On
this date, October 9, 1945, the last Camp Commandant of Bełżec extermination camp, Gottlieb Hering died of Illness. I will post
information about this SS War Criminal from Wikipedia.
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| Gottlieb Hering |
Born
|
June 2, 1887
Warmbronn, German Empire |
Died
|
October 9, 1945 (aged 58)
Stetten im Remstal, Allied-occupied Germany |
Allegiance
|
|
Service/branch
|
Schutzstaffel
|
Rank
|
Hauptsturmführer, SS (Captain)
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Unit
|
SS-Totenkopfverbände
|
Commands held
|
Bełżec, end of August 1942 — June 1943
|
Awards
|
Iron Cross First Class
|
Gottlieb Hering
(2 June 1887 — 9 October 1945) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) who
served in Action T4 and later as the second and last commandant of Bełżec
extermination camp during Operation Reinhard. Hering directly perpetrated the genocide
of Jews and other peoples during The Holocaust.
Early
life
Hering
was born and raised in Warmbronn, a district in the town of Leonberg. After
finishing his schooling, Hering worked on a farm near his home. From 1907 to
1909, he served in the 20th (2nd Württemberg) Uhlans "King William I"
regiment, and then voluntarily stayed on for another three years. Hering then
joined the Heilbronn police in 1912. In 1914, Hering married and had one son.
During
the First World War, Hering was called to serve in the machine gun company of
Grenadier Regiment 123 in 1915, with which he fought on the Western Front in
northern France until the armistice in 1918. He attained the rank of sergeant.
For his war services he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.
After
the First World War, Hering briefly rejoined the Schutzpolizei in
Heilbronn.
Early
police and SS careers
Hering
began his police career in 1919 as a detective (sergeant) in the criminal
police (Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo) in Göppingen, near Stuttgart,
making officer rank by 1929. In 1920, Hering had joined the Social Democratic
Party of Germany. During the Weimar Republic era he initiated vigorous actions
against the NSDAP, SA and SS and consequently was called a
"Nazi-eater". By the 1933 Nazi Seizure of Power
("Machtergreifung"), Nazi Party members vehemently demanded Hering's
dismissal from the police. However, Hering had known Nazi Christian Wirth from
official contexts since 1912, and while working in the Kripo in
Stuttgart, the two became acquaintances, so that Hering was able to continue
working despite the violent protests of local SA
and SS men. In May 1933 Hering finally joined the NSDAP. In 1934 he was
appointed head of the Göppingen Kripo and then continued his career in
1939 in Stuttgart-Schwenningen. After the outbreak of World War II, Hering,
along with other senior Kripo officers, was transferred to Gotenhafen (Gdynia)
in December 1939. He was appointed with the task of resettling Volksdeutsche to
the General Government.
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Oberscharführer (Staff
Sergeant) Heinrich Gley and Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Gottlieb Hering drinking
beer
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Action
T4
Beginning
in late 1940, Hering held various functions within the Action T4
"euthanasia" program. Having completed the order at Gdynia, he was
transferred to work first at Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre. Hering served as an
assistant supervisor (as did Fritz Tauscher) to a police officer by the name of
Schemel. After Sonnenstein, Hering became the office manager at Hartheim
Euthanasia Centre. He also worked in the special registry offices of Bernburg
and Hadamar euthanasia centres.
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Map of the Holocaust
in Poland during the Second World War (1939-1945) at the time of German occupation
of Poland.
This map shows all
German Nazi extermination camps (or death camps), prominent concentration,
labor and prison camps, major prewar Polish cities with ghettos set up by Nazi
Germany, major deportation routes and major massacre sites.
Notes: 1. Extermination camps were dedicated death camps for gassing, but all camps and ghettos took a toll of many, many lives.
2. Concentration camps
include labor camps, prison camps & transit camps.
3. Not all camps &
ghettos are shown.
4. Borders are at the
height of Axis domination (1942).
5. Regions have German
designations (e.g. "Ostland"), with the country name denoted in
uppercase letters, e.g. LITHUANIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, or in parenthesis below the
German occupational designation, e.g. (POLAND).
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Operation
Reinhard
After
Action T4, Hering was posted briefly to the Sicherheitsdienst in Prague
in June 1942, and was then transferred to Operation Reinhard in Lublin, Poland. He
replaced Christian Wirth as commandant of Bełżec extermination camp at the end
of August 1942. He served as the camp's commandant until its closure in June
1943. After Himmler
was impressed by his visit to the Reinhard camps in March 1943, Hering was
promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain).
SS-Scharführer
Heinrich Unverhau, who served at Bełżec, testified about Hering:
Hering and Wirth were definitely wicked people, and the whole staff of the camp was afraid of them....I heard that Hering shot two Ukrainian guards who expressed their dissatisfaction with what was going on in Belzec.
Rudolf
Reder, one of the very few survivors of Bełżec, wrote of Hering:
He seldom was present in the camp and came only in connection with some event....Once the gassing engine stopped working. When he was informed, he arrived astride a horse, ordered the engine to be repaired and did not allow the people in the gas chambers to be removed. He let them strangle and die slowly for a few hours more. He yelled and shook with rage. In spite of the fact that he came only on rare occasions, the SS men feared him greatly. He lived alone with his Ukrainian orderly, who served him. This Ukrainian submitted to him the daily reports.
Tadeusz
Miziewicz, a Pole who lived in the village of Bełżec and worked at the train
station, testified about Hering:
Once the major [sic], the commander of Belzec death camp, invented a new type of entertainment: he tied a Jew with a rope to his car; the Jew was forced to run behind the car and behind them ran the major's dog and bit the Jew. The major rode from the camp to the water pump, which was in Belzec on Tomaszowska Street, and back. What happened to this Jew I do not know. This event was witnessed by the people of Belzec.
After
Operation Reinhard
After
the termination of Operation Reinhard and the closure of Belzec in June 1943,
Hering remained the commander of the Poniatowa concentration camp
reassigned as subcamp of Majdanek from the forced labor camp supporting the German
war effort. On 3–4 November 1943, German police killed the remaining Jews at
Poniatowa during Aktion Erntefest (German: Operation
Harvest Festival).
Hering then joined fellow SS men from the Operation Reinhard staff in Trieste, Italy.
On
9 October 1945, Gottlieb Hering died of mysterious complications in the waiting
room of St. Catherine's Hospital in Stetten im Remstal.
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