Language:
German
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Zeitgeschichte
Angaben zur Quelle:
26,5 (1999) 283-316
Keywords:
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Economic aspects
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
National socialism
Abstract:
Observes that historians have applied the name "Aktion Reinhard" only to the extermination of the Jews of the Generalgouvernement in local massacres and in the death camps Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, and to the systematic seizure of their property. Auschwitz was either excluded from this definition or included only in regard to the seizure of property, not the mass killings; this because the name is mentioned in contemporary documents and postwar testimony in connection with the former, but not the latter. Describes the administration and procedures for the disposal of Jewish property, both in Lublin (the headquarters of "Aktion Reinhard") and in Auschwitz, showing that they followed the same guidelines; moreover, there was no clear division between the personnel engaged in mass murder and those engaged in the disposal of property. Concludes that Auschwitz was also part of "Aktion Reinhard", and that the Aktion was organized centrally rather than locally. The Central Economic Office of the SS played its part in the mass killings no less than the RSHA. Pp. 301-307 contain testimony by Karl Ernst Möckel, head of the administration in Auschwitz from April 1943-January 1945, describing the procedures for utilization of the property "from the Aktion Reinhard". The testimony was written in 1947 in Kraków, where he was sentenced to death along with other war criminals.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink