5 Among them was Christian Wirth, heretofore inspector of the T4 programme, who, in turn, became inspector of the Aktion Reinhard(t) operation in August 1942. ![]() 4Īlthough most of these men were discharged from their T4 positions on 24 August 1941, they were hastily summoned back by an emergency recall two weeks later to serve Globocnik's purposes. Later, however, at the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943, I found out that they were used to assist in the mass extermination of the Jews, which was by then already common knowledge in the higher Party circles. I then had the impression that these people were to be used in the extensive Jewish labour camps run by Globocnik. In order to reserve the personnel relieved of these duties and to have the opportunity of starting a new euthanasia programme after the war, Bouhler requested, I think after a conference with Himmler, that I send these personnel to Lublin and put them at the disposal of SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik. I received this order either from Bouhler or from Dr (Karl) Brandt. In 1941, I received an oral order to discontinue the euthanasia programme. ![]() 3 Globocnik was also given a staff of a few hundred men to aid him in his work, many of whom came from the T4 euthanasia programme at the behest of Dr. 2Īt the same time, Himmler appointed Hauptsturmführer Hans Höfle as Globocnik's Chief of Operations in charge of organisation and manpower, an essential player in the upcoming Aktion Reinhard(t) programme. Insofar as he did not need them for labour at "his" bases, he wanted to liquidate the Jews in these areas on the spot. He didn't see any difficulties here and rejected all criticism with a superior sweep of the hand. 1 Rudolf Höß, kommandant of Auschwitz, wrote in his Krakow jail cell that Globocnik had concocted:įantastic plans of bases stretching all the way to the Urals. His zeal is attested to by his contemporaries, including Jakob Sporrenberg, Globocnik's successor as Lublin SSPF after the former's departure for Trieste in 1943, among others. So much so that on 17 July 1941, he was appointed as Plenipotentiary for the Construction of SS and Police Strongpoints in the new Eastern Area ( Der Beauftragte des Reichsführers-SS für die Errichtung der SS- und Polizeistützpunkte im neuen Ostraum). Globocnik demonstrated very early that he was a fervent supporter of Himmler's "General plan for the East" ( Generalplan Ost) to resettle the Lublin area with volksdeutsche immigrants and to extirpate its Jews to that end. ![]() On 9 November 1939, Heinrich Himmler, both overseer of the newly annexed Polish territories and director of the Final Solution, appointed Globocnik to the position of SS and police chief for the Lublin district ( SS- und Polizeiführer für den Distrikt Lublin). Its principal organiser and commander was Odilo Globocnik, a ranking member of the Schutzstaffel from 1 September 1934 onward and a recurring name in this history. Massive and systematic executions at the Treblinka camp fell under the aegis of Aktion Reinhard (alternatively Einsatz Reinhard and Aktion Reinhardt), a facet of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" ( Endlösung der Judenfrage) devoted to physically exterminating the Jews of the Generalgouvernement of former Poland. ![]() Any shortcomings of detail, therefore, must needs be remedied by reference to other treatises. I have written it to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that Treblinka was an extermination camp devoted to the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews within the framework of the Final Solution. All this we know from what remains of eyewitness testimony and physical evidence despite Nazi efforts to destroy both, and most especially train schedules whose 'final destination' declarations take on a macabre connotation with the understanding of what really occurred at the end of the line.īefore continuing, it must be noted that this paper is not intended to be an exhaustive exegesis of Treblinka. With thousands of cattle cars stocked to the gills with Polish Jews converging on it day after day for months on end, its facilities orchestrated the annihilation of at least 800,000 of them, and quite likely more. Ziel Treblinka / "Final Destination Treblinka"Īs part of the greater Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe, the Treblinka concentration camp was second only the the more famous Auschwitz-Birkenau in terms of deadliness.
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