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Interrogation of Wilhelm Boger on Auschwitz dated October 8, 1958
Post-War Testimony

1958-10-08 / The 1958 Interrogation of SS Officer Wilhelm Boger on Auschwitz

In October 1958, Wilhelm Boger, a former SS officer known for his role at Auschwitz, was arrested and interrogated by Stuttgart police. Over two days, Boger gave a lengthy statement about his background, duties at the camp, and the charges brought against him. Boger served in the camp’s Political Department, dealing with criminal investigations, escape attempts, and intelligence gathering. He admitted to overseeing and participating in “enhanced interrogations” involving beatings and suspension torture – a method prisoners later dubbed the “Boger swing.” Though Boger repeatedly denied involvement in selections or executions, he acknowledged being present during some shootings and described how prisoners unfit for labor were sent to the crematoria for gassing. He also confirmed his presence at the Birkenau ramp in to investigate SS theft of prisoner belongings.
Boger claimed he was assigned to Auschwitz for “further probation” after being deemed unfit for frontline military service. He served in the camp’s Political Department, dealing with criminal investigations, escape attempts, and intelligence gathering. He admitted to overseeing and participating in “enhanced interrogations” involving beatings and suspension torture – a method prisoners later dubbed the “Boger swing.” He acknowledged being present during some shootings and described how prisoners unfit for labor were sent to the crematoria for gassing. He also confirmed his presence at the Birkenau ramp in to investigate SS theft of prisoner belongings.

Report dated March 19, 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-03-19 / German Report on “resettlement action” in Lviv, March 1942: “30,000 elderly and otherwise non-working Jews”

German military report from March 19, 1942 on the mood and conditions of the civilian population in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine) located in the General Gouvernement during the Nazi occupation. The document mentions that “among the Jewish population of Lemberg, noticeable anxiety has arisen in connection with a resettlement action that has begun, by which approximately 30,000 elderly and otherwise non-working Jews of Lemberg are being gathered and, according to reports, transported to the Lublin area. To what extent this evacuation will amount to a decimation remains to be seen.” The deportations were the beginning of mass transports to the Bełżec extermination camp as part of Operation Reinhard.

Letter dated September 16, 1942 from Oswald Pohl to Heinrich Himmler on Auschwitz
Contemporary Source

1942-09-16 / Pohl’s September 1942 Report on the Auschwitz Expansion and the “Eastern Migration” of Able-Bodied Jews

On September 16, 1942, SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, sent a letter to Heinrich Himmler summarizing a recent meeting with Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Among the topics discussed was the planned expansion of Auschwitz concentration camp and its role to supply the armaments industry with Jewish forced labor. Pohl reported that Auschwitz was to be enlarged to accommodate up to 132,000 prisoners and that “the labor force available in concentration camps must now be used for large-scale armaments tasks.” He explained that the primary source of this labor would be Jews drawn from deportation transports to Auschwitz: “Able-bodied Jews designated for eastern migration will have to interrupt their journey and perform armaments labor.” Pohl also stressed that the deployment of Jewish laborers already cleared of Jews “must under no circumstances take place.” The already sealed fate of Jews deemed unfit for labor was not addressed in the official discussion.

Meeting transcript dated June 8, 1943
Contemporary Source

1943-06-08 / Erich Koch, Reichskommissariat Ukraine: “The Jews Are All Gone”

Transcript from June 8, 1943, of a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command. Hitler recounted a conversation with Erich Koch, Reichskommissar for Ukraine. Koch stated, “I am losing 500,000 Jews here. I have to remove them, because the Jews are the element of unrest,” and went on to explain, “there are no craftsmen left. The Jews are all gone.”

Contemporary Source

1942-03-06 / Power Struggles in the Nazi Occupation: Minsk Prison Mass Shooting of January 1942

In a report dated 6 March 1942, Oberregierungsrat Paul Haensel presented findings from his inspection trip to Minsk. According to prison officials and legal personnel, “approximately 280 civilian prisoners were taken from the prison in Minsk by the SD, led to a pit, and shot”, with another 30 prisoners executed shortly afterwards “since the pit’s capacity had not yet been fully used”. Haensel concluded there was “no justification for this mass shooting without any due process”. The killings were “allegedly carried out to combat typhus”, yet, as Haensel noted “there were no cases of typhus in the prison either before or after the incident”. The Minister for the Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg, protested the executions to Heinrich Himmler, prompting a written response from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), on 25 March. Heydrich claimed the situation had been misunderstood. According to him, 328 prisoners were shot on January 28, 1942 as the prison was a typhus hotspot. Heydrich closed his letter by warning Rosenberg’s deputy and Gauleiter Alfred Meyer to be cautious about believing reports coming from Minsk, also citing as example “the accusation of improper Jewish evacuations”.

Telex dated February 20, 1943 on Selection of unfit Jews in Auschwitz, Transport from Theresienstadt
Contemporary Source

1943-02-20 / SS Report on “Special Accommodation” of Jews Unfit for Work at Auschwitz

A telex dated February 20, 1943 from SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Schwarz, head of labour deployment in Auschwitz, to the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA) in Oranienburg on selection and categorization of 5,042 Jews deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. According to the report, nearly 73% of the total arrivals in Auschwitz were considered unfit for work and were “accommodated specially” – a Nazi euphemism to camouflage killing. The report states that many of the men were “accommodated specially” due to “excessive infirmity”, while the women were selected for special accommodation because most had children.

Stahlecker Report on extermination of Jews in the Baltics until October 15. 1941
Contemporary Source

1941-10-00 / The October 1941 Stahlecker Report: Genocide in the Baltics

The Stahlecker Report, submitted after October 15, 1941, offers an account of how Einsatzgruppe A, under the command of Walter Stahlecker, conducted mass killing operations across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia during the early months of the Nazi occupation of the Baltics. The German authorities deliberately incited and staged “self-cleansing” pogroms. But the report also states that “it was expected that pogroms alone would not solve the Jewish problem in the Eastern territories,” and that as a result, “extensive executions were carried out by special commandos.” According to the report “the total number of Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105” and “in Latvia, a total of 30,000 Jews have been executed so far”. By mid-October 1941, the total number of people executed under Einsatzgruppe A stood at 135,567.

Interrogation protocol & photograph of Georg Michalsen
Post-War Testimony

1961-01-24 / Testimony of SS Officer Georg Michalsen On the 1942 Warsaw Ghetto Clearing

On January 24, 1961, West German prosecutors interrogated Georg Michalsen, a former SS officer involved in Ghetto liquidations in the Generalgouvernement. In his testimony, Michalsen stated that he was deployed alongside Hermann Höfle as part of the so-called “resettlement staff” tasked with overseeing the clearing of the Warsaw Ghetto in the summer of 1942. He describes how Jews were rounded up, concentrated at the Umschlagplatz, and sent by train to their deaths. Though he claims he did not know the deportees were being killed “at the beginning,” he admits that he soon “found out during the operation”. He further stated that”other members of our unit and those involved in the resettlement also eventually learned what the real fate of the Jews was”.

Letter dated February 11, 1945 by Odilo Globocnik on Einsatz Reinhard
Contemporary Source

1945-02-11 / Globocnik Urges Promotion of SS Officer Involved in Operation Reinhard and “cleared Bialystok within five days”

A letter dated February 11, 1945, written by SS-Gruppenführer Odilo Globocnik—then Higher SS and Police Leader in the Adriatic Littoral—to SS-Obergruppenführer Maximilian von Herff, Chief of the SS Personnel Main Office, contains a plea for the promotion of his associate, Georg Michalsen, into the Waffen-SS Reserve with the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. In support of Michalsen’s promotion, Globocnik highlights his service record, including his role in “Operation ‘R’ in an independent and decisive position, and for example, significantly influenced the heavy fighting in Warsaw and cleared Bialystok within five days.” Michalsen served as a staff member in Hermann Höfle’s department for “Jewish Affairs (Sonderaktion Reinhardt).” “Operation R” thus refers to Operation Reinhard – the systematic extermination of Jews in the Generalgouverment, carried out primarily through the extermination camps Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

Decree of February 24, 1943 by Springorum on Jewish Deportation Trains to Auschwitz
Contemporary Source

1943-02-24 / Report on Jewish Deportation Train to Auschwitz, February 1943: “several Jewish corpses were found along the railway”

A decree dated February 24, 1943 issued by Walter Springorum, President of the Government District of Kattowitz, reports a incident on February 7, 1943, in which a large number of Jewish prisoners escaped from a halted deportation train bound for Auschwitz in Tarnowitz. According to the decree, four escapees were recaptured, while one Jewish woman was shot and another was run over. Springorum also noted that between January 18 and 20, 1943, “several Jewish corpses were found along the railway”, apparently thrown from moving trains. He was concerned about “politically undesirable unrest among the population” that may be caused by such deportation transports.

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