Operation Reinhard
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Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard or Einsatz Reinhard in German) was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the beginning of the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka, almost all of whom were Jews.[1]
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[edit] Beginnings
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 Nazi regime developed, so did camp brutality. By the time of WWII, people were dying from starvation, untreated disease and murder in Germany and Austria, at places such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps.
From this situation, the next stage in this downward spiral was the creation of camps that had only one purpose: to kill thousands of people quickly and efficiently. In this respect, the camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka differed from those of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, as these also functioned as forced labour factories.[2]
[edit] Operation name
It is hypothesized that the operation was named in memory 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 the German 'Third Reich' during the Second World War. After the plans for the Final Solution were laid down at the Wannsee conference, Heydrich was assassinated by members of the Czech underground resistance on May 27, 1942. He died of his injuries eight days later.
But 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 State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt.
However, official documents using Heydrich's name were also written as "Reinhardt". Historians Witte and Tyas concluded:
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...
[edit] Death Factories
On October 13, 1941, SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik received a verbal order from Reichsführer 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, Sobibór and Maidanek, in the Lublin district, and Treblinka, at Małkinia Górna, followed in 1942. Globocnik then oversaw Operation Reinhard, which was the systematic killing of more than two million Jews and non-Jews from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, France, Russia, Germany and Austria.
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 sluice or tube) that led to the extermination area, with gas chambers, pits and cremation grids. The SS guards and Trawnikis lived in a separate area. Wooden watchtowers and barbed-wire fences, partially camouflaged with pine branches, surrounded these camps.
Unlike Dachau, Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, no electric fences were used, as camp inmate numbers were low. There were only slaves that were used to assist arriving transport, for clearing away bodies, or for seizing property and valuables from dead victims.
[edit] Extermination process
The operation of Belzec, Maidanek, Sobibor and Treblinka was similar to the killing methods used in the six concentration camps in Germany and Austria, but with hugely scaled-up facilities.
First, victims would be asked to voluntarily hand over their valuables (which then became property of the German Reichsbank). Next, they were ordered to get undressed. Later, their clothes would be searched for hidden jewelry and other valuables. The 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 an oil-driven engine, was discharged inside.
Twenty minutes later, the gas doors would be re-opened. Bodies were then removed by Sonderkommando; these were special teams of camp inmates given the job of disposing of the corpses. Initially during Operation Reinhard, bodies were just thrown into mass graves and covered with lime. From late 1942 on, all victims were burned in order to hide the evidence of this war crime.
But they still left a paper trail, an intercepted telegram sent by SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle on January 11, 1943, to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, in Berlin, listed 1,274,166 total arrivals to the four camps of Aktion Reinhard through the end of 1942, as well as the total arrivals by camp for the last two weeks of 1942.
Approximately two million Jews lost their lives in Belzec, Maidanek, Sobibor and Treblinka in the course of Operation Reinhard.
[edit] Disposition of the property of the victims
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Approximately 178m German Reichsmark worth of Jewish property (today's value: around 700m USD or 550m euro) was taken. This money went not only to German authorities, but also to single individuals (SS and police men, camp guards, non-Jewish inhabitants of towns and villages with ghettos or adjacent camps).
[edit] Aftermath & cover up
Operation Reinhard ended in November 1943. Most of the staff and guards were then sent to northern Italy for further Aktion against Jews and partisans. Globocnik went to the San Sabba concentration camp near Trieste, where he supervised the detention, torture and killing of political prisoners.
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. This was done on giant grills made from wood and railway tracks. Afterwards, bone fragments were ground up in specialized milling machines. All remains were then re-buried in freshly-dug pits.
The Aktion was overseen by squads from the Sicherheitsdienst and Ordnungspolizei.
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 justice.
[edit] See also
- Sobibor extermination camp
- Treblinka extermination camp
- Belzec extermination camp
- Maidanek concentration camp
- Operation Reinhard in Kraków
- Operation Reinhard in Warsaw (Gross Aktion)
- Katzmann Report
- Ernst Lerch
- Höfle Telegram
- Korherr Report
- Sonderaktion 1005
[edit] References
- ^ "Aktion Reinhard" (PDF). Yad Vashem. http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205724.pdf.
- ^ Sereny, Gita, The Healing Wound -- Experiences and Reflections on Germany 1938-1941, at 135-46, Norton, 2001 ISBN 0-393-04438-9
