The Holocaust-Some Proof...

Hans Munch Said...

"I...Dr. Hans Münch hereby attest that as an SS physician on duty in Auschwitz in 1944, I witnessed the selection process of those who were to live and those who were to die. Other SS physicians on duty in the camps made selections at the barracks. I was exempt from performing selections because I had refused to do so.

I further attest that I saw thousands of people gassed here at Auschwitz. Children, old people, the sick and those unable to work were sent to the gas chambers. These were innocent human beings: Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Hitler's political opponents...anyone who did not fit Hitler's idea of a pure Aryan race.

I am signing this paper of my own free will to help document the cruel intolerance of my fellow SS.

I, a former SS Physician, witnessed the dropping of Zyklon B into simulated exhaust vents from outside the gas chambers.
Zyklon B began to work as soon as it was released from the canisters. The effects of the gas were observed through a peephole by an assigned doctor of the SS officer on duty.
After three to five minutes, death could be certified, and the doors were opened as a sign that the corpses were cleared to be burned.

This is the nightmare I continue to live with fifty years later.

I am so sorry that in some way I was part of it.
Under the prevailing circumstances I did the best I could to save as many lives as possible.
Joining the SS was a mistake.
I was young.
I was an opportunist.
And once I joined, there was no way out."

Hans Stark said...

"This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews, once again men, women and children.
As the Zyklon B – as already mentioned – was in granular form, it trickled down over the people as it was being poured in.

They then started to cry out terribly for they now knew what was happening to them.
I did not look through the opening because it had to be closed as soon as the Zyklon B had been poured in.
After a few minutes there was silence.
After some time had passed, it may have been ten to fifteen minutes, the gas chamber was opened.
The dead lay higgledy-piggedly all over the place. It was a dreadful sight"

Lillian wrote:Hagbard Celine you are a man who seems to understand the meaning of many a conspricarcy, basically many outsiders and beginners will only read the 'front-cover' of the story, then decide what is right or wrong.

Damn'sod..!!! wrote:


[size=18]But Yes, There Does Not Seem To Be Any Pictures Of People Inside The Gas Chambers...



This Is Supposed To Be A Picture Of A Gassing At Chelmno...

But It Looks More Like An Iconic Propaganda Image...!!!

Hagbard Celine wrote:

Damn'sod..!!! wrote:





This Is Supposed To Be A Picture Of A Gassing At Chelmno...

But It Looks More Like An Iconic Propaganda Image...!!!

They look rather well-fed for Chelmno prisoners.

Chelmno Was Not A Prisoner Camp Though,
More Of An Extermination Centre...

On 8 December 1941 the first victims were brought to Chelmno death camp.
These were Jews from the nearby ghetto in Kolo,
The previous day all the residents of the Kolo Ghetto were ordered to assemble in front of the Jewish Council building (Judenrat) which was located next to the local synagogue.
They were told they would be transported to different places in order to work in the fields and construct a railway.
They were allowed to take hand baggage only.

From the hall the Jews in groups of 35 –40 were led through a staircase to a corridor at the end of which there was a door to two linked rooms.
There, the people were told to undress.
Armed SS-men made sure the orders were carried out properly.
The naked Jews were then led through a brightly –lit corridor, on whose walls were the inscriptions

“To the bath-house”.

The same inscriptions could be found along the staircase leading to a brightly-lit basement.

There was a wooden ramp guarded by a two metre –high fence.
The rushed Jews started to sense the danger, they could not however realise, what kind of danger it was. Whoever attempted to stop before the ramp was violently pushed into it by the armed Germans.
Those already on the ramp quickly moved towards the bottom of it.
It was impossible to withdraw or even pause for a second.


A Gas Van From Chelmno(Although There Is Some Debate On This...???)

The ramp led to a vehicle – a gas van with the back door opened.
The victims were thus moving along the ramp straight to the inside of the gas-van.
The moment the last of the group of 35 –40 victims stepped into the vehicle, the German soldiers locked the hermetic door.

Then the driver connected the exhaust pipe with a vent in the floor of the gas chamber.
After the engine had been started, the exhaust gases spread quickly within the chamber suffocating the people locked inside.

The driver then took the suffocated victims to the forest camp (Waldlager) where the corpses were buried in the graves prepared in advance.
The drivers were usually SS-NCO’s Walter Burmeister and Gustav Laabs.

The personnel of the Chelmno death camp applied the procedure on a daily basis from 8 December 1941 to spring 1943, with hardly any intervals.

Hagbard Celine wrote:David Irving was out of order over what he said about Jews asking themselves "why people don't like them" and what he said about AIDS. But he does raise some legitimate questions. The gas chamber at Auschwitz is indeed a fake. Its supposedly cosmetic shower heads have real plumbing behind them and the doors and windows are just normal ones, not airtight as they'd have to be. There's no chemical traces of Zyklon B in the room. There are gas chambers at my hospital for preserving pathology specimens and they are sealled with metal and rubber doors.

I don't deny that the Nazis killed all those poor people in the photo Damned Sod shows, but they didn't kill them by gassing them. The easiest way to kill undesirables in Nazi Germany was surely to just tie them up and leave them out in the street during an air raid. How many millions of innocents did British air raids over Germany kill? More than any estimate of how many the Nazis killed I bet.

the man who mentioned the Illuminati is partly correct, but the Illuminati are NOT Jews. Some might be but their Judaism is irrelevant to them being in the Illuminati.

Droike wrote:

How many gas chambers were there Handbag. Thats right more than 1. The one you class as fake was simply rebuilt after the Russians destroyed it. It was a gas chamber then it was converted to a bomb shelter it was then destroyed by the Russians. Years later the building was partly re-constructed into its original state. So today's visitor sees a re-construction.

Damn'sod..!!! wrote:

Hagbard Celine wrote:
They look rather well-fed for Chelmno prisoners.

Chelmno Was Not A Prisoner Camp Though,
More Of An Extermination Centre...

[/size]

Hagbard Celine wrote:

Droike wrote:

How many gas chambers were there Handbag. Thats right more than 1. The one you class as fake was simply rebuilt after the Russians destroyed it. It was a gas chamber then it was converted to a bomb shelter it was then destroyed by the Russians. Years later the building was partly re-constructed into its original state. So today's visitor sees a re-construction.

So where are the real gas chambers? Do any traces of them still remain?

You see I doubt that gas was regularly used as the means of murder in the Holocaust, at least not on the scale that official history tells us it was. It's far more likely that other methods were used. The most convincing speculation is that the Nazis mostly locked the victims in their cells and let them starve to death. The official stories of people lined up and fed into gas chambers are mostly false, and the soap and lampshade myths are crap; but I don't say that to defend the Nazis, I say it because the horror of the official image has been used to manipulate people's minds in the postwar world and create even more mayhem and murder.

Droike wrote:I remember the words of jello biafra when he says " what you need my son is a holiday in Cambodia". What you need Handbag is a holiday in Poland to go and see the places for yourself

instead of going on what this Irving writes which has been shown to be bollocks

Basically people from predominantly far right Neo Nazi Jew hating kind of circles automatically dismiss any and all evidence for the Holocaust as faked or fraudulent, frequently employ quote mining, and selectivity and generally operate a 'methodology' that if applied universally would mean no history ever happened.

They do this by postulating a vast conspiracy (usually Jewish) whose operation they can provide no evidence for whatsoever and cheerily re-write history according to how they'd like it to have been - usually entailing the Nazis being the good guys - based on no evidence whatsoever or perhaps 'this could have meant that if you use your imagination'.

They'll do things like just decide all survivors were/are liars (particularly if they're Jewish) and all Nazis were tortured into confessing (irrespective of whether they were ever even incarcerated) - while, of course, not being able to explain how this historically unprecedented phenomenon occurred.

Then they'll claim something no-one actually there ever saw and has no basis other than they've claimed it happened instead and you should believe that because it's apparently more plausible.

They'll say things like "where are the mass graves" while automatically dismissing any investigations of mass graves that have ever occurred as frauds and claiming the Holocaust only happened if remains are dug up for their personal satisfaction.
Though, of course, should this occur it would be a fraud.
Perpetrated by Jews.

It's optional as to whether you choose to deny mass shootings of Jews or the (intimately entwined with the extermination of Jews) Nazi extermination of Gypsies and mentally ill/disabled people or just obsess about gas chambers and ignore everything else.

It's quite regular to see e.g. people boldly claim the Holocaust didn't happen and six million Jews weren't gassed.
While anyone who doesn't know why that's a total howler has no business passing comment on the Holocaust.

Browsing some Holocaust denial websites and watching some Holocaust denial videos on youtube constitutes scholarly 'research' that equips you with all you ever need to know...

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=154038

In the Name of the People

Criminal case against

1.) The locksmith Karl Werner Dub. from Schwelm, born on 26 February 1913 in Wuppertal-Langerfeld, German citizen, married,

2.) The assistant stage master Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel from Göttingen, born on 20.August 1911 in Zehdenick, Templin District, German citizen, widower, currently on remand in the remand prison institution Hagen in this case,

3.) The unskilled worker Alfred Itt. from Kulmbach (Bavaria), born on 13 January 1907 in Kulmbach, German citizen, married,

4.) The caretaker Robert Emil Franz Xaver Jüh. from Babenhausen, born on 17 October 1911 in Frankfurt/Main, German citizen, married,

5.) The mason Erich Gustav Willi Lac. from ... Wegscheid District (Lower Bavaria), born on 6 November 1909 in Liegnitz, German citizen, married,

6.) The tile-layer Erwin Hermann Lambert from Stuttgart-West, born on 7 December 1909 in Schildow near Berlin, German citizen, married,

7.) The sales representative Hans-Heinz Friedrich Karl Sch. from Soltau, born on 6 April 1908 in Dummersdorf, Lübeck District, German citizen, married,

8.) The male nurse Heinrich Unv. from Königslutter, Helmstedt District, born on 26 May 1911 in Vienenburg, Goslar District, German citizen, married,

9.) The storekeeper Franz Wol. from Eppelheim near Heidelberg, born on 9 April 1907 in Krummau (Czechoslovak Republic), German citizen, married, currently on remand in the remand prison institution Hagen,

10.) The sawmill worker Ernst Zie. from Südwinsen, Celle District, born on 6 May 1905 in Krampe, Köslin District (Pomerania), German citizen, married,

for murder and accessoriness to murder.

The Jury Court at the Hagen District Court has on grounds of the main proceedings from 6 September 1965 to 20 December 1966, at the session on 20 December 1966, reached the following verdict:

I. Sentences:

1.) The defendant Frenzel is sentenced, under acquittal from other charges, for the joint murder of an undetermined multitude of persons, at least 150,000, and the murder of another nine persons, to lifetime imprisonment in a penitentiary; he is deprived for life of the citizen rights of honor;

2.) The defendant Wol. is sentenced, under acquittal from other charges, for concerted accessoriness to the murder of an undetermined multitude of persons, at least 39,000, to eight years imprisonment in a penitentiary; the imprisonment suffered while awaiting trial is deducted from the penalty determined; he is deprived of the citizen rights of honor for eight years;

3.) The defendant Itt. is sentenced for concerted assistance to the murder of an undetermined multitude of persons, at least 68,000, to four years imprisonment in a penitentiary; the imprisonment suffered while awaiting trial is deducted from the penalty determined; he is deprived of the citizen rights of honor for four years;

4.) The defendant Dub. is sentenced, under acquittal from other charges, for concerted accessoriness to the murder of an undetermined multitude of persons, at least 15,000, to three years imprisonment in a penitentiary; the imprisonment suffered while on trial is deducted from the penalty determined; he is deprived of the citizen rights of honor for three years;

5.) The defendant Lambert is sentenced for concerted accessoriness to the murder of an undetermined multitude of persons, at least 57,000, to three years imprisonment in a penitentiary; the imprisonment suffered while on trial is deducted from the penalty determined; he is deprived of the citizen rights of honor for three years.

II. The defendants Jüh., Lac., Sch., Unv. and Zie. are acquitted.

III. The defendants bear the cost of the proceeding insofar as they were sentenced; otherwise the costs are born by the state treasury.



REASONS

In the main proceedings originally conducted against 12 defendants the jury court was called upon to decide whether these defendants had during the so-called "final solution of the Jewish question", which at Hitler’s orders had been carried out by the National Socialist rulers since about the spring of 1941, participated as perpetrators or accessories in the murder of at least 250,000 Jews in total or a part thereof in the closed extermination camp Sobibor, Lublin District/Poland, which operated from April 1942 to November 1943 as part of the so-called "Aktion Reinhard".

As one of the original assistant judges and the defendant %$%. became ill at the same time, the proceedings against the defendant %$%. had to be separated from the proceedings against the present defendants, who at the time still numbered 11, and the proceedings had to continue since 29.8.1966 and a decision had to be reached against the defendant %$%. to maintain the continuity of the main proceedings (Section 229 of the Criminal Procedure Code), through the complementary judge called in for the entire proceedings.

One of the defendants, Bol., later exited the proceedings at first continued against 11 defendants jointly, because in the night of 9 to 10.10.1966, shortly before completion of the taking of evidence, he hanged himself in his cell in the remand prison institution Hagen.

The jury court has established the following facts:

First Section: The General Frame of the Deeds

A. The Main Perpetrators

I. The Anti-Jewish Policy until 1941

[Not translated.]

II. The Final Solution Order

[Not translated.]

III. The Execution of the Order in the General Government

1.) Position of the SS and Police Commanders (SSPF)

Following the occupation of western Poland – the German-Russian demarcation line ran north to south about the same as the line of the bug – the Reich leadership integrated considerable parts of Polish territory into the Reich. By Hitler’s decree of 12 October 1939 the remainder of western Poland became the "General Government" (GG) with the districts Warsaw, Radom, Krakow, Galicia and Lublin.

The power of state lay with General Governor Dr. Frank and the "President of the Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense and Commissioner for the Four Year Plan", Reich Marshal Hermann Göring. Namely at the urging of Himmler and Heydrich, Hitler furthermore authorized the "Highest Reich Authorities" to issue directives for the GG. Thus also Himmler, in his capacity as "Reich Leader SS und Head of the German Police" (RFSS) and as "Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Ethnicity" (RK.f.d.F.d.dt.V.), and Heydrich as "Head of Security Police and Security Service" and as director of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptampt = Reich Security Main Office), directly received competences and possibilities to intervene in the GG’s matters that concerned police tasks in a wider sense as well as "ethnicity matters". In the time thereafter both Himmler and Heydrich achieved sole competence in these two fields, however much General Governor Frank later defended himself against this. In each of the GG’s districts Himmler put in place an SS and Police Commander and subordinated all of them to the Higher SS and Police Commander (HSSPF) in Krakow, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Krüger, who at the same time was Secretary of State for Security Matters in the GG’s government.

As the SSPF in the districts were subordinated to HSSPF Krüger, but not to the General Governor, there was thus a chain o command from Himmler via Heydrich or the RSHA and the HSSPF down to the SSPF and their subordinates, the Commanders of the Security Police (BdS/KdS) and the Order Police (BdO/KdO). Himmler, however, reserved going round this chain of command when he wanted to give special tasks to a body subordinated to the HSSPF. This happened especially regarding the operation carried out between the end of 1941/early 1942 and the end of 1943 under the SSPF of Lublin District, SS-Gruppenführer und Lieutenant General of Police Odilo Globocnik, which after Heydrich’s death on 5.6.1942 was called "Aktion Reinhard". Himmler considered Globocnik the proper man, who promised to and did carry out this operation eagerly and with extreme reckless harshness.

2.) The SSPF Globocnik and his tasks

"Globus", as Himmler amicably called Globocnik, had emerged from the Austrian National Socialist Party and SS, belonged to this party’s leadership and gained especial recognition from the German Reich leadership in the preparation and execution of Austria’s "attachment" to the Reich. He thereupon became Gauleiter in Vienna. There he was at least suspected of forbidden foreign currency transactions. Globocnik got to the Waffen-SS. After the occupation of western Poland Himmler nominated him SSPF in Lublin in November 1939, knowing that "Globus" would be unconditionally obedient to him due to this promotion. Indeed Globocnik felt very obliged to the RFSS.

His tasks within the scope of Aktion Reinhard resulted from the following notions and goals, which were known to him in detail: the National Socialist leadership not only ordered the killing of the Jews for race-ideological, especially anti-Semitic reasons, and not only had these murder plans carried out under the highest general level of secrecy, but also intended and instructed that the Jewish victims were to be kept in ignorance of their fate until the last through deception measures, this exclusively for the practical reason of thus achieving a smooth functioning of the murder organization. The leadership was also conscious and wanted that in case deception failed the victims should be immediately and brutally massacred at the site of any resistance, such being considered possible and something to put up with. The leadership also knew that, especially in Poland, where the extermination measures and installations as such were soon known, this was often the case, and it also wanted things to be done in this manner.

The then Reich Propaganda Minister Goebbels expressed this as follows in a diary entry of 27.3.1942:

"Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. .....

The ghettoes that will be emptied in the cities of the General Government now will be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. .....".

Furthermore the National Socialist leadership wanted the maximum advantage to be taken of the Jews’ labor force as long as they were still alive, and the economically perfect collection and utilization of the dead Jews’ belongings that had remained with them until the camps. Finally it was intended and planned from the start not to let any Jew survive in the end so that none could report about the extermination of the Jews. Himmler’s measures, which Globocnik unconditionally carried out, thus focused on the following, within the scope of Aktion Reinhard in the Lublin District:

a) Mass extermination in the sense of the final solution order and complete taking away of the victims’ belongings,

b) Exploitation of the Jews still alive as cheapest labor as long as they were able to work, doing work important for the armament industry in a few sub-camps meant only for this purpose.

This parallel proceeding allowed for sending spent labor for liquidation to the extermination sites and instead select fresh able-bodied Jews for work camps, namely from Western Europe, from the transports earmarked for extermination.

3.) The planned killing mechanism – The killing organization

According to Hitler’s and Himmler’s will the extermination of the Jews was to take place in fixed death camps such had already started operating in Auschwitz-Birkenau and Kulmhof outside Aktion Reinhard. The cruel and conspicuous liquidations of Jewish people in the General Government and in Russia by mobile task forces had confronted the Reich leadership and especially the SS with the threat of hindrances from Wehrmacht authorities up to complete impediment of the measures. Thus Colonel-General Blaskowitz as "Supreme Commander East" had during the task forces’ actions in Poland ordered the collection of material that heavily incriminated the SS, and submitted it in reports to the Wehrmacht High Command, which turned the Wehrmacht against the SS units and forced Himmler to refrain from further activity by his task forces in Poland. Blaskowitz was however removed from his post at the SS’ instigation when the General Government received a civilian government and central Poland externally lost the status of occupied territory.

Thus the National Socialist leadership wanted the loud, conspicuous killing method of the task forces replaced by an equally merciless and crude, but silent killing mechanism, which on the one hand was to take advantage of the victims’ guilelessness and defenselessness and on the other hand could take place in all secrecy and hidden from the watchful and distrustful eyes of third parties. The murder methods adequate for this purpose were the ones that had been developed in their basics from 1939 until the autumn of 1941 by the "Führer’s Chancellery" (KdF) seated in Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 4, during the "Euthanasia-Action" carried out on Hitler’s order for the systematic killing of persons mentally ill or declared to be such (so-called life unworthy of living), in institutions like Brandenburg, Hadamar, Bernburg, Grafeneck, Hartheim and others. In each of these sanatoria, which had been emptied of their patients, a special construction detachment installed a fixed gas chamber. An appropriate room was sealed off and equipped with gas ducts. In such a room about 30 mental patients could on each occasion be killed within 20 to 30 minutes by introducing a lethal gas (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, Zyklon B) from gas bottles into the room. The corpses were thereafter burned in so-called crematoria. According to the will of the National Socialist leadership, which knew this method and wanted it employed for silently killing the Jews, Globocnik adopted this method of mass killing for the closed camps he had erected in the General Government in 1942 due to the final solution order.

4.) The camps of Aktion Reinhard

The purpose of the camps thus installed required that they not be near any larger settlements if possible. On the other hand they had to be right next to railway lines, preferably branch lines, because the transports of Jews were to be brought to the camps by railway trains with the highest possible number of wagons. The first site considered was an area near the town of Belzec. There – in the southeastern part of the General Government near Lemberg – there was already a work camp subordinated to the SSPF Lublin. As is lay by the Tomaszow-Lemberg railway line, this site seemed especially appropriate.

At the start of 1942, according to an established plan, a construction detachment consisting of German supervisors, Ukrainian helpers and Jewish inmate workers erected barracks at this place, fenced in the entire camp complex and divided it, partially by internal fences, into three sectors, one accommodation and living sector for the camp staff, one sector for sorting the belongings taken from the victims and one specially closed sector for extermination, in the middle of which there was the gas chamber.

This camp started conducting mass gassings in March 1942. Some time later, according to the same plan, the Sobibor extermination camp, which this trial is especially concerned with, came into being by the north-south railway line Brest-Litowsk-Wlodawa-Chelm, which was interrupted by the demarcation line along the Bug near Wlodawa and reached the line going west from Chelm to Lublin.

According to the same principles the camp Treblinka was erected shortly thereafter by the Warsaw-Bialystok railway line and started operating on 11.7.1942. Although this camp lay in the district of the SSPF Warsaw, it was nevertheless immediately subordinated to Aktion Reinhard, commanded by Globocnik.

The extermination procedure was essentially the same in the three camps: under the false pretense that they would be "resettled" or "evacuated" ,the Jews, who generally had already been concentrated in ghettos or camps in their countries of origin, were usually brought by railway transport (mostly in freight cars, more rarely – especially in case of transports from Western Europe – in passenger cars), onto railway tracks inside the camp enclosure. Under the further false pretense that all arrivals had to take a shower for reasons of hygiene and therefore undress, the naked Jews were then driven in batches to the camouflaged gas chambers, which – again in order to deceive the death candidates – looked like shower rooms. Inside these chambers, after bolting the doors, they were then killed by the exhaust gasses of a gasoline motor set up outside the chambers, which gasses were introduced through a specially installed system of tubes and came out of the showerheads. After about 20 to 30 minutes the corpses were dragged out of the chambers by a Jewish work detachment, whereupon their body openings were examined for valuables and gold teeth were broken out. Thereafter the corpses were in the beginning piled up in huge prepared pits and later immediately burned in huge open fires over iron grids.

5.) Economic exploitation of the living and the dead Jews

For exploiting the Jewish labor force and recycling the belongings left behind by the Jews killed there came into being within the scope of Aktion Reinhard, according to the order and the ideas of the National Socialist leadership under Globocnik, a network of workshops important for the armament industry, the so-called Ostindustriebetriebe (Osti-enterprises) – formerly called the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) -, which were distributed over the sometimes quite large ghettos of the Lublin District and over newly founded work camps, such as the Lublin concentration camp, the Belzec concentration camp, Dorohucza, Sawin, Krychow and others. Himmler’s repeated visits in Lublin and the district’s camps clearly shows his and the leadership’s interest in and knowledge of these installations. In these enterprises there were mainly collected and recycled the enormous amounts of clothing, utensils and valuables left behind by the Jews killed in masses.

The mentioned Lublin concentration camp was already in existence before Aktion Reinhard began. It was complemented by the camp section "Alter Flugplatz" ("Old Airport"). The air plane hangars in that section were used to store the goods accruing in the extermination camps. For this Jewish camp inmates were used as labor force. How the killed Jews’ belongings were to be collected was stated in the following guidelines issued by the Deputy Chief of the Economics and Administration Main Office (SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt) SS-Brigadeführer August Frank, in a letter of 26.9.1942 to the administrative entities in Lublin und Auschwitz, which guided the procedure in Aktion Reinhard:

"Without prejudice to the general regulation to be expected in the course of October about recycling of the resettled’ Jews mobile and immobile patrimony, which in all future instructions must be referred to as the goods of thieves, receivers of stolen goods and hoarders, the following is established right away:

1. a) all cash amounts in German Reich bank notes must be deposited on the account W.-V.--Hauptamt 158/1488 at the Reichsbank Berlin-Schöneberg.

b) Foreign currency (coined or not), precious metals, jewelry, precious or semi-precious stones, dental gold and broken gold must be handed over to the SS-Economics and Administration Main Office, which is responsible for immediate forwarding to the German Reichsbank.

c) Watches of all kind, alarm clocks, fountain pens, pencils, manual or electrical razors, pocket knives, flashlights, wallets and purses, shall be repaired, cleaned and appraised by the SS Economics and Administration Main Office in special workshops and then sent to the frontline troops as quickly as possible. Handing over to the troops shall take place against payment by the sutlerships. There must be established 3-4 price classes and it must be made sure that each commander or soldier can by one watch at most. Exempted from sale are gold watches, the utilization of which I reserve to myself; total revenues shall be delivered to the Reich.

d) Men’s linen, men’s clothes including shoes must be sorted and appraised. After covering the needs of concentration camp inmates and exceptionally of troops they must be handed over to the Ethnic German Center (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle). In any case the revenue must be delivered to the Reich.

e) Women’s clothes, women’s linen including footwear, children’s clothing and children’s linen including shoes must be handed to the Ethnic German Center against payment. Pure silk linen must according to the SS Economics and Administration Main Office’s instructions be handed over to the Reich Ministry of Economy. The same applies to linen under d).

f) Eiderdowns, quilts, blankets, suit fabric, shawls, umbrellas, sticks, thermos bottles, ear muffs, baby carriages, combs, hand bags, leather belts, shopping bags, tobacco pipes, sunglasses, mirrors, cutlery, rucksacks, suitcases made of leather or synthetic material, must be handed over to the Ethnic German Center. The issue of compensation will still be regulated. Own needs of quilts, blankets, thermos bottles, earmuffs, combs, cutlery and rucksacks may be taken by Lublin and Auschwitz against remuneration from budget funds.

g) Linen such as bed sheets, bed covers, pillows, towels, wiping cloths, table cloths, must be handed to the Ethnic German Center against payment. Bed sheets, bed covers, towels, wiping clothes and table clothes can be used for the troops’ needs against payment from budget funds.

h) Spectacles and eyeglasses of all kinds must be handed to the sanitary office for utilization (spectacles with golden frames must be delivered, without glasses, together with the precious metals). An accounting of the spectacles and eyeglasses is not necessary due to their low value and the reduced usefulness.

i) Fine furs of all kinds, processed or unprocessed, must be delivered to the SS Economics and Administration Main Office. Furs of base kind (sheepskins, hare or rabbit skins etc.) must be delivered to the Waffen SS Clothing Office (Bekleidungswerk der Waffen SS), Ravensbrück near Fürstenberg (Mecklenburg), with notice to the SS Economics and Administration Main Office, Section B II.

k) All objects mentioned under items d), e), f) that have a wear value of only 1/3 or 2/5 or are wholly useless shall be delivered by the SS Economics and Administration Main Office to the Reich Ministry of Economics. Insofar as articles accrue that are not mentioned under items b)-i) a decision about their utilization from the Head of the SS Economics and Administration Main Office must be obtained.

2. All prices shall be established by the SS Economics and Administration Main Office taking into account legal guiding prices. This fixation may also take place subsequently. Value appraisals taking much time and personnel can be done without. Generally average prices shall be established, for instance 3.-- Marks for a used men’s trousers, 6.-- Marks for a blanket etc. For the delivery of useless objects to the Reich Ministry of Economics prices per kilo shall be generally established. Strict care must be taken that from all clothes delivered the Yellow Star is removed. Furthermore all objects to be delivered must be examined with the greatest possible care for hidden or sewn-in values.

In representation

Frank

SS-Brigadeführer und Major General of the SS[should probably read "Polizei" (police), translator’s note]".

According to these instructions in each camp, during and after the extermination actions, luggage, clothing, valuables and utensils were sorted, roughly processed and sent to the Central in Lublin. The related works were carried out by Jewish work detachments formed from among the inmates.

After various final compilations about the profit of Aktion Reinhard in Poland, which Globocnik had prepared at the end of the operation, the following is stated on page 4 of the Annex " Report On the Administrative Development of the Action Reinhardt" to Globocnik’s letter of 5.1.1944 (the original wrongly mentions the year 1943, an is thus an obvious writing mistake) to the RFSS [= Himmler]:

"In accordance with the order of the Reichsfuehrer SS of the 22.9, the total takings are now closed, evaluated and passed on, so that there is hardly any mass left now. Equipment which was necessary for carrying out the Action, such as barracks, camp equipment, vehicles, and such, which had been purchased out of the monies obtained, is still on hand. This equipment has been registered. A decision must, however, still be taken as to what purpose it is to serve. The total value of the articles received is, according to the attached list, approximately 180,000,000 Reichsmarks. However, minimum values have been assured, so that the total value is most likely twice as much, quite apart from the value of the articles obtained which are in short supply, such as textiles, of which alone more than 1900 wagons have been made available to German industry."

In order to economically secure the settlement plan for Germanizing the Eastern Territories, which Himmler never gave up on, there was furthermore issued on 15.12.1942 a general instruction (Nr.18/C) by Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Ethnicity, according to which the entire immobile property of the Jews in the General Government was to be made immediately available for purposes of "Consolidation of the German Ethnicity", especially for re-settlers and other privileged applicants.

6.) The organization of the final solution in a wider sense, especially organization and methods of transport

This large-scale mass extermination was especially dependent on the assistance of the GG’s civilian authorities, the other SSPF, the sub-district administrators and the Reich (Reichsbahn) and Eastern Railways (Ostbahn) as well as, insofar as Jews from other areas of Europe were to be taken to the camps of Aktion Reinhard, the help of ministries, of the highest authorities in the occupied territories and especially the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt – RSHA), whose Section IV had the coordination of transports outside the GG in its hands. To achieve this cooperation from the start was the actual purpose of the first Wannsee Conference, held by Heydrich in January 1942. All these involved entities must therefore be considered part of the final solution apparatus in a wider sense.

The other 4 SSPF of the GG enforced the gathering of the Jews in the districts Krakow, Warsaw, Radom and Galicia. In these regions the Jewish population, insofar as this had not yet been done, were gathered in ghettos, camps and residential communities. This was the sub-district administrators’ task. If there were Jewish ghettos or residential areas in a sub-district, the sub-district administrators were to keep the Jews in their area ready for being deported for extermination at any time. One could often observe an eagerness to make a sub-district "Jew-free" ahead of others.

Deportation was usually carried out in special trains. In most cases these consisted of lockable closed freight cars or cattle cars. For these trains the required timetables were made by a special group of Department 33 of the Eastern Railways’ General Directorate (Generaldirektion der Ostbahn - Gedob) in Krakow. This special group had to coordinate its activities with the Reich Ministry of Transport – Reichsbahn – and the HSSPF Krüger in Cracow when this was necessary due to configurations of trains or because of deportations from larger ghettos in several large trains. This was often necessary already for the reason that the war on the Eastern Front made transports for non-war purposes increasingly rare. In the summer of 1942 there was such a bottleneck in the availability of transports that the SS leadership had to emphatically insist with the Reich Ministry of Transport in order to be able to continue Aktion Reinhard at all. The Secretary of State in the Reich Ministry of Transport, Dr. Eng. Ganzenmüller, replied as follows to the head of the RFSS’ personal staff, SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, on 28 July 1942:

Dr. Eng. Ganzenmüller

Secretary of State in the Reich Ministry of Transport

Deputy General Director of the German Eastern Railways

Berlin W 8, 28 July 1942

Vossstrasse 35

(Stamp)

Mr.

SS-Obergruppenführer Wolf

Berlin SW 11 (Secret)

Prinz-Albrecht-Str.8 (Stamp)

- Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS -

Dear Party Comrade Wolf!

With reference to our phone conversation on 16 July I hereby pass on to you the following report from the General Directorate of the Eastern Railways (Gedob) in Krakow for your information:

"Since 22.7 a train per day with 5,000 Jews goes from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka, furthermore two trains per week with 5,000 Jews each go from Przemysl to Belzek. Gedob is constantly in touch with the Security Service in Krakow. This service agrees that the transports from Warsaw via Lublin to Sobibor (near Lublin) be interrupted for as long as conversion works on this route make transports impossible (about October 1942)."

The trains have been agreed with the Commander of the Security Police in the General Government. The SS and Police Commander of the Lublin District, SS-Brigadeführer Globotschnigg, has been informed.

Heil Hitler!

Yours faithfully

(Ganzenmüller)



Wolff answered him on 13 August 1942:



Führer-Headquarters 13 August 1942

Ba/Mz.

AR 10/19/42

To

Mr. Secretary of State in the Reich Ministry of Transport

Deputy General Director of the German Eastern Railways

Dr. Eng. Ganzenmüller

Berlin W 8

Vossstrasse 35

Dear Party Comrade Ganzenmüller!

For your letter of 28.7.1942 I thank you very much – also in the name of the Reichsführer-SS. I was especially pleased to take note of your communication that already since 14 days ago one train per day with 5,000 members of the chosen people is going to Treblinka and we are thus in conditions to carry out this population movement at an accelerated pace. I have myself contacted the entities involved so that a smooth execution of the entire measures seems guaranteed. I thank you again for your efforts in this matter and at the same time would like to ask you to also continue giving these issues your attention.

With best regards and

Heil Hitler!

Yours faithfully

W.



In a later letter of Himmler’s dated 23 January 1943 to Dr. Ganzenmüller the following is stated very urgently:



Secret

Now I still have an important question: one precondition for the pacification of the General Government, of Bialystok and of Russian territories is the deportation of all bandit helpers and bandit suspects. In the first place this includes deportation of the Jews. It also includes deportation of the Jews from the West, because otherwise in these areas we will also have to expect an increase of attacks.

For this I need your help and your assistance. In order to get things done quickly I need to have more trains. I know very well how tight the situation is for the railways and what demands are made of you all the time. Nevertheless I must ask you: please help me and get me more trains.


The increasing difficulties in obtaining means of transportation required higher circulation speeds of the trains. Due to the required speed the rounding-up of the Jews for transport mostly occurred with indescribable cruelty. The trains cattle cars were overfilled with people. The doors were bolted and mostly sealed with leads; the few loops hardly brought sufficient oxygen for the tightly crowded people. Many didn’t survive the trip to the extermination camps. The trains were tightly guarded by accompanying detachments.

In the small "Jewish residential districts" of rural communities lying not far away from the camps the district administrators or subordinated entities took care of deporting the Jews on trucks, horse carriages or on foot, with no regard for the physical state of those affected or the length of the marches to the extermination sites.

The rounding-up of the Jewish people in ghettos and residential districts was usually done by local or super-local police and SS units, which also guarded the Jews on the transports. As the guards knew what was to happen to the Jews they didn’t in any way restrict themselves in order to cause the people to hurry up. Indescribable brutality and sadistic behavior was the rule. Transports too small were avoided. If due to the low number of Jewish people their deportation from smaller communities was not worth the effort, the victims were shot on the spot.

7.) The Personnel of Aktion Reinhard

The personnel required for Aktion Reinhard, according to Globocnik’s report transcribed hereafter, which he prepared after the end of Aktion Reinhard and in which also other tasks of his staff are described, came from different party formations and other organizations. The letter contains the following in this respect:



The Higher SS and Police Commander Triest, 27 October 1943 in the Operational Area Adriatic Cost

Gl./Go. - Tgb.No.291/43

To the

SS-Personnel Main Office

SS-Gruppenführer von Herff,

Berlin

Dear Gruppenführer von Herff! The number of my workers in my former work area in Lublin was made up as follows:

Work Staff SS and Police Commanders

(Commanders, sub-commanders, men, police constables e.g. civilian employees) 49

Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Ethnicity 16

SS Team House 42

DAW 10

Forces transferred to Commander of Security Police (interpreters) 7

Trawniki work camp 3

Trawniki training camp 26

Sum total 153

These members belonged exclusively to the SS and Police Commander services and were divided by the various tasks. In addition there were the forces made available for the resettlement by the Vomi, Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Ethnicity, RuS, SS- and Police bases, in total 186 made available by the SS Economics and Administration Main Office, for DAW 19, from the Führer’s Chancellery for carrying out Aktion Reinhard 92. In total the number of workers at the time I left was 450 men.

Of this number I took with me to here 16 men from the SS and Police Commander’s staff and 6 from the Führer’s Chancellery, 22 men in total. Thus the entire staff of workers today numbers 428 men + 6 new arrivals 434 men

A strong reduction of work in the Lublin District occurred in the following areas:

1.) Whereas earlier I also took care of the business management issues with my staff, this burden was removed by the creation of the Ostindustrie, as new forces were made available to the same. All construction works hitherto under way no longer apply. House administration has fully gone over to the SS local administration.

2.) The Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Ethnicity today limits his tasks to taking care of the existing settlers, whereas no new settlement is taking place for the time being.

3.) Das SS Team House, which was partially employed for the Reich Commissioner’s work, has been relieved insofar as no further settlement occurs and only the works of the research section remain, which according to an SS-order from the Reichsführer-SS are tied to my person.

4.) Trawniki work camp has been taken over by Osti.

5.) Aktion Reinhard has completely ceased.

If my working staff was so large, this was mainly due to the increased work in the settlement and the Aktion Reinhard. These special tasks, which I carried out, automatically implied a heavy burden on the immediate staff..... My above claims are based on the personnel list that have with me and the knowledge of how much work used to accrue with me and how strongly reduced it is now.

With my best regards

Heil Hitler!

Your (signature)

SS-Gruppenführer und and Lieutenant-General of Police

These forces withdrawn from different formations were, insofar as they did not belong to the SS already, clad in grey SS uniforms in Lublin. They received SS ranks corresponding to the ranks they had had at other NS formations. The collars of the men not belonging to the General or Waffen SS received no SS-runes, however.

The staff of Aktion Reinhard, attached to the SSPF’s staff in Lublin, was headed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Höfle, who in 1962 committed suicide in Austria while in custody awaiting trial. Within the scope of his activity he had the task of assisting in the distribution of transports with Jews to the operation’s individual camps in cooperation with competent entities of the General Government, the Eastern Railways and the RSHA. He was furthermore in charge of collecting in the collection camp "Lublin Old Airport" the valuables and utensils that accrued in the extermination camps, estimating these objects and transferring them, namely to the Economics and Administration Main Office of the RSHA.

The practical camp operation, including construction, was supervised by a police captain named Christian Wirth. He had first built the camp Belzec, been the commandant of that camp and from there at the same time supervised the building o the camps Sobibor and Treblinka. In August 1942 he was made inspector of the camps based in Lublin, with the same tasks. Wirth was a member of the SD and had worked in the crime investigation police office in Stuttgart. He was one of the persons mentioned in Globocnik’s personnel report who had been made available for Aktion Reinhard by the Führer’s Chancellery from the Euthanasia-Action (called "T4" after the Chancellery’s office in Tiergartenstrasse 4). The same applies to all defendants in this proceeding except for the defendant Lac.

Wirth was a man of strong assertiveness, steeped in the NS ideology and embossed by a strong craving for recognition. His career in the NSDAP had begun in 1922. In the "time of struggle" – he was a secretary at the crime investigation police in Stuttgart – he distinguished himself, later became a member of the SD and was noted by his rough interrogation methods. Without a corresponding qualification – he had learned a trade and before the First World War been in active service from 1905 on – he managed to become a crime commissioner and SS-Sturmführer in 1941 due to his "merits" regarding the euthanasia, and during his assignment in Poland within the scope of the Final Solution he made crime councilor and SS-Sturmbannführer already in 1943.

Wirth was an extremely unpleasant and feared superior. He used to give orders and address his subordinates in a brusque, rude tone and had a reputation for being brutal and "going over dead bodies" to impose his orders. His subordinates called him "wild Christian". (See the findings in this respect in the third section, B, 4., c: "State of Duress, Duress due to Coercion".)

Regarding the other members of Globocnik’s staff it cannot be established that they had a direct command influence on events in the Sobibor camp.

About the making available of personnel from T4 to Aktion Reinhard there was the following letter from the meanwhile deceased head of the Führer’s Chancellery:



Viktor Brack Berlin, 23.June 1942

SS-Oberführer W 8, Vossstrasse 4

SECRET REICH MATTER

To the

Reichsführer SS and Head of the German Police

Heinrich Himmler

Berlin SW 11

Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8

Most esteemed Reichsführer!

On the instruction of Reichsleiter Bouhler I placed some of my men – already some time ago – at the disposal of Brigadeführer Globocnik to execute his special mission. On his renewed request I now transferred additional personnel. On this occasion Brigadeführer Globocnik stated his opinion that the whole Jew-action should be completed as quickly as possible so that one would not get caught in the middle of it one day if some differences should make a stoppage of the action necessary. You yourself, Reichsführer, have already expressed your view that work should progress quickly for reasons of camouflage already. Both perceptions, which in principle lead to the same result, are more than justified according to my own experiences .....

Heil Hitler!

Your Viktor Brack



The men mentioned in this letter were civilians from employment or public servant relationships doing compulsory service or men detached from active SS units, e.g. SS-death’s head units, whose reliability due to membership in the party, the SA or the SS had previously been checked by T4. Those accordingly chosen had since 1939/1940 been required to present themselves personally at the entity’s office located at that time in the Columbushaus in Berlin. After being informed about their tasks and instructed about the consequences of violating the absolute secrecy commitment imposed upon them, they were employed in the euthanasia installations as corpse burners, i.e. as so-called "disinfectors" or "burners", and as "sorters" of the victims’ belongings, also as drivers, accompanying patient transports or in administrative functions. The killing of the victims, however, was the exclusive task of the euthanasia doctors, who introduced the lethal gas into the gas chambers.

In order to camouflage the whole organization (and its own people) the members of T4 were passed off as employees of the "Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care" or the "Charitable Patient Transport Society Limited", two entities created specifically for cover-up purposes with Bouhler, Brack and Blankenburg as managers under false names. In the autumn of 1941 Hitler ordered the euthanasia action stopped. Public criticism of the killing of mental patients had become too intense and open. The "Secret Reich Matter" had gradually become known to a certain extent. However the Reich leadership didn’t think of finally giving up the euthanasia program. Mentally ill persons or persons declared to be such continued being killed on a smaller scale in the Reich and on a larger scale in the occupied territories. Continuation of the so-called "mercy death"-project on a grand scale, however, was to take place only after the war. The trained personnel of T4 was therefore without occupation since the autumn of 1941, but it was meant to be kept together. As concerns the lower functional ranks it was mostly used together for transporting wounded on the Eastern Front from January to March 1942 within the scope of "Organisation Todt" ("OT") and otherwise on Reich territory during bombing disasters. However, Himmler and Heydrich in accordance with Bouhler also decided to make available the men who had gained experience in mass killing at T4 since early 1942 to the SSPF Lublin for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" that had begun there, the later Aktion Reinhard, also because due to the experience of T4 the Reich leadership wanted the same killing technique to be employed in the extermination camps.

Thus, of the former T4-men who are standing or have stood trial here, Bol., Frenzel, Itt. and Sch. got to Sobibor already at the end of April 1942 as members of the first German camp staff with a detachment under Police First Lieutenant Stangl, Dub. got there in the course of April 1942, #%@. already in February 1942. Jüh., Unv. and Zie. got to Belzec in June/July 1942, Lambert got to Treblinka in the spring of 1942 and Wol., who at T4 still had to do photograph work for a long time, got to Sobibor in March 1942. Besides this German personnel from T4 the camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, according to Globocnik’s quoted report of 27.10.1943, also used personnel from the Trawniki training camp and the work camp. In Sobibor these were Ukrainian (ethnic German) auxiliaries, who were trained in these camps belonging to the police by German police officers of whom – like in the Sobibor camp – a German sub-commander was assigned as head of the Ukrainian group. During the period to be considered here this man was at first a police officer by the name of Schäfer and then, still in 1942, the defendant police officer Lac.

In the camps the German guards were the overall supervisors, which the Ukrainian guard detachments supervised under German leadership the workplaces and other parts of the camps and performed general guard duty.

All these persons were during their assignment subject to the orders o their superiors in the hierarchic ranking of Aktion Reinhard, for instance from the camp top-kick over the camp commandant and over Wirth, Höfle and Globocnik further up. Their status under criminal law was governed by the provisions of the Military Penal Code in the version of 10.10.1940, as was ruled by the following decree:

According to Article 1 Number 6 of the "Decree about Special Jurisdiction in Criminal Matters for Members of the SS and for Members of Police Units on Special Assignment" of 17.10.1939, a corresponding special jurisdiction was created. Article 3 of this decree stipulated that in the special jurisdiction’s area of application the provisions of the Military Criminal Code were to be applied accordingly except as otherwise provided.

Besides the entire Security Police (Crime Investigation Police, Gestapo and Security Service) also the units of the uniformed police, the gendarmerie and auxiliary units were later declared police units on special assignment.

Thus the men of Aktion Reinhard who – like the defendant Dub. (besides the deceased Bol. and other members of the operation) – came from the Waffen-SS (death’s head units), and those who belonged to the police units from Trawniki, for instance the defendant Lac., were subject to this special jurisdiction and to military criminal law.

The other persons detached by T4, who were not members of the SS, were clad in SS uniforms for the assignment in the camps of Aktion Reinhard and given SS ranks, which eventually corresponded to the ranks already obtained in other party formations, but unlike the SS members these men were not allowed to wear SS-runes on their collars. They were put into uniforms because it had been generally established that all persons on assignment in the occupied territories had to wear some uniform – in the SS area of activity accordingly an SS-uniform. These men were thus only nominal bearers of SS ranks. In analogy to the Wehrmacht’s entourage they belonged to the so-called SS entourage, for which the SS Courts Main Office on 29.7.1941 issued a ruling upon Himmler’s order, the first paragraph of which established the following, among other things:



"During the war there are subject to the provisions about the SS- and police jurisdiction, especially the war laws, all persons belonging to the immediate entourage of a unit or service of the SS or police for which a special jurisdiction has been established and receiving dues for this. The same applies in the operations area for all persons ....."



Thus also the men coming from T4 who did not belong to the SS or police were during Aktion Reinhard, which was carried out by the SS, subject to the above-mentioned special jurisdiction.

This subjection removed those subject to it from the competence of ordinary courts and martial courts and the investigation organs attached thereto. These organs would in case of refusal to carry out orders, for instance within the scope of Aktion Reinhard – like elsewhere in regard to the largely illegal and unlawful activities of the SS and the Security Police – have had to check the lawfulness or the orders given and to find that for instance Hitler’s order to exterminate the Jews was unlawful and thus, like the subsequent orders aimed at executing it, not binding for who had refused to carry it out. In the area of SS and Police jurisdiction and the corresponding investigation organs, on the other hand, manipulating interventions by the SS leadership to avoid or suppress such undesired results were easily possible.

Due to this situation the order recipients in question were also not instructed about the scope and the limits of obedience resulting from Article 47 paragraph one of the Military Penal Code then in force, which established the following:

"If the execution of an order in service matters violates criminal law, the superior issuing the order is alone responsible. However, the subordinate following the order is punishable as a participant,

1.) If he exceeded the order given or 2.) if it was known to him that the superior’s order concerned an action aimed at a general or military felony or crime."

On the other hand, however, all members of Aktion Reinhard were in Lublin committed to strict secrecy by leading officers from Globocnik’s staff, namely by SS-Hauptsturmführer Höfle. The undertaking, similar in content to the one that had been signed for T4 by those who had done compulsory service there, had the following wording:

"Undertaking

concerning the obligation of [name of person]......... as a person with special duties in the execution of tasks in the evacuation of Jews within the framework of "Einsatz Reinhard" [Operation Reinhard] under the SS and Police Commander in the District of Lublin.

........ [Name] declares:

I have been thoroughly informed and instructed by SS-Hauptstuermfuhrer Hoefle, as Commander of the main division of "Einsatz Reinhard" of the SS and Police Commander in the District of Lublin:

1. that I may not under any circumstances pass on any form of information, verbally or in writing, on the progress, procedure or incidents in the evacuation of Jews to any person outside the circle of the "Einsatz Reinhard" staff;

2. that the process of the evacuation of Jews is a subject that comes under "Secret Reich Matter," in accordance with censorship regulation Verschl. V. a;

3. concerning the special regulations made by the SS and Police Leader in the District of Lublin in this case, with explicit reference to the fact that these regulations are "Orders concerning Duties," and/or "Orders and Prohibitions" in accordance with Para. 92b of R.St.G.B.;

4. that there is an absolute prohibition on photography in the camps of "Einsatz Reinhard";

5. concerning Para. 88 through 93 of R.St.G.B., in the version of April 24, 1934, and the Regulation on Bribery and Revealing of Secrets on the part of Persons who are not in Official Employ, of May 3, 1917, and February 12, 1920;

6. concerning the paragraphs of R.St.G.B. 139 (Duty to Lay Information) and 353c (Breach of the Official Secrets Act).

I am familiar with the above Regulations and Laws and am aware of the responsibilities imposed upon me by the task with which I have been entrusted. I promise to observe them to the best of my knowledge and conscience. I am aware that the obligation to maintain secrecy continues even after I have left the Service.

About the purpose of the camps they were sent to and the details of their service there the men were not instructed. - (The special regulations mentioned under item 3 of the quoted undertaking can no longer be found).
IV. The extent of killings in Sobibor

1.) The origin of transports

Due to the different participation of each defendant and the manifold other evidentiary significance of transport origins and transport frequencies and their distribution throughout the camp’s existence, the dimensions of extermination in Sobibor camp had to be established in total and in detail. This was done in the following – as far as known for the first time in this comprehensive manner – based on the report of expert Dr. Sc..

The jury court has been able to check the expert’s exposition on hand of the defendants' depositions and other evidence taken about events in the camp, and considered them convincing.

a) Deportations in the General Government (GG)

The Jewish population in the GG changed constantly since the outbreak of the war. In addition to the Jewish local residents there were expellees from the border areas annexed by Germany, from the Wartheland, East and West Prussia and from Upper Silesia. From the same areas Jews were also forcibly evacuated to the GG. In a compilation by the Head of Security Police and Security Service, the following is stated:



"Until 15 November 1940 the following were evacuated to the General Government:

From the Reichsgau Wartheland 234 620 Poles

“ “ “ East Prussia 14 636 “

“ “ “ Eastern Upper Silesia 14 322 “

“ “ “ Danzig – West Prussia 30 758 “

294 336 Poles

The evacuations were carried out in 303 special trains …

From Prague, Vienna and Mährisch-Ostrau 5 035 Jews

From Stettin 1 000 Jews

From the Reich’s western zone 2 800 Gypsies

Were deported to the General Government until 15 November 1940"


- The reference to "Poles" behind the numbers in the above quote also includes non-Jewish Polish citizens -

These numbers relate to so-called short term plans within the scope of the big SS resettlement program. The destination of these evacuation transports was the Lublin District, where the ghettos became ever fuller. Other transports with Jews from Vienna and Stettin arrived within the scope of the above mentioned reservation plan since the winter of 1939. However, they did not reach Nisko on the San, where the reservation was to be created; they also went to ghettos of the Lublin District. Conditions in these Jewish residential areas had long become chaotic when the first transports with Jewish families from the Reich, the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia as well as Slovakia were split among the ghettos in the Lublin area. Through Globocnik’s dilettante attempts to settle ethnic Germans in the Zamosc region further Jewish refugees came into the overfilled ghettos, if they had not already been brayed between the rival Polish and Jewish populations. How many Jewish people met their deaths due to these resettlements alone was impossible to establish at the time already.

District governor Dr. Richard Wendler informed Hitler in the autumn 1942 that the matter had obviously been too much for Globocnik and no one knew for sure whether 35 000, 100 000 or even 200 000 people had been affected by it. According to by no means reliable counts of the "Jewish Social Self-Help" in the months March and April 1941 the Jewish population share in the Lublin District had already grown from 193 366 to 248 611 persons. These numbers do not include the further influx until the spring of 1942, which was much higher. Some larger ghettos are not mentioned at all in the Jewish Social Self-Help’s compilation, thus for instance the numerically huge residential district of Izbica, the somewhat smaller one of Piaski and the one of Rejowiec in the Chelm region.

Exact calculations about how many persons of Jewish faith and Jewish descent resided in the Lublin District around March and April 1942 have not been possible so far.

With the beginning of Aktion Reinhard the National Socialist leadership’s and Globocnik’s goal was to especially accelerate the extermination of the Jews residing in the Lublin District, already in order to make room for transports from the Reich, the Protectorate and Slovakia. This is confirmed by the fact that transports arriving from there were directed to the already "Jew-free" sub-districts, stopovers before these completely unsuspecting people's extermination. Insofar the Lublin District occupies a special place within the scope of the Final Solution.

Of the transports from the Lublin district about 40 % went to Sobibor, ca. 39 % to Belzec, probably 14 % to Treblinka and about 7 % to Majdanek, a sub-camp of the Lublin camp complex.

Less differentiated is the picture as concerns the District Warsaw-Land and the city of Warsaw. The Jewish population of this region was almost exclusively taken to Treblinka extermination camp and killed there, insofar as it was not destroyed in individual massacres or the Warsaw Ghetto revolt.

Transports from the Cracow area were almost exclusively conducted to the extermination camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Belzec, except where parts of the Jewish population of this district, in which the GG’s capital was located, had been previously deported to the Lublin area and from there later taken to Belzec or Sobibor. The Jewish people residing in the Radom District were almost all gassed in Treblinka. Only a small group of 69 Jews was sent to Sobibor in August 1942, according to a surviving communication of the Radom sub-district administrator.

The Jews of the Galicia District were probably sent exclusively to Belzec, insofar as they were not, as frequently happened especially here, killed on the spot.

Summarizing, it is not possible to reach certain conclusions regarding the size of the Jewish population in the GG at the beginning of the Final Solution. All numbers calculated so far are only currently certain minimum values, which merely provide approximate leads about the actual dimensions of destruction of Jewish life in the GG. Even the distribution key regarding the individual camps mentioned about can only provide approximate values.

b) Transports from the GG to Sobibor

The Sobibor extermination camp was the destination of transports predominantly from the Lublin District itself and received at least about 40 % of the Polish-Jewish population residing there. Most of these transports got to Sobibor in the months May, June, October and November 1942. For the time until the spring of 1943 and thereafter only a few also sometimes insecure indications about transports from this area can be found. According to the calculations that are possible at this time the number of Polish-Jewish people who arrived at Sobibor and were killed there amounted to at least 75 000; it is certain that the correct total number is considerably higher, possible even a multiple of the mentioned number.

c) Transports from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia

Transports with German Jews got to the GG in various batches. In connection with the reservation plan about 20 000 German and Austrian Jews came into ghettos in the Lodz and Lublin districts. They later probably perished in Kulmhof and Auschwitz. Certain conclusions cannot be reached so far, however. The same applies regarding the second wave of Jews deported from Reich territory at the end of January 1942, which included about 25 000 people. They are lost in the areas of Lublin, Riga and Minsk and presumably also ended up in Kulmhof and Auschwitz.

Transports of another 55 000 Jews from the then Reich territory, the deportation of which Eichmann announced on 6 March 1942, can according to research done so far be traced until the Lublin District, namely to Trawniki and Izbica, both of which were, besides other locations, typical collecting stations prior to deportation proper to the extermination camps of Aktion Reinhard. The court is convinced that the transport of these people via intermediate stations was desired for reasons of camouflage and cover-up, in order to uphold the myth of the so-called "resettlement" of the Jews. Not only this, but also the knowledge of all these monstrous occurrences by the Reich leadership becomes apparent from Goebbels’ above-quoted diary entry of 27 March 1942 and from the fact that even Himmler reasoned that these occurrences could not be kept secret with the excuse that the Jews had been deported to the east and one didn’t know what the Russians had done with them.

A number of further transports with 1 000 persons each reached the ghettos Krasniczyn, Belzec, Piaski and Zamosz, others got to Janow/Lubelski and Pulawi. About the fate of all these people all that can be said is that only few survived and most of them ended in Belzec and Sobibor, a smaller part in Majdanek. The available material so far has not provided bases for exact calculation. According to what has been established so far it can be concluded with certainty, however, that from the Old Reich and Austria at least 10 000 Jews got to Sobibor until June 1942.

In the period from 11 March to 13 June 1942 13 transports from the Theresienstadt Ghetto with Jews from the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) got to the Lublin Distict. 3 001 people got to Izbica, 1 000 to Lublin, 2 000 to Piaski, 1 000 to Rejowiec, 2 000 to Zamosc and 4 000 to other Jewish residential districts around Lublin. Of these 13 001 people only 42 survivors have become known. Further transports with Jews from the Protectorate reached other Lublin ghettos, for instance Krasnystaw and Krasnyczyn, Ostrow, Ryki and Komarow. The fate of all these people is lost in the dark of Belzec and Sobibor. Sure indications of individual transports, their strength and their arrival in both camps have not been discovered so far. According to the sparse available material it can be established to the jury court’s certainty that of these transport from the Protectorate at least 6 000 people got to Sobibor between early April and 13 June 1942 and were killed there. For this number of Jews transported to Sobibor there are departure reports from the sub-district administrations. However, the court expressly states that this is an absolute minimum number; the number of Jews who got to Sobibor from this area is very probably considerably higher.

d) Transports from Slovakia

The court can conclude with certainty that at least 24 378 of the 39 006 Slovakian Jews deported to the Lublin District were killed by gas in Sobibor. The largest part of the total of 38 transports reached ghettos in Lublin-Land, Pulawi, Radzyn und Chelm. Individual transports may have been sent to Sobibor directly; there are indications but no certain documents in this direction.

e) Transports from France

The transport communications from the Jews department at Commander of Security Police in Paris, and especially the deportation lists about the evacuation of Jews from France in the time from 29 April 1942 to 30 March 1944, allow for adding 75 transports with over 74 000 people. Except for two transports of 23 and 24 March 1943, arrival confirmations can be found for all others in the "Calendarium" of Auschwitz. From a remark by the head of Section IV b 4 (a) of the RSHA, Eichmann, it follows that these two transports were directed to Chelm. From here both transports got to Sobibor. Furthermore the possibility cannot be excluded that further transports were redirected from Auschwitz via Chelm to Sobibor, without there being reports from the Berlin central about this and although the Auschwitz Calendarium confirmed the arrival of the transports. No precise indication about this can be found, however. The jury court is certain, on the other hand, that those two above-mentioned transports of 23 and 24 March 1943, each consisting of at least 1 000 people, were directed via Chelm to Sobibor.

f) Transports from the Netherlands

Of the about 100 000 Dutch Jews who fell victim to persecution, in the period from 15 July 1942 to 3 September 1944 64 transports were directed to Auschwitz, 19 to Sobibor, 7 to Theresienstadt and 8 to Bergen-Belsen. The Calendarium of Auschwitz records the arrival of 55 transports with about 50 000 people.

At Sobibor, in the period from 5 March 1943 to 23 July 1943 19 transports of varying size with a total of 34 313 people arrived. Only 19 survivors have become known to the Red Cross. Through these it is furthermore known that a very small number of women and men were selected upon arrival at Sobibor and either forced to work in the camp itself or deported to smaller work camps, where they fell victim to the local destruction measures, at the latest to the concluding "Aktion Erntefest", a mass killing of Jews in the labor camps belonging to Aktion Reinhard around Lublin in early November 1943. These few persons selected for other work camps cannot be recorded; their low number can be ignored for the purpose of the calculations to be made here.

Due to the fact that 64 transports were meant for Auschwitz by the Berlin central, while the Calendarium mentions only 55 transports, it seems reasonable to assume that the missing 9 transports were redirected to the camps of Aktion Reinhard for the same reasons as was possibly the case with the French transports. It is probable that at least a part of them got to Sobibor. No certain conclusion could be reached in this respect, however, as in the camps of Aktion Reinhard no lists were kept about incoming transports. At least no such list has yet been found. As concerns the transports from the Netherlands there was a particularity insofar as the trains usually did not consist of cattle cars but of regular passenger cars.

g) As a result it must be concluded that Sobibor extermination camp served the killing of Polish Jews in the first place, preferentially from the Lublin District. It further served the killing of Jews from Germany, Austria and the Protectorate in numbers that cannot be established with certainty. The transports taken to Sobibor from Slovakia in conjunction with Wisliceny’s action can be established more or less exactly. The at least 19 deportation trains from Holland were the largest transport complex so far known that certainly arrived at Sobibor. At least two transports came to Sobibor from France, which is supported by the concordant testimonies of former Sobibor working inmates interrogated by the jury court. Due to testimonies of witnesses interrogated in the main proceedings it is furthermore certain that at least one transport from Russia got to Sobibor in September 1943, carrying several hundred people, some of them Jewish Red Army soldiers who were prisoners of war.

2.) Total number of Jews killed at Sobibor

On the Polish side a report, according to which 250,000 people had been killed at Sobibor, was made according to interrogations of survivors by Zdzielaw Lukaszkiewicz, Judge at the Court in Siedlce. The result of this report differs from the analysis of the numbers of dead made by this court with the help of court expert Dr. Sc. in the methodological approach and the documentation available. The Polish report assumes a schematic distribution of transports on hand of depositions from Polish railway officials. The report in 1947 could not yet reconstruct the situation in the various areas of the former General Government with the detail that is possible today on hand of documents found in the meantime.

On page 99 f of the report written in English language – it was insofar introduced into the main proceedings in German translation by court expert Dr. Sc. – the following is written:

"Assuming that the period of the camp’s most intensive activity in 1942 lasted four months, from July to October, and that in this period only 20 transports per month arrived, we obtain a number of 80 transports for this period. However, we cautiously assume that there were only sixty transports, i.e. as many as were mentioned by the Polish witness Parkola, Polish station master, whose depositions are the more accurate and objective. The number of persons in one transport is stated by the witnesses to have been 2-4,000. Assuming that there were 3,000 persons in a transport on average, we calculate that in 60 transports 180,000 persons were brought in. As it is undisputed that the camp was active until the revolt, we make no mistake in assuming that in the time from October 1942 to October 1943 an average of two transports per month arrived, i.e. 24 transports. If as before one assumes 3,000 persons per transport, we obtain a number of 72,000 victims in this period. Together with the previous number the number of victims in Sobibor is about 250,000, completely leaving out the persons who were brought in on foot, with carriages or motor vehicles."

The wording of this source shows that the calculated total number is based on an extrapolation assuming a transport strength that in parts does not wholly correspond to what can be proven today on hand of documents. These documents show that at least the transports taken to Sobibor from Germany and France as well as the Protectorate had an average strength of about 1 000 people. This the court had to assume in dubio pro reo.

On the other hand the sizes of transports from Polish ghettos given in the Polish report are not only within the range of possibilities. With 3 000 people on average they may even be much too low. According to the testimonies of some witnesses interrogated by the jury court there were larger transports than had been hitherto assumed. In some cases, if the testimonies are not affected by gross misestimates or a recollection weakened by time, transports with a strength of 4 000 to 5 000 people may have arrived at Sobibor, especially when there were composed transports from several ghettos. Thus an even higher total number than was calculated in the early and excellent Polish report is quite possible, for the dark field is large; it can so far not even be approximately estimated. There are several indications in which "VL-Sobibor" is given as the transport destination without there being absolute certainty whether these transports actually arrived at Sobibor or were after junction with further trains sent to another camp of Aktion Reinhard. At the same time Sobibor as the destination of such composed transports is not only within the range of possibilities. The sometimes disproportionate size of some transports can explain this.

As was already mentioned above there are additional uncertainties resulting from the sometimes mutually contradictory redirections by the Berlin central. Trains meant for Auschwitz were redirected to Sobibor. This may also have happened the other way round and also applies in relation to Belzec extermination camp. The jury court had to take this into consideration in dubio pro reo.

Further noticeable are the changing transport frequencies when observing the camp’s entire operation period from April 1942 until the inmates’ revolt on 14 October 1943. The main extermination times were May and June 1942, October and November 1942 and March to July 1943. At least for some weeks in September 1942 and around the turn of the year 1942/1943 the extermination machinery was in fact standing still. Only in September 1942 the old gas chambers were torn down and replaced by newer ones. Furthermore there occurred transportation difficulties in the summer months, as becomes apparent from the already cited correspondence between Wolff and Ganzenmüller from the summer of 1942.

On the other hand it must be taken into account, according to testimonies of witnesses interrogated in the main proceedings, that quite a few transports of smaller Jewish groups were taken to Sobibor in trucks and horse carriages, even under unimaginable torments of long foot marches. It may be considered very probable that for very small groups the gas chamber wasn’t burdened but these people were shot right away at the pits in Camp III (see page 94). The treatment of some transports – as confirmed by witness testimonies – indicates this. Thus the last working inmates of Belzec were after dissolution of this extermination camp transported to Sobibor in the summer of 1943 and, as the camp command feared resistance, shot in small groups or singly at the pits in Camp III. On another occasion the station detachment composed of Jewish inmates (see page 97) had to unload a transport overwhelmingly consisting of dead, wounded and naked people of unknown provenance; the sick and wounded were lying among half-decomposed corpses. The arrivals still alive were shot in Camp III. Another smaller transport with emaciated and sick inmates from Majdanek extermination camp remained after unloading overnight on a free square in the camp. There during the night many of these people were beaten to death by members of the German camp staff. – Other "normal" transports from ghettos or Jewish residential areas increase the dark field.

On hand of coincident testimonies by witnesses interrogated before the court is has also been established that in the summer of 1943 at least one transport with several hundred persons, perhaps even several such transports got to Sobibor from territories of the USSR. – Such testimonies also point to transports from Belgium. – The dark field may thus well be 100 000 dead or even many more.

Under the strictest standards to be applied in favor of the defendants it was established that on hand of documentary material and witness depositions from the main proceedings the death of at least 150,000 Jewish people in Sobibor is known.

This conclusion, like all other conclusions regarding the number and provenance of the victims, is based on the historical report made before the jury court by Dr. Wolfgang Sc.. The expert, who as a historian has for years worked especially on Aktion Reinhard in the context of the Final Solution and has a rich scientific experience in this respect, used for his report all German and foreign sources he had access to. The court has no reason to doubt the expert’s result worked out with great exactitude and care, especially as it in many points coincides with the depositions of Jewish witnesses from various deportation camps and places interrogated in the main proceedings, in parts with the statements of some defendants and generally with the expert report of historical expert Dr. Ser. about the history of the Jews’ persecution since 1933. The results of the Polish examination from 1947 are not questioned in principle hereby, but rather confirmed, as the taking of evidence in these criminal proceedings only means a larger dark field in dubio pro reo.

3.) Breakdown of numbers by periods

The sum of the numbers breakdown hereafter is lower than the total of little more than 151 000 calculated by the expert. The latter is based on rounding. If, however, one assumes only a total of 7 000 victims for the Polish transports whose strength couldn’t be established and considers 3,000 people for transports from the USSR besides the one identified, which were not mentioned by the expert but testified to by witnesses, both numbers being rather low considering the much higher numbers mentioned by the witnesses, the jury court would reach a minimum of over 152 000 victims. In this context it is again pointed out that the court’s compilation makes no claim to historical completeness but is in case of doubt only a minimum number.

Ciggy wrote:Some of the survivors exaggerated or fabricated parts of their testimony, but the holocaust did happen. There 's obvious evidence of the most important parts of it, and perhaps more importantly, there is zero evidence of any survivors of the "Somderbehandlung". Deniers say absence of evidence proves evidence of absence (with the refrain of "where are the bodies"), well, where are the non- worker survivors?

The Inspector for Statistics
At the Reichsführer SS

[Stamp: Secret Reich Matter]



THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWISH QUESTION
==================================================

Statistical Report

C o n t e n t s:

I. Introduction
II. The Balance of Jews in Germany
III. Jewish Population Weakness
IV. The Emigration of Jews from Germany
V. The Evacuation of the Jews
VI. The Jews in the Ghettos
VII. The Jews in the Concentration Camps
VIII. Jews in Penitentiaries
IX. The Use of Jewish Labor
X. European Balance of Jews

-----


THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWISH QUESTION
Statistical Report

I. INTRODUCTION

In order to make a balance of the results on the way to the solution of the Jewish question it is necessary to determine the number of Jews and its development. The contradictions in the data about the number of Jews, however, make necessary an introduction in the sense that numbers about Jewry are always to be taken with special reservation and can lead to wrong conclusions without a knowledge as to their source and as to how they came about.
The sources of mistakes lie mainly in the nature of Jewry and its historical development, in its millenary restless wandering, the countless admissions and withdrawals, the efforts at assimilation, the mixtures with the host peoples, the efforts of Jews to avoid registration and finally the wrong or wrongly interpreted statistics about Jewry.

Furthermore statistics – partially as a statistical makeshift, partially due to the wide coincidence between Jewish faith and Jewish race, partially in ignorance of the idea of race, partially due to the religious thinking of the respective time – have until lastly recorded Jews according to their religious confession and almost never according to their race. The recording of the race requires a training of many years and also ancestry research. It also turned out to be difficult mainly in the southern and eastern countries, given that despite all coincidence a uniform Jewish race was difficult to delimitate. The adhesion to Mosaic or Israeli faith in turn is no fully valid proof, given that due to the former Jewish missionary movement with its taking in of heathens and Christians, and also due to conversions to Jewry and mixed marriages in more recent times, there are not a few confessional Jews of non-Jewish race, while on the other hand forced christianizing and the number of baptized Jews that again increased in the last century, together with the number of non-confessionals of Jewish race, brought down the number of Jews. In 1893 Leroy-Beaulieu estimated the loss of Jewry to Christianity at four to ten times its present-day adherents; according to Maurice Fishberg and Mathias Mieses three time the actual number of Jews have merged with Aryan Europe. Even Hans Günther estimates the number of Jews in Germany at double the number of Jews of Mosaic faith who have German citizenship. The Lithuanian Jew Brutzkus even goes as far as to consider the Jews of Berlin as more pure Europeans, according to the composition of their blood, than the Germans of Berlin.

In accordance with these opinions the number of racial Jews including half-breeds in Europe has been frequently calculated as three times as high as that of the confessional Jews (twice as high in Eastern Europe, four times as high in Central Europe, even eight times as high in the rest of Europe), and the portion of more of less Jewish blood in the European population has been calculated at more or less 6 per cent. On the other hand Burgdörfer estimated the number of Jews in Germany in 1933 at 850 000 full, half and quarter Jews (with 502 799 confessional Jews) and the number of Jews in Austria in 1934 at 300-400 000 (with 191 738 confessional Jews). The recording of racial Jews at the German census on 1939 resulted in 307 892 confessional Jews and the only a little higher number of 330 892 full Jews, 72 738 half Jews and 42 811 quarter Jews, numbers that are by no means to be considered reliable especially in what concerns the half – and quarter Jews. The numbers obtained can thus only be considered as minimum numbers. They came about through the question “Was or is one of the 4 grandparents a full Jew?” contained in a “supplementary form” to the list of households of the 1939 census, which had to be answered by “yes” or “no” for each grandparent. As the supplementary form was to be delivered in a closed envelope and thus beyond control on site, it was wrongly filled in. In many cases only lines were drawn in the respective field, instead of an answer.

The first official attempt to record the Jews according to their race was immediately sabotaged by the Jews. It happened at the Austrian census of 7 March 1923. Vice Chancellor Dr. Frank (Greater German People’s Party) signed a decree shortly before the census, according to which under question 7 of the census sheet (language) "ethnicity and race" were also to be indicated. As the census sheets had already been printed, this was only pointed out in a red reminder sheet without clarification and examples. The Austrian Jews sabotaged this question pursuant to the request, forwarded to its readers by the Jewish-Marxist press on the day immediately before the census date, to answer the question about the race with “white”. The result was that “the “white race turned out to be as widely represented in Austria as the sphere of influence of the Jewish-Marxist press and political parties was”. Only in Kärnten and in the Burgenland the processing of the material was carried out with rather dubious success, in all other federal states and principally in Vienna, however, it was given up as being pointless.


II. THE BALANCE OF JEWS IN GERMANY

The following data about the number and development of Jews in Germany are based on official census data and other official records of the Reich and on scientific calculations and estimations, but they have mainly been prepared by the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany and by the cult communities in Vienna and Prague, who work with counting, counting forms for population movements, extrapolations and estimates. These Jewish entities work under the control of the Reichssicherheitshaupt [Reich Main Security Office] and for its purposes. Apart from the dubious data about the initial numbers the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany seems to produce reliable work. On the basis of the statistics prepared by this entity and so far checked by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the following balance on the development of Jewry from before the taking of power (30.1.1933 in the Old Reich, March 1938 in Austria and March 1939 in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia) until 01.01.1943 can be drawn:

1. Balance of Jews in the Old Reich including Sudetengau and Danzig
Number of Jews in the Old Reich(without Sudetengau
and Danzig)on 30.1.1933 around 561 000

Reduction between 30.1.33 an 1.1.43 through
Excess mortality(Old Reich ) - 61 193
Excess emigration - 352 534
Off-going (Evacuation) - 100 516
- 514 243

Increase from 30.1.33 to 1.1.43 through
Incorporation of the Sudeten-
Land + 2 649 x)
other changes (Danzig
immigration, emigration, authorized
withdrawals, recognition
as I. degree half breed,
new recording, rectification of data sheets
+ 1 921
+ 4 570

Number of Jews in the Old Reich (with Sudetengau
and Danzig) on 1.1.1943 51 327


2. Balance of Jews in the Ostmark[Austria]
Number of Jews in the Ostmark on 1.3.1938 around 220 000
Reduction from 1.3.38 to 1.1.43 through
Excess mortality - 14 509
Excess emigration - 149 124
Off-going (Evacuation) - 47 555
Other changes - 710
- 211 898

Number of Jews in the Ostmark on 1.1.1943 8 102


3. Balance of Jews in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia
Number of Jews in the Protectorate on 15.3.1943 118 310
Reduction from 15.3.39 to 1.1.43 through
Excess mortality - 7 074
Excess emigration - 26 009
Off-going (Evacuation) - 69 677
- 102 760

Number of Jews in the Protectorate on 1.1.1943 15 550


_______________
x) This number of 2 649 Jews in the Sudetenland was established during the census of 1939. Prior to the incorporation of the Sudetenland into the Reich the number of Jews was around 3 . . who however very quickly, without crossing a state border and without losses in patrimony, left for the Protectorate.

In this balance the newly acquired eastern territories (except for Danzig) are not included. A balance for these cannot yet be made. However, there are several estimates about the number of Jews in these areas, which should lead to a number of about 630 000. In addition to these there are 160,000 Jews in the Bialystok district and around 1.3 million Jews in the General Government as at the time of its constitution. This would lead to a total number of Jews in the whole German area (without the occupied eastern territories) of about 2.5 million x) at the end of 1939, the greatest past thereof in the new East.

On 1.1.1943 the Reich without the new eastern territories, the old-age ghetto Theresienstadt and the labor usage within the scope of the
Organisation Schmelt had only 74 979 Jews, thereof 51 327 in
the Old Reich, 8 102 in the Ostmark and 15 550 in the Protectorate. In the Old Reich with the Sudetenland there are now only 9.2 per cent of the number of Jews on the day of the taking over of power. On 30.1.1943 their number has been further reduced to 48 242 or 8.6 per cent, on 25.2.1943 even further to 44 589 or 7.9 per cent. In Berlin, where already in 1880 there lived one-eighth, in 1910 more than a quarter and in 1933 almost a one third of the Jews of Germany, there are on 1.1.1943 no less than 32 999 or 64.3 per cent of all Jews of the Old Reich, on 30.1.1943 still 30 121, on 28.2.1943 still 27 281.
In the Ostmark there are Jews only in Vienna.

Of the 51 327 Jews in the Old Reich 23 197 are men and 28 130 are women.
40 351 are confessional Jews, 10 976 are non-confessional Jews, 16 760 live in mixed marriages. In the Ostmark the number is 4 803 (out of 8 102), in the Protectorate it is 6 211 (out of 15 550).


III. JEWISH POPULATION WEAKNESS

The balance of Jews in Germany shows an extraordinary excess mortality that is due not only to a very high mortality of the Jews, but also to the marked scarcity of births. Thus the natural population development in the Old Reich including the Sudetenland from 1933 to 1942 has been as follows (according to the estimates and date of the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany, given that the counting by confessional Jews is much more complicated and unreliable):

_______________
x) Without Lemberg district with around 700 000 Jews.


Births and Deaths of Jews in the Old Reich
(calculated and estimated until 1939)

Years Births Deaths Excess mortality(-)

1933 3 425 8 925 - 5 500
1934 2 300 8 200 - 5 900
1935 2 500 8 100 - 5 600
1936 2 300 8 000 - 5 700
1937 2 100 8 000 - 5 900
1938 1 000 7 448 - 6 448
1939 610 8 136 - 7 526
1940 396 6 199 - 5 803
1941 351 6 249 - 5 898
1942 239 7 657 - 7 418

1933-1942 15 221 76 914 - 61 693

The excess mortality from the day of taking over of power (30.1.1933) until 1.1.1943 in the Old Reich including the Sudetenland is 61 693; this is the result of 14 921 births versus 76 114 deaths. While the migration on the one hand and the absence of recording in the first year and deficiency of recording since especially in regard to deaths in the concentration camps by the Reich Association of the Jews on the other hand leave room for many errors, the approximate overview shows a constant number of deaths despite the reduction of the number of Jews. Jewish mortality thus amounts to 80-85(against the European average of 10 to 15) in 1000 (in the calendar year 1942).
What is further to be noted is the decrease of births, which by far anticipates the decrease of the number of Jews. The Jewish birth rate in the Old Reich thus amounts to only 2 1/2 in 1 000 in 1942. Also in the Ostmark between 1.3.138 and 1.1.1943 there were 15 188 Jewish deaths for only 679 Jewish births. In the Old Reich there were only 14 Jewish children born in December 1942, 7 an 8 in January and February 1943, respectively. It must in this respect be taken into account that Jewry has topped the civilized Western states in lack of births since decades, as can be seen on hand of the confessional statistics of births. The Jew Felix Theilhaber already in 1911 pointed to the “Demise of German Jewry” resulting therefrom, which was only covered up by the constant influx of Eastern Jewish blood. This phenomenon was only partially related to the over-aging of European big city Jewry: It was mainly due to a real lack of life strength. In the actual extraordinary mortality of the Jews and the extremely low birth rate, however, the Jewish age structure is also a factor to be considered.
After their best classes have gone off, the Jews in Germany are mainly old people, for which reason their age structure, when graphically represented, has the form of a “club”, according to the objectively accurate terminology of the Reich Association of the Jews. There is a lack of children and reproductive classes, whereas the classes of older people are not only much stronger in proportion than the younger classes, but also much stronger in absolute numbers.
This is also one of the reasons for the excessive suicide rate, given that suicide is primarily a cause of death of older people.


IV. THE EMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM GERMANY

The migration of Jews from eastern, central and western Europe and the whole of Europe overseas, mostly to the United States of America, is a generally observed phenomenon. Many Jews emigrated from Germany mainly between 1840 and 1870, but after 1870 emigration stopped almost completely. Now in turn the Germans emigrated. The Jewish emigration from Germany since 1933, in a certain sense a recuperation of the movement that did not occur in 1870, caught the special attention of the whole civilized world, especially the democratic countries ruled by Jews. It was attempted by the most varied entities with the most varied methods to record the number and structure of the emigrants. Yet no uniform results were achieved. The numbers of the German emigration statistics, those of the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany and of the Israeli cult communities in Vienna and Prague, the numerous foreign recordings, calculations and estimates, the statistics of international Jewry and the numbers of scientific studies show great discrepancies among each other. Professor Zielenziger in Amsterdam, for instance, considered that there were 135 000 emigrants from the taking over of power until the end of 1937, while the Reich Association of the Jews concluded that there had been 203 000 emigrants. Since 1938 emigration increased considerably, but it ended almost completely (save for a few exceptions each month) with the interdiction of Jewish emigration in the autumn of 1941. The Reich Association of Jews and the Israeli cult communities in Vienna and Prague concluded on the following high emigration numbers until 1.1. 1943(including double counting):

Emigrants from Number Period
Old Reich with Sudetenland 352 543 (30.1.33-1.1.43)
Ostmark 149 124 ( 1.3.38-1.1.43)
Protectorate 26 009 (15.2.39-1.1.43)

The hurried emigration in the beginning made exact data impossible. Also the destination of emigration, insofar as it was a European country, is in many cases to be considered a mere intermediate station. Of the emigrants from the Old Reich about 144 000 went to other European countries, about 57 000 went to the USA, 54 000 to South America, 10 000 to Central America, 53 000 to Palestine, 15 000 to Africa(mainly South Africa), 16 000 to Asia (China),
4 000 to Australia. Of the 144 000 Jews who emigrated to European countries more than 32 000 went to England alone, 39 000 went to Poland or the General Government, 18 000 went to France, 8000 to Italy, 7 500 to the Netherlands,
6 000 to Belgium. It is to be assumed that the greater part of these emigrants went on overseas from said countries. For the Jewish emigrants from the Ostmark, the following goals were indicated: 65 500 to European countries, 50 000 to America, 20 000 to Asia, 9 000 to Palestine, 2 600 to Africa, 2 000 to Australia.


V. THE EVACUATION OF THE JEWS

The evacuation of the Jews replaced the emigration of the Jews, at least on the territory of the Reich. It was extensively prepared since the prohibition of Jewish emigration in the autumn of 1941 and to a large extent carried out throughout the Reich territory in the year 1942. In the balance of Jewry it is referred to as "off-going".
Until 1.1.1943, according to the records of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the following numbers went off:

From the Old Reich with Sudetenland 100 516 Jews
From the Ostmark 47 555 "
From the Protectorate 69 677 "
Sum 217 748 Jews

In these numbers the Jews evacuated to the old-age ghetto Theresienstadt are also included.

All evacuations on the territory of the Reich and including the eastern territories and further in the German area of power and influence in Europe from October 1939 or later until 31.12.1942 resulted in the following numbers:

1. Evacuation of Jews from Baden
and the Palatinate to France ....... 6 504 Jews
2. Evacuation of Jews from the Reich
territory incl. the Protectorate and
Bialystok district to the East...... 170 642 "
3. Evacuation of Jews from the Reich
area and the Protectorate
to Theresienstadt................. 87 193
4. Transportation of Jews from the
eastern provinces to the Russian
East: ............................ 1 449 692 "
The following numbers were sifted
through the camps in the General
government ............. ........ 1 274 166 Jews
through the camps in the Warthegau..... 145 301 Jews
5. Evacuation from other
countries, namely:
France (insofar as occupied
before 10.11.1942 )............... 41 911 Jews
Netherlands........................ 38 571 "
Belgium............................ 16 886 "
Norway ........................... 532 "

Slovakia................. 56 691 Jews
Crotia ................ 4 927 "
------------------------------

Evacuations total(incl.
Theresienstadt and incl.
special treatment)........... 1 873 549 Jews
w./o Theresienstadt.......... 1 786 356 "

6. In addition, according to data from
the Reichssicherheitshauptamt
there is the evacuation of... 633 300 Jews
in the Russian territories
incl. the former Baltic
countries since the beginning of the
Eastern Campaign.

The above numbers do not include the inmates of ghettoes and concentration camps.
The evacuations from Slovakia and Croatia were carried out by these states themselves.


VI. THE JEWS IN THE GHETTOS

There must be mentioned here:

1. The old age ghetto Theresienstadt, to which there were
led a total of:
87 193 Jews,

thereof from the Reich 47 471 (Ostmark 14 222)
" " Protectorate 39 722.

At the beginning of the year 1943 it had a total of
Jewish inmates: 49 392
Thereof with
German nationality 24 313
Protectorate nationality 25 079

The reduction occurred mainly by deaths.
Besides Theresienstadt there are on the territory of the Reich a number of Jewish old age and sick homes with smaller capacity, which however are considered as neither ghettoes nor evacuation sites.

2. The ghetto Litzmannstadt at the beginning of 1943 had
87 180 Jews,
thereof 83 133 with former Polish nationality.

3. The numbers Jews placed in other ghettos of the
General Government as of 31.12.1942 are indicated or estimated
as follows:

District Number of Jews
Cracow 37 000
Radom 29 000
Lublin 20 000 (estimated)
Warsaw 50 000
Lemberg 161 514

General Gov. sum 297 914


VII. THE JEWS IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS

In the concentration camps there were, from the taking over of power to 31.12.1942
73 417 interments of Jews
thereof
released 36 943
died 27 347

Remainder as per 31.12.42: 9 127 Jews

It must be taken into account that the number of internments of Jews is higher than the number of Jews in the concentration camps, as repeated internments of one Jews are counted repeatedly.

Not included are the Jews accommodated in the concentration camps Auschwitz and Lublin within the scope of the evacuation action.

For the various concentration camps we have, divided by internments, releases, deaths and the status as of 31.12.1942, the following numbers:

Jews in the Concentration Camps

Concentration Camp; Internments; Releases; Deaths;
Status as of 31.12.1942

Lublin/Men; 23 409; 4 509; 14 217; 4 683
Lublin/Women; 2 849; 59; 131; 2 659
Auschwitz/Men 4 917; 1; 3 716; 1 200
Auschwitz/Women 932; -; 720 ; 212
Buchenwald 16 827; 13 805; 2 795; 227
Mauthausen/Gusen 2 064; -; 1 985; 79
Sachsenhausen 7 960; 6 570; 1 344; 46
Stutthof/Men 28; -; 13; 15
Stutthof/Women 3; -; -; 3
Ravensbrück/Women 1 321; 531; 787; 3
Ravensbrück/Men 273; 44; 229; -
Dachau 12 026; 11 140; 886; -
Groß-Rosen 231; -; 231; -
Lichtenburg 195; 195; -; -
Neuengamme 192; 2; 190; -
Floßenbürg 80; 2; 78; -
Sachsenburg 52; 52; -; -
Esterwegen 36; 33; 3; -
Niederhagen 12; -; 12; -
Natzweiler 10; -; 10; -

Sum all camps 73 417; 36 943; 27 347; 9 127


VIII. JEWS IN PENITENTIARIES

At the beginning of the year 1943 there were in the penitentiaries on the territory of the Reich 458 Jews, distributed among men and women and the various types of detention as follows:

Men Women Sum

Criminal detention 350 78 428
Security detention 29 - 29
Work House - 1´ 1

Penitentiaries
Together 379 79 458


IX. THE USE OF JEWISH LABOR

Working for the war effort at the beginning of the year 1943 there were on the territory of the Reich

185 776 Jews

They were employed as follows:

1) within the inspector areas of the security police and the SD (without Posen and without Soviet Russian Jews) 21 659, thereof 18 546 with German nationality, 107 with Protectorate nationality, 2 519 stateless and 487 foreigners. They were distributed by the inspection areas without Posen) as follows:

Berlin 15 100 Königsberg 2) 96
Braunschweig 110 München 313
Breslau 1) 2 451 Nürnberg 89
Danzig - Salzburg 7
Dresden 485 Stettin 18
Düsseldorf 673 Stuttgart 178
Hamburg 497 Wien 1 226
Kassel 259 Wiesbaden 139
__________
1) without Organization Schmelt 2)without Soviet Russian Jews

2) in the inspector area Königsberg there are a further
18 435 foreign, i.e. almost exclusively Soviet Russian Jews.

3) in the inspector area Posen there are in ghetto – and camp employment
95 112 mainly Polish Jews.

4) within the scope of Organization Schmelt (Breslau)
there are 50 570 Jews, thereof 42 382 stateless and 8 188
foreigners.


X. EUROPEAN BALANCE OF JEWS

The collapse of European Jewry was initiated decades ago by the population demise of European big city Jewry on the one hand and Jewish emigration on the other. The Jewish statistician Lestschinsky in 1927 clarified the reduction of European Jewry as follows: "At the beginning of the 19th century 85 % of all Jews lived in Europe, 80 % in Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany alone; in America there were only 2 - 3 000 Jews at this time. In 1925 63 % of all Jews lived in Europe; within the borders of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia there were only 57 % of all Jews, while in America there were 30 % and in the rest of the world 7 %". According to the calculations of the Reich Institute of Statistics the part of European Jews in 1880 was even 88.4 per cent, while in 1937 it was only 60.4 per cent. In 1943 the European part of World Jewry should still be 1/3.

Around 1930 and in the last years the number of Jews in some more important European states was the following:


State;
Census in year;
Number of Jews;
More recent counting of estimate:
Number of Jews in 1 000;
per cent of population of host people

Old Reich; 1933/35; 502 799; 1943; 51; 0,07
Austria; 1934; 191 481; 1943; 8; 0,1
Czechoslovakia; 1930; 356 830; .; .; .
- Protectorate .; .; 1943; 16; 0,2
Danzig; 1929; 10 448; .; .; .
Memel Area; 1925; 2 402; 1937; 3; 2,0

Belgium; .; .; 1937; 80; 1,0
Bulgaria; 1934; 48 398; 1937; 50; 0,8
Finland .; .; 1937; 2; 0,04
France .; .; 1937; 280; 0,7
Greece 1928; 72 791; 1937; 90; 1,1
Great Britain 1931/33; 234 000; 1937; 345; 0,7
Italy 1930; 47 825; 1937; 52; 0,1

Ireland .; .; 1936; 4; 0,1
Yugoslavia 1930; 68 405; 1937; 75; 0,3
Latvia 1935; 93 479; 1937; 96; 4,9
Lithuania 1923; 155 125; 1937; 175; 7,4
Netherlands 1930; 111 917; 1937; 135; 1,6
Poland 1930; 3 113 933; 1937; 3 300; 9,6
Romania 1930; 984 213; 1941; 302 1); 2,2
Slovakia .; .; 1940; 89; 3,4
Soviet Russia 1926; 2 570 330; 1939; 4 600 2); 2,4
Hungary 1930; 444 567; 1940; 750 3); 5,8

__________
1) New territorial status
2) New territorial status, with East Poland; the number was estimated.
3) New territorial status; the number was calculated

The total number of Jews in the world in 1937 is generally estimated at around 17 million, thereof more than 10 million in Europe. They concentrate or concentrated mainly in the former Polish-Russian areas occupied by Germany between the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland and between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, further in the centers of commerce and the Rhine area of Central and Western Europe and on the coasts of the Mediterranean.

From 1937 to the beginning of 1943 the number of Jews, partially due to the excess mortality of the Jews in Central and Western Europe, partially due to the evacuations especially in the more strongly populated Eastern Territories which are here counted as off-going, should have diminished by an estimated 4 million. It must not be overlooked in this respect that of the deaths of Soviet Russian Jews in the occupied Eastern territories only a part was recorded, whereas deaths in the rest of European Russia and at the front are not included at all. In addition there are movements of Jews inside Russia to the Asian part which are unknown to us. The movement of Jews from the European countries outside the German influence is also of a largely unknown order of magnitude. On the whole European Jewry should since 1933, i.e. in the first decade of National Socialist German power, have lost almost half of its population.

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