Operation Reinhard
Encyclopedia
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi
plan to murder Polish Jews
in the General Government
, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust
, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Bełżec
, Majdanek
, Sobibor
and Treblinka
, almost all of whom were Jews.
and Mauthausen-Gusen
.
By 1942, the Nazis had decided to undertake the Final Solution
. This led to the establishment of the camps such as Bełżec, Sobibor
and Treblinka
which had the express purpose of killing thousands of people quickly and efficiently. These sites differed from those such as Auschwitz-Birkenau
and Majdanek
because these also operated as forced-labour camps
.
The organizational apparatus behind the extermination program was developed during Aktion T4 when more than 70,000 German handicapped men, women and children were murdered between 1939 and 1941. The SS officers responsible for Aktion T4, such as Christian Wirth
, Franz Stangl
, and Irmfried Eberl
, were all given key roles in establishing the death camps.
It is hypothesized that the operation was named after 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 the German Third Reich during World War II. After the plans for the Final Solution
were laid down at the Wannsee conference
, Heydrich was assassinated
by British-trained Czechoslovak agents. The attack was on 27 May 1942. Heydrich died of his injuries eight days later.
This has been disputed by some researchers who argue that, since the more mainstream designation of the operation was "Aktion Reinhardt" (with "t" after "d"), it could not have been named after Reinhard Heydrich. They argue that it was named after German State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt
. However, official documents using Reinhard Heydrich's name were also written as "Reinhardt".
On 13 October 1941, SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik
(headquarters in Lublin
) received a verbal order from Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler
to start immediate construction work on the first extermination camp at Belzec
, in the General Government
, Poland.
The construction of three more extermination camps, Sobibor
, Chełmno
, and Treblinka followed in 1942. During Operation Reinhard, Globocnik oversaw the systematic killing of more than 1.5 million Jews and non-Jews from Poland, and also Czechoslovakia
, France, the Reich (Germany and Austria), the Netherlands and the Soviet Union. Although other arms of the Nazi state were also involved in the overall management of the greater concentration camp system, Globocnik had control over the Aktion Reinhard camps, and any orders that he received came directly from Himmler.
The structure of all camps was nearly identical. From the reception area, with ramp and undressing barracks, the victims entered a narrow, camouflaged path (called tube) that led to the extermination area, with gas chambers, pits and cremation grids. The SS guards and Ukrainian Trawniki
s lived in a separate area. Wooden watchtowers and barbed-wire fences, partially camouflaged with pine branches, surrounded these camps.
Unlike the camps such as Dachau or Auschwitz, no electric fences were used, as camp inmate numbers remained relatively low. Only a small number of Sonderkommando
were used to assist arriving transport, for clearing away bodies, or for seizing property and valuables from dead victims. Periodically these groups would also be killed and replaced to remove any potential witnesses to the mass murder.
) was reused in the Holocaust
.)
In a similar fashion, the SS used a variety of ruses to move new arrivals to the disguised killing sites to prevent unmanageable panic. Common factors included the presence of "medical personnel" or signs directing people to disinfection centers. Once victims had arrived in a designated area, the guards then asked everyone to voluntarily hand over their valuables. Collected items would eventually be sent to the Reichsbank
via the Main SS Economic and Administrative Department
. Next, everyone was ordered to get undressed. Later, their clothes would be searched for hidden jewellery and other valuables. Naked victims were then force-marched into the gas chamber. Once packed tightly inside (to minimize available air), the chamber doors were closed. Finally, gas, which was initially carbon monoxide
made by a gas-driven engine, was discharged inside. Twenty to thirty minutes later, the gas doors would be re-opened. Bodies were then removed by special teams of camp inmates (Sonderkommando) given the job of disposing of the corpses in large mass graves.
During the initial phases of Operation Reinhard, corpses were simply thrown into mass graves and covered with lime. However from 1943, the buried bodies were exhumed and burned in open air pits in order to hide the evidence of this war crime. But Reinhard still left a paper trail, an intercepted telegram
sent by Hermann Höfle
on 11 January 1943, to Adolf Eichmann
in Berlin, listed 1,274,166 total arrivals to the four camps up until the end of 1942.
, a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish
workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with Jewish
laborers. It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government; the others were sent on to their deaths in Belzec
. In this way, many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor. Hermann Höfle
was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy.
worth of Jewish property (current approximate value: around 700m USD
or 550m Euro
) was taken. This money went not only to German authorities, but also to single individual SS and police men involved; however, the SS judge Georg Konrad Morgen
was not allowed to investigate further the apparent corruption in these camps.
Operation Reinhard ended in November 1943. Most of the staff and guards were then sent to northern Italy for further Aktion against Jews and local partisans
. Globocnik went to the San Sabba
concentration camp, where he supervised the detention, torture and killing of political prisoner
s.
At the same time, to cover up the mass murder of more than two million people in Poland during Operation Reinhard, the Nazis implemented the secret Sonderaktion 1005
, also called Aktion 1005 or Enterdungsaktion ("exhumation action"). The operation, which began in 1942 and continued until the end of 1943, was designed to remove all traces that mass murder had been carried out. Leichenkommando
("corpse units") were created from camp prisoners to exhume mass graves and cremate the buried bodies, using giant grills made from wood and railway tracks. Afterwards, bone fragments were ground up in special milling machines and all remains were then re-buried in freshly dug pits. The Aktion was overseen by squads from the SD
and Orpo
.
After the war, some guards were tried and sentenced at the Nuremberg Trials
for their role in Operation Reinhard and Sonderaktion 1005; however, many others escaped conviction such as Ernst Lerch
, Globocnik's Chief of Staff.
in November 1946, Rudolf Höss, the former Auschwitz
commandant, described Operation Reinhardt as the code name given to the collection, sorting and utilization of all articles which were acquired as the result of the transports of Jews and their extermination.
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
plan to murder Polish Jews
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
in the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Bełżec
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
, Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
, Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
and Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
, almost all of whom were Jews.
Background
Originally, when the concentration camps were established in 1933, they were used for forced labour, imprisonment, and for re-education purposes, not for mass murder. But as the National Socialist regime developed, so did camp brutality. By the time of World War II, people were dying from starvation, untreated disease and murder in Germany and Austria, at places such as Dachau, Bergen-BelsenBergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
and Mauthausen-Gusen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
.
By 1942, the Nazis had decided to undertake the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
. This led to the establishment of the camps such as Bełżec, Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
and Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
which had the express purpose of killing thousands of people quickly and efficiently. These sites differed from those such as Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
and Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
because these also operated as forced-labour camps
Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager is a German language word which means labor camp.The German government under Nazism used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially during World War II....
.
The organizational apparatus behind the extermination program was developed during Aktion T4 when more than 70,000 German handicapped men, women and children were murdered between 1939 and 1941. The SS officers responsible for Aktion T4, such as Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth was a German police and SS officer who was one of the leading contributors to the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard....
, Franz Stangl
Franz Stangl
Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...
, and Irmfried Eberl
Irmfried Eberl
SS-Obersturmführer Irmfried Eberl was an Austrian Nazi war criminal who helped to establish, and was the first commandant of, the Treblinka extermination camp, where he worked from until his dismissal on . As a psychiatrist, Eberl was the only physician to command an extermination camp. In...
, were all given key roles in establishing the death camps.
Operation's name
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
, 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 the German Third Reich during World War II. After the plans for the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
were laid down at the Wannsee conference
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
, Heydrich was assassinated
Operation Anthropoid
Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the targeted killing of top German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich. He was the chief of the Reich Main Security Office , the acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, and a chief planner of the Final Solution, the Nazi German programme for the genocide of the...
by British-trained Czechoslovak agents. The attack was on 27 May 1942. Heydrich died of his injuries eight days later.
This has been disputed by some researchers who argue that, since the more mainstream designation of the operation was "Aktion Reinhardt" (with "t" after "d"), it could not have been named after Reinhard Heydrich. They argue that it was named after German State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt
Fritz Reinhardt
Fritz Reinhardt was a state secretary in the German Finance Ministry in the time of the Third Reich.- Career :...
. However, official documents using Reinhard Heydrich's name were also written as "Reinhardt".
Death factories
Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Lotario Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. He was an acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the extermination of Jews and others during the Holocaust...
(headquarters in Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
) received a verbal order from Reichsführer-SS
Reichsführer-SS
was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
to start immediate construction work on the first extermination camp at Belzec
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
, in the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, Poland.
The construction of three more extermination camps, Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
, Chełmno
Chelmno extermination camp
Chełmno extermination camp, also known as the Kulmhof concentration camp, was a Nazi German extermination camp that was situated 50 kilometres from Łódź, near a small village called Chełmno nad Nerem . After annexation by Germany Kulmhof was included into Reichsgau Wartheland in 1939...
, and Treblinka followed in 1942. During Operation Reinhard, Globocnik oversaw the systematic killing of more than 1.5 million Jews and non-Jews from Poland, and also Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, France, the Reich (Germany and Austria), the Netherlands and the Soviet Union. Although other arms of the Nazi state were also involved in the overall management of the greater concentration camp system, Globocnik had control over the Aktion Reinhard camps, and any orders that he received came directly from Himmler.
The structure of all camps was nearly identical. From the reception area, with ramp and undressing barracks, the victims entered a narrow, camouflaged path (called tube) that led to the extermination area, with gas chambers, pits and cremation grids. The SS guards and Ukrainian Trawniki
Trawniki concentration camp
Trawniki concentration camp, in the village of Trawniki about 40 km southeast of Lublin in Poland, was an SS labour camp which provided forced labourers for a nearby industrial plant to work in appalling conditions with little food...
s lived in a separate area. Wooden watchtowers and barbed-wire fences, partially camouflaged with pine branches, surrounded these camps.
Unlike the camps such as Dachau or Auschwitz, no electric fences were used, as camp inmate numbers remained relatively low. Only a small number of Sonderkommando
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
were used to assist arriving transport, for clearing away bodies, or for seizing property and valuables from dead victims. Periodically these groups would also be killed and replaced to remove any potential witnesses to the mass murder.
Extermination process
All the death camps used subterfuge and misdirection to operate efficiently. This element had been developed in Aktion T4 when patients were transferred by SS men wearing white coats to give the process an air of medical authenticity. After supposedly being assessed, the unsuspecting victims were then moved to a killing center for "special treatment". (The euphemism "special treatment" (SonderbehandlungSonderbehandlung
Sonderbehandlung is a German noun meaning special treatment in English, also existing as a verb: sonderbehandeln . While it can refer to any sort of preferential treatment, it is known primarily as a euphemism used by Nazi functionaries and the SS for murder...
) was reused in the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.)
In a similar fashion, the SS used a variety of ruses to move new arrivals to the disguised killing sites to prevent unmanageable panic. Common factors included the presence of "medical personnel" or signs directing people to disinfection centers. Once victims had arrived in a designated area, the guards then asked everyone to voluntarily hand over their valuables. Collected items would eventually be sent to the Reichsbank
Reichsbank
The Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend...
via the Main SS Economic and Administrative Department
SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt was responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects for the Allgemeine-SS...
. Next, everyone was ordered to get undressed. Later, their clothes would be searched for hidden jewellery and other valuables. Naked victims were then force-marched into the gas chamber. Once packed tightly inside (to minimize available air), the chamber doors were closed. Finally, gas, which was initially carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
made by a gas-driven engine, was discharged inside. Twenty to thirty minutes later, the gas doors would be re-opened. Bodies were then removed by special teams of camp inmates (Sonderkommando) given the job of disposing of the corpses in large mass graves.
Höfle Telegram
The Höfle Telegram is a document discovered in 2000 among recently declassified World War II materials from the Public Record Office in Kew, England...
sent by Hermann Höfle
Hermann Höfle
Hermann Julius "Hans" Höfle was an Austrian-born SS-Sturmbannführer . He was deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert...
on 11 January 1943, to Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
in Berlin, listed 1,274,166 total arrivals to the four camps up until the end of 1942.
Temporary substitution policy
Around March 1942 in the General GovernmentGeneral Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
laborers. It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government; the others were sent on to their deaths in Belzec
Belzec
Bełżec is a village in Tomaszów Lubelski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Bełżec. It lies approximately south of Tomaszów Lubelski and south-east of the regional capital Lublin.During World War II it was the site of the Nazi Bełżec...
. In this way, many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor. Hermann Höfle
Hermann Höfle
Hermann Julius "Hans" Höfle was an Austrian-born SS-Sturmbannführer . He was deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert...
was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy.
Disposition of the property of the victims
Approximately 178m German ReichsmarkGerman reichsmark
The Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...
worth of Jewish property (current approximate value: around 700m USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
or 550m Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
) was taken. This money went not only to German authorities, but also to single individual SS and police men involved; however, the SS judge Georg Konrad Morgen
Georg Konrad Morgen
Georg Konrad Morgen was an SS judge and lawyer who investigated crimes committed in Nazi concentration camps.-Life:...
was not allowed to investigate further the apparent corruption in these camps.
Aftermath and cover up
Italian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
. Globocnik went to the San Sabba
Risiera di San Sabba
Risiera di San Sabba was a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners during World War II, located in Trieste, northern Italy. SS members Odilo Globocnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. Erwin...
concentration camp, where he supervised the detention, torture and killing of political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s.
At the same time, to cover up the mass murder of more than two million people in Poland during Operation Reinhard, the Nazis implemented the secret Sonderaktion 1005
Sonderaktion 1005
The Sonderaktion 1005, also called Aktion 1005, or Enterdungsaktion was conducted during World War II to hide any evidence that millions of people had been murdered by Nazi Germany in Aktion Reinhard in occupied Poland....
, also called Aktion 1005 or Enterdungsaktion ("exhumation action"). The operation, which began in 1942 and continued until the end of 1943, was designed to remove all traces that mass murder had been carried out. Leichenkommando
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
("corpse units") were created from camp prisoners to exhume mass graves and cremate the buried bodies, using giant grills made from wood and railway tracks. Afterwards, bone fragments were ground up in special milling machines and all remains were then re-buried in freshly dug pits. The Aktion was overseen by squads from the SD
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
and Orpo
Ordnungspolizei
The Ordnungspolizei or Orpo were the uniformed regular police force in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1945. It was increasingly absorbed into the Nazi police system. Owing to their green uniforms, they were also referred to as Grüne Polizei...
.
After the war, some guards were tried and sentenced at the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
for their role in Operation Reinhard and Sonderaktion 1005; however, many others escaped conviction such as Ernst Lerch
Ernst Lerch
Ernst Lerch was one of the most important men of Operation Reinhard , responsible for "Jewish affairs", and the mass murder of the Jews in the General Government .-Life and early career:...
, Globocnik's Chief of Staff.
Alternative reference
In a report he wrote in Polish custody in KrakówKraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
in November 1946, Rudolf Höss, the former Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
commandant, described Operation Reinhardt as the code name given to the collection, sorting and utilization of all articles which were acquired as the result of the transports of Jews and their extermination.
See also
- Action 14f13Action 14f13Action 14f13, also called "Sonderbehandlung 14f13", was a campaign of the Third Reich to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called "invalid" or "prisoner euthanasia", the campaign culled the sick, elderly and those deemed no longer fit for work from the rest of the prisoners in a...
- Ernst LerchErnst LerchErnst Lerch was one of the most important men of Operation Reinhard , responsible for "Jewish affairs", and the mass murder of the Jews in the General Government .-Life and early career:...
- Katzmann ReportKatzmann ReportThe Katzmann Report is one of the most important testimonies relating to the Holocaust in Poland and extermination of Polish Jews...
- Operation Reinhard in Kraków
- Operation Reinhard in Warsaw (Gross Aktion)
- Korherr ReportKorherr ReportThe Korherr Report is a document on the numbers of Jews in Germany and Europe as of January 1, 1943, written by the chief inspector of the statistical bureau of the SS, Dr Richard Korherr.- Significance :...