SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik and His Staff in the Lublin District

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The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik and His Staff in the Lublin District

Bertrand Perz Institute of Contemporary History, University of Vienna Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021

The Ofﬁce of the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District under Odilo Globocnik contributed to two objectives of Nazi rule in Poland: the murder of the Jews and “Germanization.” Globocnik’s enormous activism is often explained by his socialization and the experience of failure as Gauleiter of Vienna. His staff in Lublin has received little attention. Austrians occupied almost all important positions on that staff. Decisive for their recruitment, however, was not their origin but their afﬁliation with Globocnik’s network when the Nazi movement had been illegal in Austria. These were not just any men, but a group of perpetrators with very close personal and ideological ties.

“The Jews are now being pushed out of the Generalgouvernement, beginning near Lublin, to the East. A pretty barbaric procedure is being applied here and it is not to be described in any more detail, and not much is left of the Jews themselves. In general, one may conclude that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is carrying out this action, is doing it pretty prudently and with a procedure that doesn’t work too conspicuously.”1 This diary entry by Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels on March 27, 1942, re- ferring to the “evacuation” of the Lublin ghetto in March 1942 and the deportations of the Lublin Jews to the extermination camp of Bełz˙ec, marks the beginning of “Operation Reinhard” in the Generalgouvernement (the largest portion of occupied Poland not incorporated into the Reich). More than 1.5 million Polish Jews were murdered in the extermination camps of Bełz˙ec, Sobibór, Treblinka, and Majdanek in the course of this operation. At the very beginning of this mass murder, Goebbels had nothing but praise for the “quite prudent” former Gauleiter of Vienna Odilo Globocnik, SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in the Lublin District since November 1939; the propaganda minister had in mind Globocnik’s organizational talent in mass murder as well as his skillful concealment of the process. The key role of Globocnik, one of the most important Austrian Nazis, is relatively well known. His SSPF Ofﬁce can be described as well-nigh

doi:10.1093/hgs/dcv046 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 29, no. 3 (Winter 2015): 400–430 400 prototypical as an institution seeking to expand its power by garnering new functions and expanding the scope of orders received from Berlin.2 In the scholarly literature, Globocnik’s enormous activity, his radicalism, and his constant transgression of rules and agreements are often explained by personal quali- ties, his socialization in Carinthia—a border region torn by ethnic conflicts—and his experience of failure in Vienna. Globocnik had been forced to step down as Gauleiter there in 1939, leaving behind financial and organizational chaos. This represented a clear career setback for the prominent Austrian, who had played a leading role in the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Anschluss, Germany’s 1938 annexation of Austria. Himmler, who had been very close to Globocnik at least since that time, soon opened up to him a second career opportu- nity in Lublin that Globocnik tried to exploit at all costs. The special status of the Lublin District (districts in occupied Poland were akin to regions elsewhere) for the Nazis’ Judenpolitik, and later as a staging ground and supply base for the war against the Soviet Union, provided Globocnik with a great deal of crea- tive leeway.3 The institution of an SSPF—conceived by Himmler not as a compact, stan- dardized administrative apparatus, but as a flexible instrument of control with open organizational structures—was to be linked to the aggressive personality of the holder of the Office4; it seems to have complemented to a great extent Globocnik’swayof working. Globocnik cast himself as a dynamic and ruthless “man of action” who believed one hundred percent in his mission, which matched what Himmler had in mind. Still, Globocnik had to rely to a large extent on personnel who executed the duties assigned to them. The staff of his SSPF Office was deeply involved in the murder of the European Jews and other ethnic cleansing programs. The role and activism of that staff deserve greater scholarly attention. Previous scholarly focus on Globocnik as an individual rests to a considerable degree on problematic contemporary assessments of him such as that of Maximillian von Herff, chief of the SS-Personalhauptamt (SS Main Personnel Office); per “the Führer principle” Herff praised the SSPF and ascribed to him virtues such as “fanaticism and obsession with his mission.”5 The Führer principle did not countenance the possibility that a group of underlings might shape decisions. But historians can and should recognize that actions ascribed to Globocnik definitely were carried out by a group, albeit a close-knit group who had long known one another and had more than ideological attitudes in common. Most importantly, they shared the experience of underground political activity while the Nazi Party was banned in Austria from 1933 to 1938. During his entire stay in Lublin (as afterwards), Globocnik moved among a group of close Austrian confidants, on both a professional and a private level. Their contribution to the dynamic drive of the Office cannot be underestimated. The objective here is to illuminate the network of personnel around Globocnik. Who were the decisive actors on the staff? How did they wind up in Lublin? What were their relationships to Globocnik? How real was the dominance of Austrians? All of this raises the general question of the selection criteria for the personnel involved

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 401 in the Germans’ crimes in Eastern Europe. Were the men (and women) in the SSPF Office ideologically driven? Or were they “ordinary men” (and women)?6 There are a number of brief biographical accounts of Globocnik, though in-depth monographs about him have flaws.7 Globocnik’s Salzburg-born associate Hermann Höfle, the staff member most responsible for Operation Reinhard, became the subject of scholarly studies when the transcripts of British wiretaps of German radio communications became available.8 One of Höfle’s staff members, Vienna-born Amon Leopold Göth, gained attention through Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 List” largely due to his later position as the cruel commander of the Plaszow forced labor, and later concentration, camp.9 Legal documents have permitted an awareness of the roles of Georg Michalsen, who was especially active under Höfle in ghetto evacuations; Richard Thomalla, another Höfle staff associate; and the most important person on the staff, Ernst Lerch.10 Two groups closely connected to Globocnik’s SSPF Office have been thoroughly investigated: personnel from the T4 killing hospi- tals who later were assigned to Globocnik by the Chancellery of the Führer (a total of 120 persons who became core personnel of the extermination camps),11 and several thousand extermination camp guards trained in Trawniki near Lublin, recruited pri- marily from Soviet POWs.12 All in all, however, systematic study of the staff of the SSPF Office has not been carried out.13

Tasks, Structure, and Personnel From the onset of his activity in Lublin, Globocnik and his staff came up with radical measures, especially in the realm of “Jewish policy,” forced labor, and “Germanization.” Specific measures included the establishment of forced labor camps; the construction of fortifications—useless in military terms—on the Bug River; brutal repression by the Lublin Selbstschutz (Volksdeutsche [ethnic German] “self-defense” units);14 and the privileged resettlement of so-called Volksdeutsche, especially from Volhynia. Globocnik struggled with the civilian administration of the district from the beginning, in particular on the issue of competencies over “Jewish matters.”15 As a former Gauleiter, however, Globocnik also laid claim to leadership in the district generally, in principle belonging to the civilian governor, or gouverneur. Globocnik was appointed NSDAP (Nazi Party) district Standortführer in May 1940.16 Globocnik and his staff devised a convincing plan for the establishment of SS- und Polizeistützpunkte (SS and police bases) in the Lublin District, which met with Himmler’s approval. Himmler appointed Globocnik his commissioner for this task in November 1940. At the same time, Globocnik established an SS-Mannschaftshaus (a kind of SS research office) in Lublin, modeled after the ones in German university towns. The idea was to attract young SS academics to Lublin for concrete planning for the bases and later the entire settlement and Germanization projects; he would, thus, have at his disposal his own think tank.17 For the Germanization project, Globocnik relied not only on his role as authorized representative of the Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (RKFdV, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening

402 Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Germandom, Himmler) for Lublin District (in conjunction with his position as SSPF); he also exercised sway over field offices of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi, Ethnic German Liaison Office) and the Rasse- & Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA, SS Race and Settlement Main Office) in Lublin, all with close ties to the Forschungsstelle für Ostunterkünfte (Research Center for Settlements in the East), which had emerged from the SS-Mannschaftshaus in March 1942.18 Following the June 22, 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, Himmler expanded Globocnik’s order for the establishment of bases to the entirety of the “new Ostraum Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 [Eastern territory]”; to this end, the Lublin Standort was to be expanded into a major SS base. Even though this order to Globocnik was revoked as early as March 1942, when it became clear that the technical specialists of the SS-WVHA (SS-Wirtschafts- Verwaltungshauptamt, the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS) were better equipped to develop the bases, the planning work of the Research Center continued.19 Operation Reinhard, which Himmler had ordered Globocnik to execute, became the main project of the SSPF Office in 1942. Alongside the establishment of extermination camps, it included the exploitation of Jews in forced labor camps, the evacuation of the ghettos, deportation to the extermination camps, and utilization of the belongings of the victims.20 Connected with the ghetto evacuations was the establishment in early 1943 of an economic complex based on Jewish forced labor, the so-called “Ostindustrie GmbH” in the Lublin District. (The project was closed down by Globocnik’s successor Jakob Sporrenberg after the mass executions of Aktion Erntefest [Operation Harvest Festival] in autumn 1943.)21

“Paciﬁcation” of a Polish village, either Biłgoraj or Zamos´c´ county (Kreis), Lublin District, June–July 1943. Globocnik oversaw both expulsion of Poles and suppression of resistance. Soldiers pictured were probably Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS. USHMM, courtesy of Jerzy Tomaszewski.

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 403 The first major Germanization project, in Zamosć´, south of Lublin, was carried out under Globocnik’s responsibility starting in fall 1942; it also entailed the forced resettlement of more than 100,000 non-Jewish Polish residents.22 After it resulted in a massive growth of the resistance movement and other chaotic conditions—earning vehement criticism from the civilian administration—the project was abandoned in summer 1943. This failure contributed to Globocnik’s next move: relieved of this duties in Lublin in September 1943, he was promoted to Higher SS and Police Leader in Trieste, Italy.23 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 To cover all its various functions, the SSPF in Lublin established an institutional web easily adaptable to multifarious requirements. A good general outline dates from August 1941, when the SSPF Office had to be restructured due to the work entailed by the establishment of SS and police bases.24 Globocnik organized his office into five main groups, each to work under its respective staff leader; in contrast to the relative amorphousness of the other groups’ mandates, the first two had relatively clear-cut tasks:

(1) SSPF Office (Permanent Representative Chief of Staff SS-Obersturmbannführer Nemec, for supervision and coordination of all SS agencies); (2) Office of the Representative for the Establishment of SS and Police Bases in the New Eastern Territories (Permanent Representative SS-Sturmbannführer Maubach); (3) Volkspolitisches Referat (desk for racial and ethnic matters) to “carry out all Germanization work in conjunction with the 4th main group” under Hauptgefolgschaftsführer (main retinue leader) Lothar von Seltmann; (4) “Overall planning of the SS and police bases, cleansing of Jews, scientific mission within the scope of the SS-Mannschaftshaus,” under the auspices of SS- Obersturmführer Hanelt; (5) NSDAP in the district (SS-Obersturmbannführer Nemec).

The motor pool desk under SS-Sturmbannführer Maubach was an independent unit.25 The order to carry out Operation Reinhard led to the creation of another department under Hermann Höfle, later named “Hauptabteilung Einsatz Reinhard (Main Department Operation Reinhard).”26 Concurrently, the office of the Representative for the Establishment of SS and Police Bases was dissolved. Globocnik’s multifarious tasks required more than the standard, rather modest staffing of an SSPF Office. Unlike any other SSPF, he succeeded in having a large number of personnel assigned to him. Those numbers can be seen from a chart dated October 1943.27 According to the chart, 153 persons were ordinary members of the Office of the SSPF; another 297 had been temporarily assigned to it for specific tasks: personnel for ethnic cleansing from the “racial” and “ethnic group” institutions; personnel from the SS’s Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke for the exploitation of forced

404 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1. Members of the SSPF Ofﬁce in various agencies: Persons SSPF task force (Arbeitstab, with all SS Führers, SS Unterführers, SS men, police sergeants, 49 and civilian employees): Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom: 16 SS-Mannschaftshaus: 42 DAW (Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke [SS defense contractor]): 10 staff members detached to KdS (Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei; interpreters): 7

Trawniki work camp: 3 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Trawniki training camp: 26 In all: 153

2. Personnel temporarily assigned to the SSPF Office: For “resettlement” from VoMi (Ethnic German Liaison Office), RKFdV, RuSHA, and the SS 186 and police bases: For DAW from the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Economic Main Office, which ran 19 the major concentration camps): For Operation Reinhard, from Chancellery of the Führer (from the T4 Euthanasia centers): 92 In all: 297 Total: 450 laborers; and the aforementioned T4 personnel for the extermination camps. Not mentioned in Globocnik’s list are the thousands of Trawniki guards. Also unmen- tioned are the young people brought in under the “Osteinsatz,” or East Action (under which members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were to help German “resettlers” replace Polish villagers expelled or deported). Many of the Osteinsatz youth came to the Lublin District to support Globocnik’s Germanization projects, some of them female students from Vienna University.28 Globocnik’s chart provides only a snapshot. It remains unclear to what extent it reflects fluctuations in staffing.29 Here we focus exclusively on the members of the SSPF Office. With the exception of those in DAW and Trawniki, most were stationed in Lublin.30 The Austrians in this group constitute our main focus. From the perspec- tive of functions, the following four sub-groups are recognizable:

• Core staff and subordinates from the SS and police, most without any professional qualifications. These included adjutants, chiefs of staff, personal aides, and order- lies. These worked in close contact with Globocnik and consequently had the most influence on the decisions and actions of the Office. •“Specialists” such as historians, architects, agronomists, and builders, as well as racial and settlement “experts,” especially in the area of “Germanization.” • A group predominantly concerned with “Jewish matters,” from basic “Judenreferenten” (experts on Jewish affairs) all the way up to the Operation Reinhard Office. Some of these were simply redeployments within the SSPF Office.

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 405 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021

Odilo Globocnik (third from right) with other SS ofﬁcers and NCO during visit to Trawniki training camp, December 31, 1942. USHMM, courtesy of the Staatsanwalt beim Landgericht Hamburg.

• Secretaries, drivers, interpreters, and the like, recruited for their professional skills. Formally, these had little inﬂuence over the SSPF Ofﬁce; but they were in permanent contact with their superiors, cooperated very closely with the latter in secret actions such as the murder of the Jews, and supported the actions of their superiors apparently without reservation.31 One should bear in mind that these staff members, especially the Austrian drivers, often had been political fellow travelers of their bosses for many years. The secretaries, in turn, often entered into private li- aisons with male staff members or maintained social contacts with their wives and members of Globocnik’s family.

The Core Group around the SSPF: Adjutants, Chiefs of staff, and Personal Aides The function of adjutant was filled consecutively by two long-time comrades of Globocnik. Both came from Carinthia and had occupied important positions in the illegal Nazi movement or the SS before 1938. The first was SS-Hauptsturmführer Reinhold (von) Mohrenschildt, born in 1915 at Leifling Castle near Unterdrauburg/ Dravograd, and a Diplomkaufmann (business graduate). His family had come from the Baltic. Mohrenschildt was active in the Hitler Youth even in middle school in Klagenfurt, where he and Globocnik were already friends.32 When he entered the Hochschule für Welthandel (University for World Trade) in Vienna in September 1933, he also surreptitiously joined the SA, then banned in Austria, and later the SS. He acted for two years as a secret courier between the underground leadership of the Austrian Nazi Party and the Hilfswerk (relief organization) for the Gau of Carinthia. Starting in

406 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1935, he worked for the newly established SS intelligence service. In tandem with his university studies, Mohrenschildt completed a diplomatic training course at the Konsularakademie in Vienna in 1937. A few days before the Anschluss, Mohrenschildt was promoted to the position of adjutant to Hubert Klausner, the country leader of the Austrian NSDAP. During those critical days in March 1938, he was in the midst of events with Klausner, Globocnik, and the future Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer.33 After Austria’s unification with Germany, Mohrenschildt became a “policy expert” on the staff of Deputy to the Führer Rudolf Hess, and subsequently worked Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 in the same capacity for Vienna Gauleiter Globocnik. During preparations for the attack on Poland, he was ordered to join the Gauleiter in Danzig on August 15, 1939 for the execution of a special order by Ribbentrop (most likely the deliberate escala- tion of tensions).34 When Globocnik was appointed SSPF on November 1, 1939, Mohrenschildt was appointed his adjutant.35 In that capacity he worked on the resettlement of ethnic Germans from newly Sovietized Volhynia (the “Volhynia resettlement”) to the German-occupied portion of Poland that followed upon the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—a transfer enabled by the expulsion of Polish villagers.36 In July 1940, Mohrenschildt went to work for the newly appointed Reichskommissar for the Netherlands, Arthur Seyß-Inquart, as “secretary for political issues.” His position in the Netherlands seems to have disintegrated rather quickly, because he relocat- ed to Berlin that September. There he married Margarete Kaufmann, sister-in-law of Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben, leader of the Lublin Selbstschutz.37 Mohrenschildt returned to Lublin in October 1941. Since the position of adjutant had in the meantime been taken by Ernst Lerch, he was appointed Globocnik’sRKFdV commissioner. Mohrenschildt’s blatant attempt to polish his credentials in the Netherlands had not been appreciated by everyone. The HSSPF Ost Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, for instance, refused a recommendation of promotion for Mohrenschildt sub- mitted by Globocnik in February 1942, because “von Mohrenschildt is a so-called political migratory bird.”38 But in fall 1942 Globocnik gave Mohrenschildt a leading role as RKFdV representative in the Zamosć´ Germanization project.39 When Globocnik was assigned to Trieste in September 1943 Mohrenschildt was one of sixteen members of the Office he asked to bring with him (he actually was able to bring more).40 Mohrenschildt’s successor as Globocnik’s adjutant was Ernst Lerch, born in Klagenfurt in 1914. Lerch completed a hotel management school in Vienna in 1931 and worked as a waiter in Swiss and French hotels afterward. When he returned to Austria at the end of 1934, he was already a member of the NSDAP and the SS.41 Officially, Lerch worked in his parents’ café in Klagenfurt; in actuality, he was working in the illegal SS intelligence service essentially set up by Globocnik, and later in the SD (Security Service of the SS) sub-section of Carinthia, whose directorship he assumed in February 1936. According to his own statement, Lerch had control of ap- proximately eighty clandestine associates.42 This network was to become a main re- cruiting ground for the staff of the SSPF Office in Lublin. After March 1938, Lerch

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 407 was entrusted with the full-time directorship of the SD section of Klagenfurt. His close relationship with Globocnik, who by now had risen to Gauleiter of Vienna, is evident from the fact that Globocnik, in conjunction with Helmut Ortwin Pohl (another associate in the Carinthian SD), acted as Lerch’s best man when he married Gertrude Fercher from Klagenfurt in August 1938.43 Lerch was to meet Pohl again in Lublin a little later. In September 1938, Lerch underwent training at the SD school in Bernau; afterward, he was drafted into the army and took part in the invasion of Poland. For the benefit of SD Carinthia, however, he was exempted from military Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 service as of February 1, 1940, to work for Gaugrenzlandamt (Regional Borderlands Office) resettling ethnic Germans from South Tyrol and Val Canale in Italy to the Klagenfurt area in Austria.44 With the move to Lublin in July 1940, Lerch became Globocnik’s closest and most important collaborator in the Office.45 He assumed the position of chief of staff in March 1942 after Josef (Sepp) Nemec left Lublin. Lerch’s successor as adjutant was Max von Czichotzki, a senior Hitler Youth official from the ranks of the German-speaking minority in Poland.46 Von Czichotzki, who did not belong to the core group around Globocnik and probably got the job owing to a lack of alternative candidates, was never able to wield the same influence inside the staff as had Lerch. Globocnik’s intermittent fiancée and secretary Irmgard Rickheim characterized Czichotzki as the “little adjutant,” junior to Lerch. According to Georg Michalsen, he played “something midway between an adjutant and an orderly.”47 As Globocnik’s adjutant, however, he went to Trieste along with his boss.48 Like the first two adjutants, the two chiefs of staff were also long-standing comrades with Globocnik. The trained mechanical engineer and builder Paul Gasser had been a close friend of Globocnik since the 1920s;49 both were veterans of the Nazi movement in Carinthia. Actively involved in the attempted coup by the Nazis in the Lavanttal in Carinthia in July 1934, Gasser fled to Yugoslavia, clandestinely returning not long afterward and working in the underground until 1938.50 After March 1938, Gasser became Globocnik’s personal aide and adjutant when Globocnik became Gauleiter of Vienna. Even after Globocnik was relieved of his post, Gasser remained among those in the close circle around him. He completed his SS military training with Globocnik51; together, they switched to Lublin. The Office was established during his term there. But in summer 1940, he volunteered for duty on the front, likely following a fallout with Globocnik.52 Gasser’s successor, the Viennese Josef Nemec, belonged to the small circle around Globocnik in the underground as well as during the latter’s term as Gauleiter of Vienna. Born in 1901, Viennese furniture company clerk Nemec occupied a key position in the illegal Nazi movement in Austria.53 Joining the NSDAP in 1932 and the SS in 1935, he served as financial manager and adjutant to the SA-Obergruppe Österreich, and as head of the illegal Austrian Hilfswerk of the NSDAP after 1936. After the Anschluss, Nemec worked under Globocnik as an SD-Führer and one of

408 Holocaust and Genocide Studies three Gau inspectors in Vienna.54 In appreciation of Nemec’s service Globocnik arranged for him to be awarded the highest decoration of the NSDAP, the Golden Party Badge, on January 30, 1939.55 Nemec acted as Globcnik’s chief of staff in Lublin from August 1940 to March 1942. Like Gasser, he resigned following a personal conflict with Globocnik, though the details remain unknown.56 Officially, the position of chief of staff was not filled again. Ernst Lerch took over Nemec’s duties. Suspicious of traditional bureaucracies and determined to prevent the evolution of fixed organizational structures in the (H)SSPF offices, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Himmler decreed in late 1941 that henceforth only “heads of personal office” should be appointed, rather than the more formal-sounding chiefs of staff. Lerch was there- fore merely Globocnik’s “head of personal office.”57 Nevertheless, Lerch probably enjoyed more influence than Nemec had before him, given that Czichotzki had not made the position strong and that Maubach had left. Higher-ranking SS offices criticized Lerch’sinfluence, although their dissatisfac- tion was expressed in such a way as not to undermine the authority of the SSPF. For instance, the chief of the SS-Personalhauptamt, Maximilian von Herff, remarked in May 1943, at a moment of fierce conflict over Globocnik’s Zamosć´ Germanization project:

L. belongs to the circle of Ostmärker [Nazi term for Austrians] who were groomed by SS-Gruppenführer Globocnik himself. Old, long-standing comrades-in-arms of Globocnik from the Kampfzeit [time of struggle] and completely loyal to him. Too weak to act as a balancing power within the staff and, owing to the long time spent together, too personally allied with the Gruppenführer. Also . . . too young for the position and too long in the same place. Has to be replaced at all costs, since he has it in him for supe- rior growth. Needs tough martial education.58

Von Herff’s appraisal makes clear that higher-ranking offices worried that a narrow circle of Austrians, melded together by a shared experience of illegal activities in the underground, with their own form of communication almost impenetrable to outsid- ers, might shield themselves from outside scrutiny. Nonetheless von Herff’s blunt criticism had no effect. Globocnik protected Lerch and later took him, along with most of the rest of his group, to Trieste. Alongside his adjutant, the SSPF was initially assisted by persönlicher Referent (personal aide) Hans-Gustav Maubach. Born in 1904 near Bonn, Maubach did not hail from Globocnik’s narrow circle but did come to Lublin through the mediation of one of Globocnik’s close political comrades-in-arms, Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer. Maubach had most recently been a senior Hitler Youth official, and before that worked as an “expert” in foreign minister Ribbentrop’soffice, where he oversaw youth matters.59 According to Maubach, Rainer believed Maubach could mitigate tensions between Globocnik and the civilian administration, and initially got him assigned to the civilian administration as an expert on personnel matters.60 And yet there seems

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 409 to have been no such conflict at the end of 1939 or beginning of 1940, when Maubach arrived in Lublin.61 It is possible that the decision was merely about having a person of trust in the civilian administration; at a meeting in Berlin just before Maubach’s transfer, Globocnik speculated about taking on the position of civilian Gouverneur there himself.62 And in the early summer, Maubach switched to the Office of the SSPF.63 As a personal aide, Maubach took on varying extra duties such as overseeing the motor pool, supervising the forced labor camp of the DAW in Lublin, and repre- senting Globocnik in the establishment of the SS and police bases.64 After conflicts Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 with the Austrian core group, however, Maubach left Lublin in January 1942.65 Maubach himself stated after the war that the Carinthian and Viennese clique around Globocnik—particularly Nemec and Lerch—had interfered so much with his work as personal aide that he and Globocnik became estranged.66 The proximate cause for the break with Globocnik probably was an arcane affair in which Globocnik shifted the blame to Maubach for problems provisioning Heydrich’s staff in Prague. Another source of conflict, about which Maubach complained fiercely, was the rumor among the staff that his wife was Jewish.67 His position was left vacant, and his responsibilities probably were divided between Lerch and Czichotzki. Unlike his personal aide, Globocnik’s persönliche Ordonanz (orderly) was a long- standing confidant from Carinthia. Born in 1906 in Klagenfurt and a waiter by profession, SS-Rottenführer Rudolf Schleißner waited tables from 1927 at the Café Lerch, an “extreme nationalist stronghold” and information hub of the illegal NSDAP, for which Schleißner worked starting in 1933. After joining the illegal SS in 1935, he was active for the Carinthian SD, headed by Lerch from 1936 onward.68 Already prior to the Anschluss, Schleißner had been engaged to Luise D. from Carinthia, who had been working in Café Lerch as a chef since 1927 and was also working for the illegal party after 1933.69 Following the Anschluss—and apparently owing to their excellent Nazi Party contacts—the couple was able to lease a beach hotel on the southern bank of the Wörthersee, run by Ms. D. during the war.70 During the 1943 transfer from Lublin, Globocnik and his narrow circle gathered there before continuing on to Trieste.71 Earlier in Lublin, Schleißner had taken over the “Deutsches Haus.” Situated in the center of town alongside a restaurant and café, this establishment housed a casino re- served for officials only. Schleißner also worked as chef and manager of the restau- rants.72 Thus, as facilitator of informal exchanges of information, Schleißner carried forward in Lublin the same position he had occupied in Café Lerch before. The departments for administration and personnel were not manned by Austrians. Perhaps not enough qualified people from this circle were available. The competent personnel expert was SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Ulbrich from Breslau,73 previously adjutant to SSPF Friedrich Katzmann in the Radom District.74 Wilhelm Scheper, from Lower Saxony, who previously had worked for the administrative department of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, was put in charge of administration.75

410 Holocaust and Genocide Studies The “Germanization Experts” Globocnik’s efforts to establish in Lublin an SS-Mannschaftshaus like the ones in many German university towns started as early as fall 1940. From the outset, Globocnik pursued his objective of establishing his own institute for Germanization, to be independent of other Ostforschung (research on Eastern Europe) offices.76 To that end, he turned to Kurt Ellersiek, commander of the Mannschaftshäuser and chief of the Rassenamt (racial office) of the RuSHA in Berlin, and initiated the transfer of two associates, Gustav Hanelt and Claus Walter Padel.77 For the first time, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Globocnik recruited personnel from “outside” institutions whose chiefs wanted “branches” in Lublin. SS-Hauptsturmführer Gustav Hanelt was born in 1914 in Schmachthagen, Holstein, the son of a master brickmaker. He joined the Nazi movement while still at- tending school, and joined the SS in 1933; as early as 1935 he was working as a clerk in the RuSHA. Funded by the Reich Student Union, Hanelt studied history and an- thropology in Berlin; he completed his military service in October 1937. The RuSHA sent him to Königsberg to establish and manage a Mannschaftshaus. In the middle of 1938, Ellersiek brought Hanelt to be his associate in the Berlin headquarters; simultaneously Hanelt studied law at Hamburg University.78 After brief service in the Wehrmacht, he arrived in Lublin in October 1940 to organize the Mannschaftshaus there. From then on he played a vital role in the SSPF Office.79 Planning for SS and police bases—prior to that, limited to Lublin District—grew enormously with the summer 1941 invasion of the USSR, and was centralized under Hanelt’s supervision.80 Hanelt also belonged to the group who accompanied Globocnik to Trieste in 1943.81 Hanelt sought out young SS college graduates for the Mannschaftshaus. In March 1942, his staff included (among others) six such graduates, eight police sergeants, and three Polish construction technicians.82 Again, a number of Austrians were recruited, especially for the senior positions, although professional expertise dictated the hiring of more non-Austrians. Franz Stanglica, a historian born in Vienna in 1907, was hired in 1941 as director of the Research Center and the person responsible for the Planning, Research, and Statistics Main Department. Stanglica received his doc- toral degree at Vienna University in 1931 after working under the German nationalist historian Heinrich Ritter von Srbik. He moved among the circle of the extreme German-nationalist historians engaged in writing the Handwörterbuch des Grenz- und Auslandsdeutschtums (compendium of Germandom in the border regions and abroad, 1933–1938).83 As provisional registrar in the Court Chamber Archives, Stanglica was also fully involved in a clandestine project of the Reichsinstitut für die Geschichte des Neuen Deutschlands (Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany) in Munich, which had commissioned a study on the role of Jews in the Austrian economy between 1750 and 1825.84 After the Anschluss he joined the NSDAP, enlisted in October 1940 in the Waffen-SS, and soon was deployed to the guard service at the Auschwitz

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 411 concentration camp.85 His transfer to Lublin probably took place in early 1941. All early planning for the principal Germanization projects in the district, including the Zamosć´ resettlement, took place under his aegis.86 “Active Volkspolitik often requires you to take a weapon in your hand,” Stanglica wrote to a colleague at the onset of 1942, indicat- ing that not all his work was performed at his desk.87 The architectural department was headed by Jürgen Lassmann from Vienna, who had already been active in the Vienna SS-Mannschaftshaus. Born in 1914 to a teacher’s family, Lassmann studied at the Vienna University of Technology. Beginning Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 in 1933 he was active in the illegal Nazi movement, and in 1934 was barred from the university for one year. Among other things, Lassmann clandestinely recruited architects into the banned National Socialist German Students Union for Austria; he was simultaneously occasional leader of the official Hochschülerschaft at the University of Technology. A member of the illegal SS since 1937, Lassmann was ordered after the Anschluss to recruit personnel for an SS-Mannschaftshaus in Vienna. Upon gradua- tion, he worked for the Deutsche Ansiedlungsgesellschaft (German Settlement Society). Drafted into the Waffen-SS in mid-1940 and then wounded, he was transferred to the Research Center in early 1942. Both Lassmann and Stanglica, like Hanelt, later went to Trieste with Globocnik.88 The outposts of two of the three institutions most crucial for Globocnik’s program in Lublin—the RKFdV, VoMi (housed in the Mannschaftshaus), and RuSHA (housed in the Forschungsstelle für Ostunderkünfte)—were run by Austrians: the RKFdV office came under Globocnik’s first adjutant, Reinhold von Mohrenschildt; the VoMi office came under Lothar von Seltmann from Graz, and

Waffen-SS and motorized police, apparently before murder of suspected resisters during expulsion of local population. Village of Barłogi, Lublin District, July 8, 1943. USHMM, courtesy of the Instytut Pamie˛ci Narodowej.

412 Holocaust and Genocide Studies later under Ernst Lerch. The RuSHA office, established there in October 1941, was headed by the German Heinrich Thole.89 Lothar von Seltmann was born in 1917 in Graz to a secretary at the imperial governor’soffice.90 As a teen he was an NSDAP militant. He joined the NS Schülerbund in 1931 and the SA in 1933. He was forced to change schools after he came under sus- picion for involvement in a number of bombings that students and teachers carried out against the Traiskirchner Bundeserziehungsanstalt (federal reformatory) in spring 1933. One year later, he was arrested for selling a banned Nazi newspaper. Seltmann Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 fled to Germany and joined the “Austrian Legion.”91 He returned to Vienna in August 1938 and took on the directorship of the Gauverband Wien of the Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland (Popular Union for Germandom Abroad). After the war began, Seltmann served briefly in the Waffen-SS, but was then transferred to the Volhynia resettlement for the VoMi. In 1940 Seltmann was appointed VoMi Commissioner in Lublin, where he became involved in resettlement operations in the regions of Chełm and Lublin.92 In summer 1941, he was officially assigned to head the Main Department “Volkspolitisches Referat” (desk for racial and ethnic policy) in the SSPF Office, responsible for assisting German resettlers.93 With the assumption of additional responsibilities, initially for the Galicia District and later for the entire Generalgouvernement, Seltmann left the SSPF Office in February 1942 and switched to the HSSPF in Cracow. In June 1942 he joined the staff of the SSPF of Cracow District. Transferred to the front in 1943, Seltmann was reported missing in action near Murmansk.94 Himmler’s order to establish the SS and police bases in the Lublin District in November 1940 was closely connected to the creation of the SS Mannschaftshaus and various Germanization institutions.95 Hence, Hanelt and Padel, brought to Lublin for work on the SS Mannschaftshaus in October 1940, also had to deal with the establishment of the SS and police bases—at least initially.96 Following Himmler’s order to extend the SS and police bases to all the occupied Soviet territories, Globocnik appointed Maubach to head a new Office of the Representative for the Establishment of SS and Police Bases in the New Eastern Territories; Globocnik appointed the deputy commander of the police regiment in Lublin, Hermann Kintrup, chief of staff of the new office. Kintrup, however, left that posting at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942, after his promotion to commander of the order police in Lublin.97 While the entire planning of the bases was incumbent on the SS Mannschaftshaus, the new Main Department was to ensure their practical implementation. The three field offices that Globocnik set up for the establishment of the bases were headed by non-Austrians; all three had had experience with the exercise of violence prior to Lublin, among other things in the Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz. Riga, for the “North Russia” region, was headed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Georg Michalsen, who came from Upper Silesia; Mogilev (later Minsk) for the Central Russia region by SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Claasen, originally from Schleswig-Holstein; and Kiev for the

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 413 South Russia region by the construction engineer SS-Obersturmführer Richard Thomalla, who grew up in Silesia. Shortages of personnel and materials as well as turf wars with the SS-Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten (Budget and Building Main Office), on whom Globocnik de- pended for the construction of his buildings, prevented the base construction projects in the Soviet territories from ever going beyond the preparatory stage.98 After Maubach’s departure, Hermann Höfle, charged after September 1941 with economic operations, assumed the main responsibility for the office for a while;99 following Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Himmler’s order to remove Globocnik, however, the office was dissolved at the end of March 1942. Himmler explained Globocnik’s removal by the fact that the organization of the occupied territories had proceeded to a new stage.100 In reality Globocnik and his staff were separated from the SS and police bases for other reasons: incompetence, logistical difficulties, the impact of the Soviet military offensive before Moscow in winter 1941/1942, and, possibly, the diversion of available resources for the implementation of Operation Reinhard. At the level of planning, however, Globocnik remained responsible for the bases.

The Protagonists of \Jewish Policy" Prominent staff protagonists of genocide undoubtedly included the so-called Judenreferenten, all of whom were from Austria. As early as December 1939, Globocnik had established the ﬁrst Judenreferat, setting off a sustained conﬂict with gouverneur Ernst Otto Emil Zörner—these “desks” had not originally been planned for the SSPF, so this was in fact a usurpation of a preserve of the civilian administration.101 At a time when Lublin was still considered a “Jewish reservation” and the Volhynia resettlement was being carried out, Globocnik appointed legal scholar and international law expert SS-Untersturmführer Karl Hofbauer as Judenreferent. Hofbauer originally came from Villach in Carinthia. His education distinguished him among the other SS leaders, one of the reasons that Globocnik took him to Lublin in December 1939. At the time Globocnik made him Judenreferent he had been an as- sistant at Vienna University’s Institute of Statistics for Minority Peoples, and had completed a number of research visits to Western Europe.102 From 1937 to the end of 1939, he had been prefect of law at the Consular Academy in Vienna, where he lec- tured on international law.103 A member of the Nazi Party since 1930 and of the SS since 1931, Hofbauer also had worked for the SD during his time at the Academy. Hofbauer stayed in Lublin just over six months. On August 6, 1940, he took part in a meeting on the deployment of Jews for forced labor, which was held in the headquarters of the Generalgouverneur in Cracow.104 Shortly afterward he was sent to Semlin in Yugoslavia to facilitate the resettlement to occupied Poland of ethnic Germans from Bessarabia after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact transferred that prov- ince from Romania to the USSR (the refugees journeyed via Yugoslavia). Hofbauer did not return to Lublin, likely out of frustration at his loss of control over “Jewish

414 Holocaust and Genocide Studies matters” to the civilian administration.105 After Hofbauer’s departure, Ernst Lerch, just appointed Globocnik’s adjutant, was additionally assigned the position of Judenreferent, reflecting the crucial role he already played as Globocnik’s de facto deputy. But the conflict between the civilian administration and the SSPF Office that had flared up under Hofbauer continued under Lerch.106 The multitude of tasks entailed in Operation Reinhard—running labor camps, the construction of the extermination camps, the evacuation of ghettos, the arrangement of deportation trains, the utilization of murdered people’s belongings—could not be Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 handled by a mere “desk” as it was under Hofbauer and Lerch.107 Globocnik accordingly created within his staff a new Main Department, headed from March 1942 by Hermann Höfle,108 an automobile mechanic and former owner of a taxi firm,borninSalzburgin 1911. Höfle had helped to set up illegal NSDAP and SS organizational structures in Austria beginning in 1933, and had served time in prison for these activities. After the Anschluss, he assumed a fulltime SS role as leader of Sturmbann I/76, from which Gauleiter Rainer recruited some personnel for the Gauleitung staff. For a short time Höfle attended the SS-Führerschule in Dachau, and was deployed as provisional leader of the 76th SS-Standarte from the beginning of the war until December 1939. Höfle was area leader in the Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz, an organization that terrorized and murdered members of the Polish elite and the Jewish minority in the Neu-Sandez (Nowy Sa˛cz) District from December 1939 well into 1940. After the dis- solution of the Selbstschutz, Höfle was transferred to Globocnik in Lublin in autumn 1940. He would have preferred to find employment in the West.109 Initially, Höfle was deployed as commander110 of one of the forced labor camps for Jews during construction of the “Bug River fortifications,” the largest forced labor project in the district.111 Afterwards he served as SSPF deputy chief of staff in Lublin, responsible for the establishment of the SS and police bases. A few weeks before the evacuation of the Lublin ghetto, Höfle was appointed head of Globocnik’s Operation Reinhard Main Department.112 Much suggests that there had been no earlier preparations for staffing Operation Reinhard. As recently as the end of 1941 or beginning of 1942, Höfle himself had been scheduled to head a planned base in Tbilisi, Georgia.113 The stagnation of the German advance, however, rendered that plan moot. Instead charged with the Main Department, Höfle brought those of his associates who had proven most reliable in their work on the SS and police bases; among these were his deputy Helmut Ortwin Pohl from Klagenfurt as well as the above-mentioned Thomalla, Michalsen, and Claasen. The Main Department was similarly strengthened by Amon Leopold Göth from Vienna and the aforementioned Carinthian Albert Susitti in spring 1942. Höfle thus occupied one of the key positions during implementation of Operation Reinhard. The “evacuation” of the Lublin ghetto took place under Höfle’s direction beginning in spring 1942,114 followed by his emptying of the Warsaw Ghetto that summer.115 Not much is known about the relationship between Höfle and Globocnik,

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 415 but one notes that, as a man from Salzburg, Höfle did not join Globocnik’s Carinthia and Vienna confidants when they followed their boss to Trieste. Instead, he remained in Lublin as personal office head for Globocnik’s successor, SS-Gruppenführer Jakob Sporrenberg. In this position he directed “Operation Harvest Festival,” the November 3–4, 1943 mass shooting of more than 40,000 Jewish forced laborers who had skirted destruction in Lublin, Trawniki, and Poniatowa.116 Höfle’s deputy and friend (and best man at Lerch’s wedding), Helmut Ortwin Pohl, was typical of the other Carinthian SS-men in Lublin: born in 1901 in Klagenfurt, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 employee in industry, member of the NSDAP and SS since 1930, active in the underground, several arrests, work for the SD sub-section for Carinthia.117 From fall 1939, he was a member of the SS-Totenkopfverband in Cracow and Posen, and participated in various expulsions and resettlements.118 Fall 1940 found him working again in his civilian profession,119 but a few weeks prior to Operation Reinhard he was re-drafted and sent to Lublin to work under Höfle in the establishment of the SS and police bases. Following Höfle’s appointment as Judenreferent, Pohl took over responsibility for the bases.120 Afterward he worked as Höfle’s deputy in the Operation Reinhard Main Department. Among other things, Pohl was responsible for the daily transports of Jews arriving in Lublin, the selection of workers from among them, and the transfer of the re- mainder to extermination camps.121 Pohl left the office once more in June 1942 and returned to his civilian profession in Klagenfurt, where he remained until 1944.122 Very likely he was much needed there, because Globocnik’s attempt to bring him to Trieste in 1944 failed due to Pohl’s exemption from military service.123 SS-Untersturmbannführer Amon Leopold Göth,124 a native of Vienna, has been exhaustively described in the scholarly literature, so only brief mention is required here. Göth joined Höfle’s Reinhard Office in 1942;125 soon, however, he fell out with Globocnik and was transferred to Cracow to command the Plaszów camp from February 1943 to September 1944. SS-Unterscharführer Albert Susitti also joined Höfle. Born in Maria Rain near Klagenfurt in 1910, he also came directly from Globocnik’s Carinthian environment. As a manager in a Klagenfurt sports store, he had been an activist in the Nazi movement since 1929. In conjunction with future Gauleiter Rainer, he founded a “club” that fronted for the organization of the Nazi underground.126 After Susitti joined the SS in March 1938, Rainer created a position for him as Gaufachwart (Gau warden) for track and field, while Susitti simultaneously served as expert on sport in the 90th SS-Standarte. Susitti was drafted in late 1939, but Globocnik managed to have him transferred from a Waffen-SS regiment to Lublin, again as an expert on sport.127 Susitti later joined Globocnik in Trieste.128 Two other departments were directly involved in Operation Reinhard: the Inspectorate of Operation Reinhard, employing former T4 personnel under Christian Wirth; and Department IVa Operation Reinhard, which registered and utilized the belongings of their victims, in particular the transfer of valuables to the Reichsbank.

416 Holocaust and Genocide Studies In spring 1942 the SS-WVHA assimilated IVa under the SS-Standortverwaltung in Lublin, headed by SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Wippern.129 In order to facilitate transfer of the valuables taken from the murdered Jews, Wippern employed trained bank personnel. Jewish forced laborers were assigned to the actual sorting. Among the banking experts assigned to Wippern was Alois Rzepa, born in 1908 in Lower Austria.130 It is not known whether Globocnik was directly involved in his recruitment; but Rzepa not only had been a clerk of the Länderbank in Vienna but had also been an SS member with experience of the pre-1938 Nazi underground.131 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021

Secretaries and Drivers: The Lower Staff Researchers have identified a total of fifteen of the female typists working in Globocnik’s SSPF Office. Most of the secretaries were much younger than the SS leaders for whom they worked. In 1941, their average age was just over twenty. With five of these from Austria, the share of Globocnik’s countrywomen was again dispro- portionately high; moreover, all five worked for Globocnik or the core group. Almost all of the secretaries we can identify by name had had professional, political, or private contact with one or another of the men who later became staff members of the Office. Rosalie B., an employee of Gauinspektor Josef Nemec since 1938, arrived in Lublin together with her boss in summer 1940. Berta G. from Salzburg, Jungmädelführerin (leader in the League of German Girls) in 1939, was assigned to Poland under the Osteinsatz.132 She got to Lublin through the regional Party network and her contact with Hermann Höfle; she served as Höfle’s personal secretary during the evacuation of the Warsaw ghetto.133 Margarete S., also from Vienna, gained promotion to Lublin through her personal acquaintance with Reinhold Mohrenschildt’ssister.134 The Viennese bookkeeper Wilhelmine Trsek, who had worked part-time for the Nazi Party,135 was recruited in Vienna for Lublin. The secretarial pool also included wives of SSPF staff members or of officials of other offices in Lublin. When she met the SSPF, Globocnik’s occasional fiancée Irmgard Rickheim was working in Lublin as a secretary thanks largely to Hans-Gustav Maubach.136 The secretaries’ overlapping personal and professional relationships with their superiors considerably enhanced the connections of the core group around Globocnik. The drivers of the Office worked in particularly close contact with their superiors: by the very nature of its responsibilities the SSPF Office was characterized by great mobility, essential for efficiently enforcing German sway with limited personnel. Globocnik’s personal aide Maubach was responsible for the motor pool to the end of 1941.137 After a short interregnum, SS-Untersturmführer Max Meierhofer138 (from Salzburg) took over in summer 1942. Born 1909 in Mattsee,139 Meierhofer had been responsible for the motor pool under HSSPF Alfred Rodenbücher in Salzburg starting in 1939. It is likely that a connection to Höfle there led to Meierhofer’s transfer in May 1942 to Lublin, where he was seen as Höfle’s friend and was his driver at times.140 After a short term administering Department IVa, Operation Reinhard’s

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 417 warehouse for clothing and other property taken from Jews about to be murdered, Meierhofer participated actively in the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. An ardent amateur photographer, he photographed an old woman in a wheelchair, then shot her; he sent two photos as souvenirs to a friend, one showing the woman in the wheelchair, the other of her on the ground after he had thrown her out of it.141 Meierhofer also accompanied Globocnik to Trieste.142 Thirty to forty drivers worked for the motor pool, among them a number of Ukrainians.143 Six of the fifteen German-speaking drivers came from Austria, where Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 each had belonged to Globocnik’s political or official circle; in Lublin they became the personal drivers of the principal members of his staff.144 Most of the drivers from Germany, on the other hand, came from the police. All of Globocnik’s personal drivers—Leopold Veith, Franz Bertl, Franz Eigner, and Benedikt Farkas—hailed from Vienna or Lower Austria. Eigner had been Globocnik’s second driver in Vienna (as Gauleiter he was entitled to two) in the winter of 1938–1939.145 Several of the Austrian drivers accompanied Globocnik to Trieste.146 Not only were the Austrian secretaries and drivers exceedingly well-informed about the work of the SSPF’s operations, but owing to their diverse private relationships with other staff members they absorbed and contributed to the ésprit of Globocnik’s apparatus.147 With one exception, after the war all the drivers denied any knowledge of the mass murder of Jews. The same holds for the secretaries, who remained loyal to their former superiors decades after the events.148 None of the male members of the lower-level staff was ever incriminated by his own statements. Nor did the activities of the Office ever become a reason for any of the secretaries to leave, though some left following quarrels with Globocnik due to his sexual misconduct or— it would seem—due to sexual harassment by other superiors.

Conclusions The questions of how Germany could murder millions in so little time, and of who the driving people and institutions were, remain vital today. There can be no doubt that the Office of the SSPF Lublin was one of the key institutions in the territory of the Generalgouvernement. Not only was there a disproportionate share of Austrians at all levels of the Office: almost all key positions in the SSPF were occupied by Austrian SS members.149 The main criterion was not Austrian background per se, however, but membership in Globocnik’s political network. All the male Austrian members of the Office had long connections with the Nazi movement. A great many had been part of the Carinthian group in the illegal Austrian Nazi movement, which was characterized by violent internal conflicts; Globocnik was one of the leading figures of this group. Most of his staff members had been organized in the illegal Carinthian sub-section of the SD, which had been set up by Globocnik and was headed by Ernst Lerch after 1936. Some were political fellow travelers from Globocnik’s time as Gauleiter in Vienna, mainly SS; here too the relationships had been established in the days of the

418 Holocaust and Genocide Studies underground. The criterion for recruitment was not professional expertise but a shared history. The specialists brought to Lublin are a different matter. They included significantly fewer Austrians, because actual qualifications were relatively more important than mere membership in Globocnik’s former Austrian network. With regard to the secretaries and drivers, previous professional contacts constituted an important criterion alongside political connections. The recruitment of personnel had an impact on the dynamic structure of the Office. All agreed about the objectives of Nazi policy regarding the occupation, the Jews, and “Germanization”; all subscribed to the same Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 ideology, all manifested the same militancy. There is not one known case in which an Austrian quit the Office because he or she rejected the idea of exterminating humans. The Austrian men who left did so only after falling out with Globocnik or when other career opportunities beckoned. What especially linked Globocnik with his Austrian confidants was the shared experience of underground political activity in the 1930s. Their experience of illegali- ty, with its complicated shifts between formal and informal modes of communication and action, was an advantage they shared over their German colleagues, who could in- tegrate into their group only with difficulty. They had learned not only how to infiltrate and instrumentalize institutions for their own ends, but also how to set up false fronts whose names would camouflage quite different purposes. In addition, one must assume that Globocnik’s men had, since their time as underground activists, been linked by largely similar mindsets—most importantly radical antisemitism and militant opposition to Austria’s political system. Indeed, political persecution and imprisonment, although often imposed only half-heartedly, appeared only to strengthen their sense of group cohesion. However, with Globocnik’s staff members leaving little in the way of personal testimony, the available institutional sources contain little direct information bearing on these matters. Transferring extant networks to Lublin was obviously in the interest of both Globocnik and his subordinates. For the latter, there were several reasons: loyalty to Globocnik, an agreeable and gregarious boss among whose entourage private and professional closeness overlapped; new career opportunities previously closed to Austrian Nazis, in particular to Globocnik’s retinue after his failure as Gauleiter of Vienna; status enhancement and participation in power, presumably; a chance to enrich oneself; and the spirit of adventure. For Globocnik, in turn, loyalists constituted an enormous advantage in the conflict-ridden process of expanding his position of power within the Generalgouvernement. Group communication in a place such as Lublin—a colonial outpost in the protagonists’ self-conception—grew even more intimate due to the shared experience of a strange environment that was perceived as hostile, in tandem with the feeling of omnipotence relative to the subject population. The political background of the male Austrian members of the staff shows that they were by no means “ordinary men,” but rather men solidly anchored in the Nazi movement both ideologically and politically. This explains why there was no long-term recruitment of

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 419 personnel for Operation Reinhard on the staff level: anyone could be brought in at any time. The assignment of Hermann Höfle, who had delivered ample proof of his capacity for excessive violence since his time as Selbstschutz leader, is a clear example. Although the handicraft of murder in the extermination camps was outsourced to tried-and-tested T4 employees supported by guard units from Trawniki, the members of the SSPF Office were anything but paper-pushers. Globocnik’soffice was able to exercise such a great impact because its personnel at all levels were extremely flexible—in addition to handling day-to-day bureaucratic tasks, they were able to carry Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 out physical violence themselves. The close bonds within the group around Globocnik, however, did not always translate into efficiency or effectiveness. Thus, the Germanization and settlement policy brutally carried out in the Zamosć´ area without regard to the military or political situation was completely counterproductive in terms of governance. Criticism by the civilian authorities had no effect—clear evidence that the loyalty prevailing in the core group around Globocnik did not permit any reflection, let alone revision of strat- egies. Despite the fact that Globocnik’s course had become unsustainable in Lublin, he was promoted and transferred, likely due to his success—in the eyes of Himmler and the entire Nazi leadership—in the destruction of the Jews. Globocnik knew very well that such “successes” could be accomplished only because of his loyal staff, and he put up a stiff fight to have as many of them as possible transferred to his new office as Higher SS and Police Leader of the Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral.150 It was with these personnel that Globocnik would attempt to transfer to Trieste the policies of occupation and murder developed in Lublin.

Bertrand Perz teaches in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. From 1998 until 2003 he was a member of the Historical Commission of the Republic of Austria. He presently chairs of the Austrian Society for Contemporary History; and he serves on the boards of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance, and the Advisory Board for Restitution of Art at the Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts, and Culture. Since 2009 he has been scholarly coordinator of the redesign of the Mauthausen Memorial, and since 2011 he has chaired a commission seeking to determine whether remains discovered in the cemetery of the psychiatric hospital of Hall, Tyrol belonged to victims of “euthanasia.” Perz’s publications include Projekt Quarz: Steyr-Daimler-Puch und das Konzentrationslager Melk (1991); Zwangsarbeiter und Zwangsarbeiterinnen auf dem Gebiet der Republik Österreich 1939–1945 (with Florian Freund and Mark Spoerer, 2004); Die KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen 1945 bis zur Gegenwart (2006); Konzentrationslager in Oberösterreich 1938 bis 1945 (with Florian Freund, 2007); and Verwaltete Gewalt: Der Tätigkeitsbericht des Verwaltungsführers im Konzentrationslager Mauthausen 1941 bis 1944 (2013).

Notes 1. Quoted from Joseph Goebbels, Tagebücher 1924–1945, vol. 4: 1940–1942, ed. Ralf Georg Reuth, 3rd ed., (Munich: Piper, 2003), 1776.

420 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2. Ruth Bettina Birn, Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer: Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1986), 41. On the effectiveness of the Nazi persecution apparatus within the “organized chaos” of Nazi administration see Sven Reichardt and Wolfgang Seibel, eds., Der prekäre Staat: Herrschen und Verwalten im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt: Campus, 2011). 3. On the position of the Lublin District in general see Dieter Pohl, Von der “Judenpolitik” zum Judenmord: Der Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements 1939–1944 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1993). Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 4. Birn, Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer, 102–105. 5. Appraisal note by SS-Gruppenführer von Herff (May 1943), Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArchB), former Berlin Document Center (BDC), SSO collection, Globocnik, Odilo.

6. Christopher R. Browning, Ganz normale Männer: Das Reserve-Polizeibataillon 101 und die “Endlösung” in Polen (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1993)—originally published as Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1993); on the selection of administration staff, although not for the SS and Polizei: Stephan Lehnstaedt, “‘Ostnieten’ oder Vernichtungsexperten? Die Auswahl deutscher Staatsdiener für den Einsatz im Generalgouvernement Polen 1939–1944,” in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 55, no. 9 (2007): 701–21. 7. Peter Black, “Odilo Globocnik: Himmlers Vorposten im Osten,” in Die Braune Elite II: 21 weitere biographische Skizzen, ed. Roland Smelser, Enrico Syring, and Rainer Zitelmann (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993), 103–15; Zygmunt Man´ kowski, “Odilo Globocnik und die Endlösung der Judenfrage,” Studia Historiæ Oeconomicæ 21 (1994): 147– 55. Siegfried J. Pucher’s biography was a master’s thesis; Joseph Poprzeczny and Berndt Rieger are not historians: Siegfried Pucher, “. . . in der Bewegung führend tätig”: Odilo Globocnik—Kämpfer für den “Anschluß,” Vollstrecker des Holocaust (Klagenfurt: Drava, 1997). Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik: Hitler’s Man in the East (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004); Berndt Rieger, Creator of the Nazi Death Camps: The Life of Odilo Globocnik (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007); and Johannes Sachslehner, Zwei Millionen ham’ma erledigt: Odilo Globocnik. Hitlers Manager des Todes (Klagenfurt: Styria Premium, 2014).

8. Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas, “A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‘Einsatz Reinhardt’ 1942,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15, no. 3 (2001): 468–86; an extensive compilation of material on Höfle: Charles Ajenstat, Daniel Buk, and Thomas Harlan, Hermann Höfle: L’Autrichien artisan de la Shoa en Pologne (Paris: Berg International, 2006); an early biographical outline on Höfle is in Joseph Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Vollstrecker: Die Liquidation der Juden im Warschauer Ghetto. Dokumente und Berichte (Wiesbaden: Fourier, 1989), 275–87. 9. On Göth’s biography, if with some errors, see Johannes Sachslehner, Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Wien: Leben und Taten des Amon Leopold Göth (Klagenfurt: Styria Verlag, 2008).

10. Andrej Angrick, “Georg Michalsen—Handlungsreisender der ‘Endlösung,’” in Karrieren der Gewalt: Nationalsozialistische Täterbiographien, ed. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul (Darmstadt: WBG, 2004), 156–65; Michael Tregenza, “Bełz˙ec: Das vergessene Lager des Holocaust,” in ‘Arisierung’ im Nationalsozialismus: Volksgemeinschaft, Raub und Gedächtnis,

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 421 ed. Irmtrud Wojak and Peter Hayes (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2000), 241–67; Alfred Elste, Kärntens braune Elite (Klagenfurt: Mohorjeva Hermagoras, 1997), 104–11. 11. Ernst Klee, “Von der ‘T4’ zur Judenvernichtung: Die ‘Aktion Reinhard’ in den Vernichtungslagern Belzec, Sobibor und Treblinka,” in Aktion T4, 1939–1945: Die “Euthanasie-Zentrale” in der Tiergartenstraße 4, ed. Götz Aly (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1989), 147–52; Patricia Heberer, “Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen: T4-Täter und die ‘Aktion Reinhard,’” in ‘Aktion Reinhardt’: Der Völkermord an den Juden im Generalgouvernement 1941–1944, ed. Bogdan Musial (Osnabrück, Germany: Fibre, 2004), 285–308; Patricia Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Heberer, “Von der ‘Aktion T4’ zum Massenmord an den europäischen Juden: Der Transfer des Tötungspersonals,” in Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas: Historische Bedeutung, technische Entwicklung, revisionistische Leugnung, ed. Günter Morsch and Bertrand Perz (Berlin: Metropol, 2011), 165–75; Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Sara Berger, “Das T4-Reinhardt-Netzwerk und der Massenmord: Täter und Organisation der Vernichtungslager Bełz˙ec, Sobibor und Treblinka” (Ph.D. thesis, Ruhr University Bochum, 2011). 12. Peter Black, “Die Trawniki-Männer und die ‘Aktion Reinhard,’” in Musial, “Aktion Reinhardt,” 309–52; Peter Black, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25, no. 1 (2011): 1–99. 13. It should be mentioned that both Poprzeczny and Rieger pointed to the immense signiﬁ- cance of Globonik’s staff—not entirely successfully, though, mainly due to the highly problematic overemphasis on Globocnik’s ﬁancée Irmgard Rickheim.

14. Peter Black, “Rehearsal for ‘Reinhard?’ Odilo Globocnik and the Lublin Selbstschutz,” Central European History 25, no. 2 (1992): 204–26. 15. Bogdan Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement: Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939–1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1999). 16. Armin Nolzen, “Die Arbeitsbereiche der NSDAP im Generalgouvernement, in den Niederlanden und in der besetzten Sowjetunion,” in Die Deutsche Herrschaft in den “germani- schen” Ländern 1940–1945, ed. Robert Bohn (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1997), 247–75; Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 26.

17. Michael Esch, “Die ‘Forschungsstelle für Ostunterkünfte’ in Lublin,” 1999: Zeitschrift für Sozialgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts 11, no. 2 (1996): 62–96.

18. Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut”: Das Rasse- & Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), 357–416. 19. Reichsführer-SS to SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik July 17, 1941, BArchB, BDC, SSO Globocnik, Odilo, 21.04.1904; Jan-Erik Schulte, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung: Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS. Oswald Pohl und das SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt 1933–1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001), 259–77.

20. Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Bogdan Musial, “Aktion Reinhardt”; Musial, “The Origins of ‘Operation Reinhard’: The Decision-Making Process for the Mass Murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement,” Yad Vashem Studies 28 (2000): 113–53.

422 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 21. Hermann Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der SS (Berlin: Metropol, 2003), 550–61; Helge Grabitz and Wolfgang Schefﬂer, Letzte Spuren: Ghetto Warschau—SS-Arbeitslager Trawniki —Aktion Erntefest (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1988), 328.

22. Czesław Madajczyk, ed., Zamojszczyzna—Sonderlaboratorium SS: Zbiór dokumentów pol- skich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej, 2 vol. (Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1979); Bruno Wasser, Himmlers Raumplanung im Osten: Der Generalplan Ost in Polen 1940–1944 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1993), 133–229; Heinemann, Rasse- & Siedlungshauptamt, 403–413. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 23. Musial, Zivilverwaltung,38–39. 24. Note for the Brigadeführer, Ha., SS-Obersturmführer, Lublin, 9.8.1941, betr. Stabsbesprechung am 6.8.41, Archive of the Instytut Pamie˛ci Narodowej, Warsaw (IPN, Institute of National Remembrance), RG Der SS- und Polizeiführer im Distrikt Lublin (SSPF Lublin), CA. 891/6, pp. 11–12. See reprint of this document (without indication of source) in Esch, “Forschungsstelle,” 68.

25. Note for the Brigadeführer, Ha., SS-Obersturmführer, Lublin, 9.8.1941, Betr. Stabsbesprechung am 6.8.41, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, pp. 11–12.

26. SSPF Lublin to staff SSPF Lublin et al., June 11, 1942, about the “people’s march” on Sunday, June 14, 1942, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/4, pp. 130–31.

27. Copy HSSPF to SS-Personalhauptamt, v. Herff, October 27, 1943 BArchB, BDC, SSO, Globocnik, Odilo, 21.04.1904. 28. On the participation of German (and Austrian) women, and speciﬁcally on Zamos´c´: Elizabeth Harvey, Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

29. For instance it has been clariﬁed that the number of ninety-two persons provided for the “execution of Operation Reinhard” is too low. All in all, probably 121 persons from the apparatus of the T4 killing institutions were transferred to Lublin. Berger, “T4-Reinhardt-Netzwerk,” 17.

30. Although some among the dispatched persons inﬂuenced events in the Ofﬁce, e.g. Christian Wirth as “Inspector of Operation Reinhard”; all in all, however, the inner group was Globocnik’s real base.

31. On the subject in general, see Gudrun Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite: Ehefrauen in der “SS-Sippengemeinschaft” (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1997), 99–111.

32. Rieger, Creator, 21. 33. Letter SSPF Globocnik to SS-Personalhauptamt dated February 2, 1942 re: promotion rec- ommendations, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Höﬂe, Hermann. 34. BArchB, BDC, RS, Mohrenschildt, Reinhold; on the activities in Danzig in the run-up to the attack arranged to provoke Poland, see Philip Matic´, Edmund Veesenmayer: Agent und Diplomat der nationalsozialistischen Expansionspolitik (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002), 81–90. 35. BArchB, BDC, RS, Mohrenschildt, Reinhold.

36. See Götz Aly, “Endlösung”: Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1998), 62, 74.

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 423 37. BArchB, BDC, RS Mohrenschildt, Reinhold; Christian Jansen and Arno Weckbecker, Der “Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz” in Polen 1939/40 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992), 77. 38. Copy letter HSSPF Ost to SS-Personalhauptamt, dated February 17, 1942, re: promotions, BArchB, DC, Höﬂe, Hermann. 39. Madajczyk, Zamojszczynzna, 182.

40. RFSS SS-Personalhauptamt to HSSPF East, September 9, 1943, re: transfer of SS leaders, Unterführer, and men from the area of the SS and Police Leader Lublin to the SS and Police Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 Leader Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral in Trieste BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914. Actually, Globocnik achieved the transfer of a signiﬁcantly higher number to Trieste. 41. BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914.

42. Elste, Kärntens braune Elite, 106. 43. BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914.

44. Elste, Kärntens braune Elite, 108. 45. Globocnik “to all,” Lublin, November 26, 1941, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/3, fol. 33; letter Globocnik to HSSPF East, attachment to promotion recommendation for Lerch dated December 20, 1941, BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914. 46. Interrogation Max Runhof, previously Czichotzki, September 15, 1961, proceedings against Georg Michalsen et al., Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg (ZStL, Central Ofﬁce of the State Justice Administration for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes), 208 AR-Z 74/60, 779 (hereafter ZStL, Michalsen); Poprzeczny, Globocnik,108–15.

47. Born in 1916 near Bromberg/Bydgoszcz to a farming family, he grew up as a member of the German minority in the new Polish state. When the Foreign Department of the Reich Youth Leadership was looking for Polish-speaking youth leaders for the Generagouvernement, Czichotzki was appointed Hitler Jugend leader for the entire Lublin District. Abschlussverfügung (concluding determination), ZStL, Michalsen, 9171–9395.

48. Interrogation Max Runhof, September 15, 1961, ZStL, Michalsen, 779. 49. Rieger, Creator,7.

50. BArchB, BDC, PK, Gasser, Paul, 18.11.1904; about the return of escaped Nazis from Yugoslavia, Dušan Nešak, Die österreichische Legion II: Nationalsozialistische Flüchtlinge in Jugoslawien nach dem misslungenen Putsch vom 25. Juli 1934 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1996), 129.

51. Rieger, Creator, 45. 52. Transcript, Rosa Benesch, July 28, 1965, Austrian National Archives, Archives of the Republic (ÖStA, AdR), GeZ 91.707-2C/65 (Vzl: 0, Nzl 59.025/65), folder 55.074-18/71, subject Georg Michalsen; Gasser was registered as killed in action on October 21, 1941. Abschlussverfügung, ZStL, Michalsen, Bl. 9171–9395. This is based on information by WAST. See interrogation of Rosa Benesch, July 28, 1965, Klagenfurt District Court, 25 Vr 3123/71, proceedings against Helmut Ortwin Pohl and Ernst Lerch, (Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/ Lerch), ON 2216.

53. Proceedings against Josef Nemec, Vienna Regional Court, VG 1 d Vr 590/47, 23.04.1901.

424 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 54. Gerhard Botz, Nationalsozialismus in Wien: Machtübernahme, Herrschaftssicherung, Radikalisierung (Vienna: Mandelbaum, 2008), 286. 55. Copy Head of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP to Gauleiter Globocnik, January 28, 1939, Austrian National Archives, Archives of the Republic, Gau personnel ofﬁce of the Vienna Gau (Gau ﬁle) 230.599, Nemec, Josef.

56. Interrogation of Josef Nemec, March 17, 1949, Vienna Regional Court, VG 1 d Vr 590/47. 57. Birn, SS- und Polizeiführer, 100–104. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 58. Appraisal on the occasion of an ofﬁcial trip of SS-Gruf. Von Herff through the Generalgouvernement in May 1943, BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914. 59. BArchB, BDC, SSO, Maubach, Hans-Gustav 19.12.1904; see Roland Ray, Annäherung an Frankreich im Dienste Hitlers? Otto Abetz und die deutsche Frankreichpolitik 1930–1942 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000), 176.

60. Interrogation Hans-Gustav Maubach, August 30, 1961, ZStL, Michalsen, 765. 61. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 35.

62. Interrogation Hans-Gustav Maubach, Augsburg, February 22, 1966, ZStL, Michalsen, 7451–53. 63. Interrogation Hans-Gustav Maubach, August 30, 1961, ZStL, Michalsen, 765.

64. Hanelt, note for the Brigadeführer, August 9, 1941, re: staff meeting on August 6, 1941, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, pp. 11–12; BArchB, BDC, RS and SSO, Maubach, Hans-Gustav, 19.12.1904. 65. BArchB, BDC, RS and SSO, Maubach, Hans-Gustav, 19.12.1904.

66. Interrogation Hans-Gustav Maubach, August 30, 1961, ZStL, Michalsen, 765; and “Abschlussverfügung,” 9171–9395. 67. Letter Maubach to Globocnik, 31.1.1942, BArchB, BDC, RS, Maubach, Hans-Gustav, 19.12.1904; “Abschlussverfügung,” ZStL, Michalsen, 9171–9395. 68. BArchB, BDC, RS, Schleißner, Rudolf, 14.03.1906; see Alfred Elste and Dirk Hänisch, Auf dem Weg zur Macht (Vienna: Braumüller Verlag, 1997), 269; questionnaire for staff, June 1, 1938, ÖstA, AdR, GA, 357.668, Lerch, Ernst. 69. BArchB, BDC, RS, Schleißner, Rudolf, 14.03.1906.

70. Schleißner, Rudolf, ÖstA, AdR, BMI, GrZ 26.540-2A/61 and GeZ 26.540-2A/61. 71. Interrogation of Michalsen by Chief Prosecutor Hamburg on January 7, 1964, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2176. 72. Testimony of Lerch on April 9, 1962, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2110.

73. Herbert Ulbrich, June 17, 1937, handwritten curriculum vitae, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Ulbrich Herbert, 15.10.1908.

74. Letter from HSSPF East to SSPF Radom and Lublin as well as SS-Personalhauptamt, August 30, 1940, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Ulbrich Herbert.

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 425 75. SSPF Lublin, 27.4.1942, circular for the notiﬁcation of all staff members of the SSPF Lublin re: Ordinance on Registration in the Generalgouvernement, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/1fol 47. List of suggestions no. 6 of the SSPF for the awarding of the War Merit Cross, dated July 1, 1942, BArchB, R 70 Polen, 105. 76. Memo on the meeting with the Reichsführer-SS on October 26, 1940 in Cracow, November 5, 1940, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, pp. 16–17.

77. Unlike Hanelt, Claus-Walter Padel—born 1911 Christiansfeld, Schleswig-Hollstein, into a pharmacist’s family, member of the SS-Mannschaftshaus in Jena and active in the Reich leader- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 ship of the German Students Union—did not play any special role in Lublin. He was killed in action in 1943. BArchB, BDC, PK, Padel, Claus, 25.10.1911. 78. BArchB, BDC, SSO, Hanelt, Gustav, 21.09.1914.

79. Interrogation of Hanelt, April 29, 1963, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2174. 80. Memo of Hanelt on staff meeting on August 6, 1941, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6.

81. BArchB, BDC, SSO, Bareuther, Adolf, 24.11.1902. 82. Lassmann and Hanelt, SS-Mannschaftshaus Lublin, März 1942, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, pp. 18–23; interrogation Gustav Hanelt, April 8, 1963, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2173.

83. Ingo Haar and Michael Fahlbusch, Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften: Personen— Institutionen—Forschungsprogramme—Stiftungen (Munich: K.G.Saur, 2008), 428–32. 84. ÖStA, AdR, Gauakt 8.400, Stanglica, Dr. Franz; see Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut für die Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands (Stuttgart: DVA, 1966), 474. 85. Letter NSDAP Gauleitung Vienna, Ofﬁce for Civil Servants, to Gau Personnel Ofﬁce Vienna re: political appraisal, March 17, 1942, ÖStA, AdR, Gauakt 8.400, Stanglica, Dr. Franz; see Haar and Fahlbusch, Handbuch, 431. 86. Some of Stanglica’s memoranda survive, in AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/4 or 6. Cf., albeit without indication of source, Esch, “Forschungstelle,” 62–96. 87. Cited from Haar and Fahlbusch, Handbuch, 431.

88. BArchB, BDC, SSO, Lassmann, Jürgen; interrogation Jürgen Lassmann on May 10, 1965, by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Abt. 2C, ZStL, Michalsen, 6527. Stanglica was found dead after being imprisoned as a POW under the British forces in Weissensee in 1946. Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 988. 89. Heinemann, Rasse- & Siedlungshauptamt, 386.

90. BArchB, BDC, SSO, von Seltmann, Lothar, 12.01.1917. 91. BArchB, BDC, RS, von Seltmann, Lothar, 12.01.1917.

92. BArchB, BDC, SSO, von Seltmann, Lothar, 12.01.1917; Aly, Endlösung, 157. 93. Note of the Brigadeführer, Ha., SS-Obersturmführer, Lublin, August 9, 1941, re: staff meeting on August 6, 1941, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, pp. 11–12. The name Volkspolitisches Referats (desk on racial and ethnic matters) refers directly to the political

426 Holocaust and Genocide Studies situation of the Austrian Nazi movement in the 1930s. With its establishment in 1937, Globocnik’s allies Rainer and Seyß-Inquart had succeeded, during the vehement struggles with the various Austrian Nazi groups, in opening legal positions in the Vaterländische Front to Austrian Nazis. See Alfred Elste, Michael Koschat, and Hanzi Filipicˇ, NS-Österreich auf der Anklagebank: Anatomie eines politischen Schauprozesses im kommunistischen Slowenien (Klagenfurt: Hermagoras Verlag, 2000), 89.

94. File Seltmann, Lothar von, ÖstA, AdR, BMI, GrZ 26.540-2A/61 and GeZ 26.540-2A/61.

95. Report by Globocnik re: establishment of SS and police bases (handwritten, dated July 18, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 1941), BArchB, BDC, SSO, Globocnik, Odilo, 21.04.1904. 96. Interrogation of Gustav Hanelt, April 8, 1963, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2173.

97. Pohl, “Judenpolitik, ” 184; Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 269. 98. In greater detail: Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 276–308.

99. Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 272; Globocnik to HSSPF East, Cracow, December 20, 1941, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Höfle, Herrmann; instruction for SS HStuf Höfle, February 12, 1942, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/2, p. 46; filling positions in the staff, SSPF Lublin, BArchB, BDC, SM, Czichotzki, Max. 100. Excerpt from the economic and administrative instructions dated May 15, 1942 no. 3, signed H. Himmler, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Globocnik, Odilo, 21.04.1904. 101. Minutes of the meeting at the SSPF on April 22, 1940, about the “deployment” of Jewish forced laborers. Wojewódzkie Archiwum Pan´ stwowe w Lublinie (APL), RG: Gouverneur of the Lublin District, CA 891, p. 90. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 110–23. 102. About this institute see Bernhard vom Brocke, “Bevölkerungswissenschaft im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland,” in Demographie—Demokratie—Geschiche: Deutschland und Israel, Tel Aviv Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte (2007), 145–63.

103. BArchB, BDC, Hofbauer, Karl, 02.05.1911. 104. Minutes of meeting on the deployment of Jews, August 6, 1940, Labor Department, Ofﬁce of the Generalgouverneur, August 9 (the protocol), 1940, APL, GK, syg. 906.

105. On Semlin see Aly, “Endlösung,” 158 and 341–42. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 118. 106. The SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District, Gl/Ri.Tgb.No:517/41 to the Chief of the Ofﬁce district leader Lublin, May 15, 1941, APL, RG: Gouverneur of the Lublin District, syg. 892, p. 458.

107. HSSPF Globocnik, Economic aspect of Operation Reinhardt, January 18, 1944, Nuremberg Documents, NO 057. 108. Political curriculum vitae dated February 2, 1942, BArchB, BDC, Höfle, Hermann, 19.06.1911. 109. HSSPF Ost to SS-Personalhauptamt, August 22, 1940, re: SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Höfle, BArchB, BDC, Hermann Höfle; Jansen and Weckbecker, “Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, ” 211.

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 427 110. Political curriculum, Hermann Höﬂe, 19.06.1911. 111. Pohl, “Judenpolitik,” 83–84.

112. Excerpt from the economic and administrative instructions dated May 15, 1942 no. 3, BArchB, BDC, DC, Globocnik, Odilo. 113. Testimony Berta G., June 27, 1962, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 1187.

114. Arad, Belzec, 72. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 115. Grabitz and Schefﬂer, Letzte Spuren, 151ff.

116. Ibid., 328ff. 117. Curriculum vitae dated August 4, 1940, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Pohl, Helmut Ortwin, 27.09.1901. 118. Occupants of institutions for the mentally ill were murdered. See Aly, “Endlösung,” 20 and 126. 119. HSSPF Ost to SS-Personalhauptamt, July 15, 1942, re: SS-Untersturmführer Helmut Pohl, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Pohl, Helmut Ortwin, 27.09.1901.

120. SSPF Lublin to Chef SS-Personalhauptamt, February 4, 1942, re: appointment as Sonderführer of the Waffen-SS, or Globocnik to SS-Personalhauptamt, March 6, 1942, BArchB, BDC, SSO Pohl, Helmut Ortwin, 27.09.1901. 121. Note T(ürk), interior administration, department for demography and welfare, March 23, 1942, APL, Gouverneur of the Lublin District, syg. 273.

122. In the stafﬁng plan from the second half of 1942, Pohl is no longer listed. BArchB, BDC, SM Czichotzki, Max, 25.03.1916.

123. Telegram SS-Personalhauptamt Becker to HSSPF Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, April 29, 1944, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Pohl, Helmut Ortwin.

124. Stafﬁng list 1942, BArchB, BDC, SM, Czichotzki, Max. On Göth’s biography see Sachslehner, Der Tod is ein Meister aus Wien. 125. Letter of RFSS, SS Main Ofﬁce, to the personnel departments in the house, August 10, 1942, re: draft to the Waffen-SS, BArchB, BDC, Göth, Amon. 126. Rainer was in prison from August 20, 1935, to March 5, 1936. See Elste, Kärntens braune Elite, 127. 127. BArchB, BDC, RS, Susitti, Albert.

128. SS-Personalhauptamt to HSSPF Ost, September 16, 1943, BArchB, BDC, Lerch, Ernst, 19.11.1914. 129. Bertrand Perz, “Die Verwertung des Opfergoldes aus den Vernichtungslagern der ‘Aktion Reinhard,’” in Forschungen zum Nationalsozialismus und dessen Nachwirkungen in Österreich: Festschrift für Brigitte Bailer, ed. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (Vienna: DÖW, 2012), 131–53; Bertrand Perz and Thomas Sandkühler, “Auschwitz und die ‘Aktion Reinhard’ 1942–45: Judenmord und Raubpraxis in neuer Sicht,” Zeitgeschichte 26, no. 5 (1999): 283–316.

428 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 130. BArchB, BDC, RS, Rzepa, Alois, 17.02.1908. 131. For Rzepa’s “outstanding merits” in “Operation Reinhard,” on the occasion of a visit by Himmler he was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer on April 1, 1943. Letter of HSSPF Ost, the SS economist, to the SS-WVHA, October 15, 1943, re: promotion of SS-Oscha. Alois Rzepa, BArchB, BDC, RS, Rzepa, Alois; transcript Rzepa Alois, March 4, 1964, ÖStA, AdR, folder GrZl 91.342/20.

132. Elizabeth Harvey, “‘Osteinsatz’ des Bundes Deutscher Mädel im Krieg,” in: Die

BDM-Generation: Weibliche Jugendliche in Deutschland und Österreich im Nationalsozialismus, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021 ed. Dagmar Reese (Berlin: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2007), 289–319. 133. Testimony Berta G., June 27, 1962, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 1187.

134. Interrogation Margarete S., April 26, 1965, ZStL, Michalsen, 6408. 135. Rieger, Creator, 61; transcript, Wilhelmine Trsek, by Ministry of the Interior, state police, April 27, 1965, ZStL, Michalsen, 6411.

136. Poprzeczny, Globocnik, 276–300; Rieger, Creator, 69–97. 137. Note for the Brigadeführer, Ha., SS-Obersturmführer, Lublin, August 9, 1941, re: staff meeting on August 6, 1941, AIPN, RG SSPF Lublin, CA 891/6, 11–12; letter of HSSPF to an SS-Personalhauptamt, May 11, 1944, re: appraisal of former SS-Sturmbannführer (F) Maubach, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Maubach, Hans-Gustav 19.12.1904.

138. Stafﬁng overview dated October 28, 1942, BArchB, BDC, SM Czichotzki, Max. 139. Transcript Meierhofer Max, March 18, 1964, ÖStA, AdR, BMI, folder GrZl 91.342/20.

140. BArchB, BDC, SSO Meierhofer, Max. 141. Grabitz and Schefﬂer, Letzte Spuren, 48.

142. BArchB, BDC, SSO Meierhofer, Max. 143. Interrogation of Franz Bertl, April 29, 1965, ZStL, Michalsen, 6428; minutes of the main hearing, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch; interrogation of Franz Eigner by Ministry of the Interior, 2C, Hermagor, April 2, 1964, interrogation of Franz Eigner, Hermagor, May 3, 1965, department 18, ÖStA, AdR, BMI, folder GeZ 91.707-2C/65.

144. Minutes of the main hearing, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch; interrogation Franz Eigner by Ministry of the Interior, 2C, Hermagor, April 2, 1964, ÖStA, AdR, BMI, folder GrZl 91.342/20. 145. ÖStA, AdR, Gauakt 177.846, Eigner, Franz.

146. Interrogation of Franz Eigner by Ministry of the Interior, 2C, Hermagor, April 2, 1964, ÖStA, AdR, BMI, GrZl 91.342/20. 147. See the detailed descriptions of people’s private lives in Lublin, in Rieger, Creator, and Poprzeczny, Globocnik. 148. Testimony Berta G., May 10, 1965, Klagenfurt Regional Court, Pohl/Lerch, ON 2102.

149. Almost one-third of the 150 people on the staff had Austrian roots; the total share of the population in the entire German Reich amounted to only 8.5%. It is difﬁcult to establish the

The Austrian Connection: SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik 429 exact number of persons of Austrian background. Higher numbers that are given time and again have to do with the confusion of T4 members who had Austrian roots, such as the camp com- mandants Stangl, Eberl, and Reichleitner, with the direct staff members of the SSPF Ofﬁce.

150. See the relevant correspondence between Krüger, von Herff, and Globocnik, BArchB, BDC, SSO, Bareuther, Adolf, 24.11.1902. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/29/3/400/2384537 by guest on 29 September 2021

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