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Friday, August 21, 2015

SS-MAJOR HERMANN HOLFE (JUNE 19, 1911 TO AUGUST 21, 1962)


            On this date, August 21, 1962, one of the SS personnel involved in Operation Reinhard, hanged himself before his trial could begin. I will post information about Hermann Höfle from Wikipedia and other links.


Hermann Höfle


Hermann Julius Höfle as Hauptsturmführer (before his promotion)
Birth name
Hermann Julius Höfle
Nickname(s)
Hans
Born
19 June 1911
Salzburg, Austria
Died
21 August 1962 (aged 51)
Vienna, Austria
Allegiance
Nazi Germany
Service/branch
Schutzstaffel
Years of service
1933—1945
Rank
Commands held
Operation Reinhard
Coordinator
Other work
Auto mechanic

Hermann Julius Höfle also Hans (or) Hermann Hoefle (19 June 1911 – 21 August 1962) was an Austrian-born SS-Sturmbannführer (Major). He was deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. As such he was heavily involved in crimes against humanity during the Holocaust.

Background

Born in Salzburg, Austria, Höfle joined the NSDAP on 1 August 1933, with party number 307,469. He joined the SS at the same time. Before the war, he worked as an auto mechanic.

Crimes against humanity

After the conquest of Poland, Höfle served in Nowy Sącz, in Southern Poland. In November 1940 he served as an overseer of a Jewish labour camp southeast of Lublin. Up to December 1941 Höfle was in Mogilev, Russia. He was involved in deportations to the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. He lived and worked from the Aktion Reinhard headquarters with the Julius Schreck Barracks, Ostland Strasse, in Lublin.

Höfle was "Coordinator" of Operation Reinhard and deputy to Odilo Globocnik (effectively making Höfle second-in-command within the program), serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. Höfle had chief authority of Operation Reinhard beside Globocnik. At the beginning of the operation, he held the rank of Hauptsturmführer (Captain). SS members, including those from Action T4 who were assigned to the operation, reported to the headquarters in Lublin and were instructed to their duties by Höfle. For an example of the limited paperwork, every member of Operation Reinhard signed the following declaration of secrecy:

I have been thoroughly informed and instructed by SS Hauptsturmführer Höfle, as Commander of the main department of Einsatz Reinhard of the SS and Police Leader 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 Einsatz Reinhard staff;


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


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

— From: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka.

As head of the "Main Department" (German: Hauptabteilung), Höfle was in charge of the organization and manpower of Operation Reinhard. He coordinated the deportations of Jews from all areas of the General Government and directed them to one of the extermination camps.} The deportation orders were coordinated and channeled through SS authorities from Höfle's office for the Lublin reservation, through the district SS and Police Leaders, down to the localities where the expulsions were to take place.

Around May 1942 in the General Government, a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with Jewish laborers. It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government, the others being sent on to their deaths in Belzec. In this way, many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor. Hermann Höfle was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy.

Höfle personally oversaw the deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the so-called Großaktion Warschau. The operation was preceded on 20 and 21 July 1942 by a spree of randomly killing actions along the streets of the Ghetto and by the arrest and brutal imprisonment of many others taken as hostages among counselors, department managers and those connected in a way or another to the Judenrat. All this was to intimidate and soften the Judenrat to the new upcoming measures. The day after, in the morning of 22 July, Sturmbannführer Höfle, accompanied by an entourage of SS and government officials, arrived at the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto and announced to the chairman, Adam Czerniaków, that the Jews, regardless of sex or age and with but a few exceptions, were to be evacuated to the East. The exceptions were workers in German factories who had valid work permits, Judenrat employees, the Jewish Order Service, hospital patients and employees, and the families of the exempt. The deportees were allowed to carry with them 15 kg of baggage, food for three days, money, gold, and other valuables. The order also called for 6,000 Jews to report to the Umschlagplatz every day by 4 p.m. to board the trains for deportation.

Adam Czerniaków wrote in his diary on 22 July 1941 (he committed suicide the next day):

Sturmbannführer Höfle (who is in charge of the evacuation) asked me into his office and informed me that for the time being my wife was free, but if the deportation were impeded in any way, she would be the first one to be shot as a hostage.

— From: Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka

Höfle also played a key role in the Harvest Festival massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943. Approximately 43,000 Jews were murdered during this operation which was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war.

Höfle rejoined Globocnik in Trieste, after various missions in the Netherlands and Belgium.

  

Photocopy of personal documents of Hermann Höfle, from his personal file, Berlin Document Center

Telegram from Hermann Höfle listing the number of deaths in the extermination camps during a 14-day period in 1942 and for the whole year 1942 (1,274,166). (L) stands for Lublin/Majdanek, (B) for Bełżec, (S) for Sobibor and (T) for Treblinka extermination camp.

Description
Deutsch: Höfle-Telegramm,
English: Telegram from deputy commander of Aktion Reinhard, listing number of arrivals in the extermination camps. Translation:
Letter and 14 day report year-end report
 
Camp i.d.            to 31.12.1942                 1942 total
L ? Lublin (Majdanek)   12761                          24733
B ? Belzec                  0                         434508
S ? Sobibor               515                         101370
T ? Treblinka           10335                         713555 (*)
 total:                 23611                        1274166
(*) note - the original reads 71355, but this is clearly a typo as 713555 gives the correct total.
Date
11 January 1943
Source
English: Transcript of a telegram by Hermann Höfle. Public Record Office, Kew, England, HW 16/23, decode GPDD 355a distributed on January 15, 1943, radio telegrams nos 12 and 13/15, transmitted on January 11, 1943 Government Code and Cypher School German Police Section Decrypts of German Police Communications during Second World War; Reprinted in: Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas: A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‚Einsatz Reinhard’ 1942 In: Holocaust and Genocid Studies 15(2001) V 3, , S. 468-486 Online
Author
Hermann Höfle (1911–1962)
Höfle Telegram

On 11 January 1943, Höfle sent a radiogram from Lublin to SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Heim in Kraków, who was at the time the deputy commander of the Security Police and SD in the General Government, and to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in Berlin. The message documented the total deportations of Jews to the four Operation Reinhard camps through 31 of December 1942. Today this document is called the Höfle Telegram.

  

Hermann Julius Höfle, an SS officer who served in the Lublin district during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust, during his arrest in Vienna, Austria, 1961.
After the war

On 31 May 1945 Höfle was found hiding in Möslacher Alm near the Weissensee Lake in Carinthia (Southern Austria) by the British, along with SS storm troopers Ernst Lerch and Georg Michalsen. After two years in the British interrogation center Wolfsberg (Carinthia), he was released to the Austrian judicial system. On 30 October 1947, under oath, he was released to continue his earlier occupation as an auto mechanic in his birthplace, Salzburg.

After an extradition request on 9 July 1948 by the Polish government, he fled to Italy, where he lived under a false name until 1951. Later he returned to Austria, and then emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany. There he was employed briefly as an informant for U.S. Army Counterintelligence.

Höfle returned to Salzburg, where he lived as a free man until 2 January 1961, when he was arrested by the Austrian authority and sent to prison in Vienna, where in 1962 he hanged himself before his trial could begin.

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