trial.
"The construction material ordered specially by Sturmbannfuehrer Blobel
from the Ostdeutsche Baustoffwerke Company of Posen, Wilhelm
Gustloffstrasse, is to be delivered immediately for the Auschwitz
concentration camp. The order is shown in the enclosed document,
and the materials in question are to be ordered and redirected,
in agreement with Obersturmfuehrer Weber of Office C V/3 of our
Central Building Management Office. The relevant number of copies
of consignment notes are to be sent to the above- mentioned firm.
With reference to the discussion of SS Sturmfuehrer Blobel with the
firm of (illegible) & Co., Hannover, Buergermeister Link-Strasse,
delivery should be made of the ball mill (that is what it looks like)
already reserved there for grinding substances for the Auschwitz
concentration camp."
"The construction material ordered specially by Sturmbannfuehrer Blobel
from the Ostdeutsche Baustoffwerke Company of Posen, Wilhelm
Gustloffstrasse, is to be delivered immediately for the Auschwitz
concentration camp. The order is shown in the enclosed document,
and the materials in question are to be ordered and redirected,
in agreement with Obersturmfuehrer Weber of Office C V/3 of our
Central Building Management Office. The relevant number of copies
of consignment notes are to be sent to the above- mentioned firm.
With reference to the discussion of SS Sturmfuehrer Blobel with the
firm of (illegible) & Co., Hannover, Buergermeister Link-Strasse,
delivery should be made of the ball mill (that is what it looks like)
already reserved there for grinding substances for the Auschwitz
concentration camp."
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webtoy100
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Thanks
Ok - Thanks guys - interesting, especially the stuff about the corpses affecting ground-water supplies.
Was the eradication campaign accelerated when certain people, notably Himmler, were worried that the atrocities would be discovered and that his efforts to negotiate with the allies (which according to some accounts may have started as early as 1942) would be compromised by this? Or did it largely operate in a vacuum vis-a-vis deteriorating military fortunes?
Incidentally, as a side queston, how were the Katyn graves discovered? Did the Nazis appreciate the gross hypocrisy they were engaged in by making a fuss about this given the hundreds of mass graves they had caused? Or were they *shocked* *shocked* (cf Casablanca) to find that Stalin had murdered Polish officers and intellectuals en masse - "hey thats OUR job!"
cheers,
WT
[/quote]
Was the eradication campaign accelerated when certain people, notably Himmler, were worried that the atrocities would be discovered and that his efforts to negotiate with the allies (which according to some accounts may have started as early as 1942) would be compromised by this? Or did it largely operate in a vacuum vis-a-vis deteriorating military fortunes?
Incidentally, as a side queston, how were the Katyn graves discovered? Did the Nazis appreciate the gross hypocrisy they were engaged in by making a fuss about this given the hundreds of mass graves they had caused? Or were they *shocked* *shocked* (cf Casablanca) to find that Stalin had murdered Polish officers and intellectuals en masse - "hey thats OUR job!"
cheers,
WT
[/quote]
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David Thompson
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In regard to "the corpses affecting ground-water supplies," here are a few quotes from 1941-1942:
From mid-Aug 1941, Lemberg (SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann):
". . . Mueller said to me: 'In Minsk the Jews are being shot. I'd like a report on that.' So I went to Minsk. I had nothing at all to do there. I didn't know anybody. I went to the command post -- what was it called again! . . . Commander Security Police, or could it have been Action Team Security Police? -- and asked for the commanding officer. I still remember, he wasn't there. I spoke to someone else and told him I had orders to see what was going on. I spent the night in that town, and next day I went to the place, but I got there too late. The work for that morning was already done, almost done -- and I was very glad of that. When I got there, I was just in time to see some young riflemen, I believe they were riflemen, with the death's-head collar patch, shooting into a pit . . . maybe four or five times as big as this room. Maybe bigger, say six or seven times. I . . . I . . . my orientation in this case is unreliable, because I saw this thing without thinking, I didn't think anything at all. I just saw it, and that's all. They fired into the pit. I can still see a woman with her arms behind her back, and then her knees crumpled, and I cleared out . . .
[The pit was full of corpses] It was full. I went to my car, I got in and drove away. I drove to Lemberg. I had no orders to go to Lemberg, I remember now. Somehow I went to Lemberg and found the man in charge of the Gestapo command post and I said to him: 'It's horrible what they're doing there. They're training young men to be sadists.' I told Mueller the exact same thing. I told Guenther [SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Adolf Guenther, Eichmann's deputy], too. I told everybody. I told them all. And I said to that SS officer in Lemberg: 'How can they stand there firing at a woman and children? How is it possible? . . . It's just not . . . Those men will either go mad or they'll turn into sadists . . . our own men.' He said to me: 'They're doing the same thing right here, shooting. Want to see?' 'No,' I said. 'I don't want to see anything.' 'We're driving past there anyway,' he said. There had been a pit there, it was already filled in, and blood was gushing out of it . . . how shall I say? . . . like a geyser. I've never seen anything like it. I'd had enough of that mission. I went back to Berlin and reported what I'd seen to Gruppenfuehrer Mueller. I said to him: 'This is no solution to the Jewish question. And besides, we're training our men to be sadists. We shouldn't be surprised if they all turn out to be criminals, all criminals.' I still remember Mueller looking at me with an expression that said: Eichmann, you're right, that's no solution. But there was nothing he could do about it. Mueller definitely couldn't do a thing. Not a thing. Not a thing. Who gave the orders for those actions? The orders, the orders. Obviously, the orders were given by the head of the Security Police and the SD, namely, Heydrich. But he must also have had his instructions from the Reichsfuehrer-SS, namely, Himmler; on his own hook he can't . . . he could never have done such things on his own hook. And Himmler must have had express orders from Hitler. If he hadn't had orders from Hitler, he'd have been out on his ear before he knew what hit him." (Eichmann Interr 79-80)
From Mar 1942, Belzec (SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Stangl):
"I went there by car. As one arrived, one first reached Belzec railway station on the left side of the road. The camp was on the same side, but up a hill. The headquarters was 200 meters away, on the other side of the road. It was a one story building. The smell -- oh God, the smell. It was everywhere. [SS-Standartenfuehrer Christian] Wirth wasn't in his office, I remember. They took me to him. He was standing on a hill, next to the pits -- the pits -- full -- they were full. I can't tell you; not hundreds, thousands, thousands of corpses -- oh, God. I asked whether I should go up there and they said, 'I wouldn't if I were you -- he's mad with fury. It isn't healthy to be near him.' I asked what was the matter. The man I was talking to said that one of the pits had overflowed. They had put too many corpses in it and putrefaction had progressed too fast, so that the liquid underneath had pushed the bodies on top up and over and the corpses had rolled down the hill. I saw some of them -- oh, God, it was awful. A bit later Wirth came down. And that's when he told me. He said that was what Sobibor was for. He said that he was officially putting me in charge.
I said to Wirth that I couldn't do it, I simply wasn't up to such an assignment. There wasn't any argument or discussion. Wirth just said my reply would be reported to HQ and I was to go back to Sobibor. In fact I went to Lublin, tried again to see [SS-Brigadefuehrer Odilo] Globocnik, again in vain; he wouldn't see me.
When I got back to Sobibor, Michel and I talked and talked about it. We agreed that what they were doing was a crime. We considered deserting -- we discussed it for a long time. But how? Where could we go? What about our families?" (Segev 211; Gilbert Holo 311-2)
From Belzec, Aug 1942 (Rudolf Reder)
The most horrible thing for me was that there was an order to pile the bodies up to a level one metre above the edge of the graves, and then cover them with a layer of sand, while thick, black blood flowed out and flooded the ground like a lake. We had to walk along the ledges from one pit to the next, and our feet were soaked with our brothers' blood. We walked over their bodies and that was even worse.
(Gilbert Holo 413-7)
From Zagrodski, Belorus, Aug 1942 (Rivka Yosselevska):
"The Germans ordered that all the corpses be heaped together into one big heap and with shovels they were heaped together, all the corpses, amongst them many still alive, children running about the place. I saw them. I saw the children. They were running after me, hanging on to me. Then I sad down in the field and remained sitting with the children around me. The children who got up from the heap of corpses.
Then Germans came and were going around the place. We were ordered to collect all the children, but they did not approach me, and I sat there watching how they collected the children. They gave a few shots and the children were dead. They did not need many shots. The children were almost dead, and this Rosenberg woman pleaded with the Germans to be spared, but they shot her.
They all left -- the Germans and the non-Jews from around the place. They removed the machine guns and they took the trucks. I saw that they all left, and the four of us, we went on to the grave, praying to fall into the grave, even alive, envying those who were dead already and thinking what to do now. I was praying for death to come. I was praying for the grave to be opened and to swallow me alive. Blood was spurting from the grave in many places, like a well of water, and whenever I pass a spring now, I remember the blood which spurted from the ground, from that grave." (Gilbert Holo 420-4)
From mid-Aug 1941, Lemberg (SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann):
". . . Mueller said to me: 'In Minsk the Jews are being shot. I'd like a report on that.' So I went to Minsk. I had nothing at all to do there. I didn't know anybody. I went to the command post -- what was it called again! . . . Commander Security Police, or could it have been Action Team Security Police? -- and asked for the commanding officer. I still remember, he wasn't there. I spoke to someone else and told him I had orders to see what was going on. I spent the night in that town, and next day I went to the place, but I got there too late. The work for that morning was already done, almost done -- and I was very glad of that. When I got there, I was just in time to see some young riflemen, I believe they were riflemen, with the death's-head collar patch, shooting into a pit . . . maybe four or five times as big as this room. Maybe bigger, say six or seven times. I . . . I . . . my orientation in this case is unreliable, because I saw this thing without thinking, I didn't think anything at all. I just saw it, and that's all. They fired into the pit. I can still see a woman with her arms behind her back, and then her knees crumpled, and I cleared out . . .
[The pit was full of corpses] It was full. I went to my car, I got in and drove away. I drove to Lemberg. I had no orders to go to Lemberg, I remember now. Somehow I went to Lemberg and found the man in charge of the Gestapo command post and I said to him: 'It's horrible what they're doing there. They're training young men to be sadists.' I told Mueller the exact same thing. I told Guenther [SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Adolf Guenther, Eichmann's deputy], too. I told everybody. I told them all. And I said to that SS officer in Lemberg: 'How can they stand there firing at a woman and children? How is it possible? . . . It's just not . . . Those men will either go mad or they'll turn into sadists . . . our own men.' He said to me: 'They're doing the same thing right here, shooting. Want to see?' 'No,' I said. 'I don't want to see anything.' 'We're driving past there anyway,' he said. There had been a pit there, it was already filled in, and blood was gushing out of it . . . how shall I say? . . . like a geyser. I've never seen anything like it. I'd had enough of that mission. I went back to Berlin and reported what I'd seen to Gruppenfuehrer Mueller. I said to him: 'This is no solution to the Jewish question. And besides, we're training our men to be sadists. We shouldn't be surprised if they all turn out to be criminals, all criminals.' I still remember Mueller looking at me with an expression that said: Eichmann, you're right, that's no solution. But there was nothing he could do about it. Mueller definitely couldn't do a thing. Not a thing. Not a thing. Who gave the orders for those actions? The orders, the orders. Obviously, the orders were given by the head of the Security Police and the SD, namely, Heydrich. But he must also have had his instructions from the Reichsfuehrer-SS, namely, Himmler; on his own hook he can't . . . he could never have done such things on his own hook. And Himmler must have had express orders from Hitler. If he hadn't had orders from Hitler, he'd have been out on his ear before he knew what hit him." (Eichmann Interr 79-80)
From Mar 1942, Belzec (SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Stangl):
"I went there by car. As one arrived, one first reached Belzec railway station on the left side of the road. The camp was on the same side, but up a hill. The headquarters was 200 meters away, on the other side of the road. It was a one story building. The smell -- oh God, the smell. It was everywhere. [SS-Standartenfuehrer Christian] Wirth wasn't in his office, I remember. They took me to him. He was standing on a hill, next to the pits -- the pits -- full -- they were full. I can't tell you; not hundreds, thousands, thousands of corpses -- oh, God. I asked whether I should go up there and they said, 'I wouldn't if I were you -- he's mad with fury. It isn't healthy to be near him.' I asked what was the matter. The man I was talking to said that one of the pits had overflowed. They had put too many corpses in it and putrefaction had progressed too fast, so that the liquid underneath had pushed the bodies on top up and over and the corpses had rolled down the hill. I saw some of them -- oh, God, it was awful. A bit later Wirth came down. And that's when he told me. He said that was what Sobibor was for. He said that he was officially putting me in charge.
I said to Wirth that I couldn't do it, I simply wasn't up to such an assignment. There wasn't any argument or discussion. Wirth just said my reply would be reported to HQ and I was to go back to Sobibor. In fact I went to Lublin, tried again to see [SS-Brigadefuehrer Odilo] Globocnik, again in vain; he wouldn't see me.
When I got back to Sobibor, Michel and I talked and talked about it. We agreed that what they were doing was a crime. We considered deserting -- we discussed it for a long time. But how? Where could we go? What about our families?" (Segev 211; Gilbert Holo 311-2)
From Belzec, Aug 1942 (Rudolf Reder)
The most horrible thing for me was that there was an order to pile the bodies up to a level one metre above the edge of the graves, and then cover them with a layer of sand, while thick, black blood flowed out and flooded the ground like a lake. We had to walk along the ledges from one pit to the next, and our feet were soaked with our brothers' blood. We walked over their bodies and that was even worse.
(Gilbert Holo 413-7)
From Zagrodski, Belorus, Aug 1942 (Rivka Yosselevska):
"The Germans ordered that all the corpses be heaped together into one big heap and with shovels they were heaped together, all the corpses, amongst them many still alive, children running about the place. I saw them. I saw the children. They were running after me, hanging on to me. Then I sad down in the field and remained sitting with the children around me. The children who got up from the heap of corpses.
Then Germans came and were going around the place. We were ordered to collect all the children, but they did not approach me, and I sat there watching how they collected the children. They gave a few shots and the children were dead. They did not need many shots. The children were almost dead, and this Rosenberg woman pleaded with the Germans to be spared, but they shot her.
They all left -- the Germans and the non-Jews from around the place. They removed the machine guns and they took the trucks. I saw that they all left, and the four of us, we went on to the grave, praying to fall into the grave, even alive, envying those who were dead already and thinking what to do now. I was praying for death to come. I was praying for the grave to be opened and to swallow me alive. Blood was spurting from the grave in many places, like a well of water, and whenever I pass a spring now, I remember the blood which spurted from the ground, from that grave." (Gilbert Holo 420-4)
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Hans
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Re: Thanks
Interesting point. Pery Broad, Political Department Auschwitz, wrote after the war that many SS men were really amused by the fuss and indignation the German press was making about Katyn and, in fact, their own warefare.webtoy100 wrote:Did the Nazis appreciate the gross hypocrisy they were engaged in by making a fuss about this given the hundreds of mass graves they had caused?
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Roberto
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Not only after the war. On the threadHans wrote:Interesting point. Pery Broad, Political Department Auschwitz, wrote after the war that many SS men were really amused by the fuss and indignation the German press was making about Katyn and, in fact, their own warefare.webtoy100 wrote:Did the Nazis appreciate the gross hypocrisy they were engaged in by making a fuss about this given the hundreds of mass graves they had caused?
Major Anti-partisan Operation in Belorussia
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 9414b8da0c
I translated the following passage from pages 898 and following of Christian Gerlach’s book Kalkulierte Morde (my post of Fri Aug 30, 2002 8:38 pm on the a.m. thread):
[…]Reich Commissar Hinrich Lohse forwarded Kube’s report with the following note:
“What is Katyn compared to this? […] To lock men, women and children into barns and to set fire to these, does not appear to be a suitable method of combating bands, even if it is desired to exterminate the population.” [italics in original, translator's note][…]
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michael mills
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David Thompson wrote:
They have sweet FA to do with the exhumation of corpses at Birkenau because they were contaminating the ground-water. If you want to say something about that issue, at least make it relevant.
Hoess in his post-war testimony stated that that was the reason for the exhumation of the accumulated cadavers at Birkenau in the autumn of 1942.
The various bits of testimony you quoted relate to shootings at Minsk, the mass-graves at Lemberg, and the burial of bodies at Belzec.In regard to "the corpses affecting ground-water supplies," here are a few quotes from 1941-1942:
They have sweet FA to do with the exhumation of corpses at Birkenau because they were contaminating the ground-water. If you want to say something about that issue, at least make it relevant.
Hoess in his post-war testimony stated that that was the reason for the exhumation of the accumulated cadavers at Birkenau in the autumn of 1942.
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Roberto
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I could understand such verbosity if Mills were addressing me “reptile”, but what has David Thompson done to make the dissident researcher and expert from Australia so angry ?michael mills wrote:They have sweet FA to do with the exhumation of corpses at Birkenau because they were contaminating the ground-water. If you want to say something about that issue, at least make it relevant.
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David Thompson
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Roberto -- I don't know why Michael Mills' post has such a surly tone. The subject of the thread is the clean-up operations of Paul Blobel's Sonderkommando 1005, and there wasn't anything in subsequent posts restricting the discussion to Birkenau, either. Perhaps he thought my ironical observation about the ground water explanation for Blobel's clean-up operations was a personal attack on him. It wasn't.
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Roberto
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Poor Mills obviously sees himself surrounded by “leftist” and/or “judeocentric” enemies – the expectable paranoia of someone who writes stuff likeDavid Thompson wrote:Roberto -- I don't know why Michael Mills' post has such a surly tone. The subject of the thread is the clean-up operations of Paul Blobel's Sonderkommando 1005, and there wasn't anything in subsequent posts restricting the discussion to Birkenau, either. Perhaps he thought my ironical observation about the ground water explanation for Blobel's clean-up operations was a personal attack on him. It wasn't.
President Bush is not the driving force behind the push for war (and unlike Hitler in that respect). He is just a genial guy with a pretzel problem.
The men pulling the levers have names like Wolfowitz and Perle, obviously of Thai Buddhist origin.
Fri Oct 18, 2002 3:57 am
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... a578845ca2
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David Thompson
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Webtoy -- It's interesting that you would say: "Was it initiated as an afterthought - "oh yes, we'd better get rid of all these mass graves etc., as they might be embarassing after we've won the war" - or as a result of fear, even at that fairly early stage, that they might not win and should try and reduce the consequences." There may be another aspect to Blobel's clean-up.
A number of people involved in the Majdanek and Treblinka camps -- participants in "Aktion Reinhard" -- were transferred, after those camps closed, to anti-partisan duty with Odilo Globocnik's HSSPF post in Istria (the peninsula around Trieste). According to an interview in "Into That Darkness", pps. 260-262, Franz Stangl said "I realized quite well, and so did most of us, that we were an embarrassment to the brass: they wanted to find ways and means to 'incinerate' us. So we were assigned the most dangerous jobs -- anything to do with anti-partisan combat in that part of the world was very perilous." Stangl went on to say of the death of Christian Wirth: "They said partisans killed him but we thought his own men had taken care of him."
In "The Camp Men," French MacLean noted (at pp. 290-293) that the officers who had participated in "Aktion Reinhard" had six times the casualty rate of other concentration camp officers. Josef Oberhauser and Franz Suchomel testified that Wirth had given them a speech in which he said something to the effect of: "the Jews have come here to die, the Ukrainian guards will be eliminated after the operations, and maybe we too will have to die." MacLean goes on to note that a full 50% of "Aktion Reinhard" officers were KIA, while the average KIA rate for "regular" concentration camp officers was under 8%. He ends with a recommendation that further research be undertaken to see whether or not it was a deliberate policy to "waste" officers who had served in death camps.
A number of people involved in the Majdanek and Treblinka camps -- participants in "Aktion Reinhard" -- were transferred, after those camps closed, to anti-partisan duty with Odilo Globocnik's HSSPF post in Istria (the peninsula around Trieste). According to an interview in "Into That Darkness", pps. 260-262, Franz Stangl said "I realized quite well, and so did most of us, that we were an embarrassment to the brass: they wanted to find ways and means to 'incinerate' us. So we were assigned the most dangerous jobs -- anything to do with anti-partisan combat in that part of the world was very perilous." Stangl went on to say of the death of Christian Wirth: "They said partisans killed him but we thought his own men had taken care of him."
In "The Camp Men," French MacLean noted (at pp. 290-293) that the officers who had participated in "Aktion Reinhard" had six times the casualty rate of other concentration camp officers. Josef Oberhauser and Franz Suchomel testified that Wirth had given them a speech in which he said something to the effect of: "the Jews have come here to die, the Ukrainian guards will be eliminated after the operations, and maybe we too will have to die." MacLean goes on to note that a full 50% of "Aktion Reinhard" officers were KIA, while the average KIA rate for "regular" concentration camp officers was under 8%. He ends with a recommendation that further research be undertaken to see whether or not it was a deliberate policy to "waste" officers who had served in death camps.
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webtoy100
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Interesting
Thanks David - yes that's very interesting - it's not something I'd heard of, but I guess makes logical sense - most organisations wish to cover up embarrassing evidence, and I guess extreme organisations like the Nazis wished to do so by the ultimate means - kill the perpetrators too.
As Himmler said at Posen, "a glorious page in our history, never to be written."
It's also interesting on the basis that it shows that the Nazis - in their terminology - had not entirely lost touch with "bourgeois humanist values", or rather the ability to 'understand' such values and how they might be offended by revelations of mass slaughter.
Indeed, the whole cover-up of the Holocaust from the German people reflects this - Hitler could talk about killing the Jews - as he did with remarkable frankness in both 1939 and 1942, among other occasions, but he couldn't be seen to actually do it. Maybe one reason was that he constantly lauded German culture and civilisation, and couln't be seen as participating in what was often seen as 'Asiatic barbarism' which he and other Nazis asscoiated with Bolshevism and 'Chekism' (cf the CHEKA soviet secret police).
As Himmler said at Posen, "a glorious page in our history, never to be written."
It's also interesting on the basis that it shows that the Nazis - in their terminology - had not entirely lost touch with "bourgeois humanist values", or rather the ability to 'understand' such values and how they might be offended by revelations of mass slaughter.
Indeed, the whole cover-up of the Holocaust from the German people reflects this - Hitler could talk about killing the Jews - as he did with remarkable frankness in both 1939 and 1942, among other occasions, but he couldn't be seen to actually do it. Maybe one reason was that he constantly lauded German culture and civilisation, and couln't be seen as participating in what was often seen as 'Asiatic barbarism' which he and other Nazis asscoiated with Bolshevism and 'Chekism' (cf the CHEKA soviet secret police).