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

Manuscript for Speech on November 18, 1941 Rosenberg
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1941-11-18 / Alfred Rosenberg’s November 1941 Speech: “…biological eradication of all Jewry in Europe.”

Manuscript of a speech delivered on November 18, 1941, by Alfred Rosenberg at his Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. In the confidential speech before members of the press, Rosenberg declared that “about six million Jews still live in the East, and this question can only be resolved by means of the biological eradication of all Jewry in Europe.” He went further stating that “it is necessary to push them beyond the Urals – or otherwise eradicate them in some other way.”

Memo of June 5, 1942 on gas vans
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1942-06-02 / SS-Officer Just’s Memo on Gas Vans: “97,000 have been processed using 3 deployed vehicles”

Memo dated June 5, 1942, authored by SS-Hauptsturmführer Willy Just of RSHA office II D 3 a (Motor Vehicle Department of the Security Police) on technical modifications to the gas vans used in mass killing operations. Just reports that “since December 1941 97,000 have been processed using 3 deployed vehicles, without any defects occurring in the vehicles” and “the known explosion in Kulmhof (Chełmno) is to be considered an isolated case due to an operating error”. He proposes the following “technical modifications to the special vehicles currently in operation and those under production”, among other things ventilation slots on the upper rear wall to allow “a rapid inflow of CO without causing overpressure”. The proposal was reviewed by Walther Rauff, head of the Motor Vehicle Department, on June 10, 1942. He approved the implementation of the modifications on a prototype vehicle.

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1942-08-12 Swiss Cardiologist Robert Hegglin’s 1942 Account of Mass Killings in Riga / Latvia

The Swiss cardiologist and medical captain Robert Hegglin participated in the so-called third medical mission of the Swiss Red Cross, which took place in Riga, Daugavpils, and Pskov between 18 June and 26 September 1942. Over the course of several months, he documented his experiences in detail in his diary—from train journeys through ravaged Latvia and Russia to clinical cases in overstretched hospitals. Among his most entries is a report on the mass shootings of Jews in Nazi-occupied Latvia: “…based on the reports available to me from German soldiers, officers, and Latvians, that nearly 100,000 Jews have been shot in the Riga area alone since the German occupation. […] If the Germans truly require such bloody atrocities, then they are unfit to become the masters of Europe.”

Odilo Globocnik’s October 1943 Personnel Report - 92 menassigned "from the Führer’s Chancellery for the execution of Aktion Reinhard"
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1943-10-27 Odilo Globocnik’s October 1943 Personnel Report – 92 men assigned “from the Führer’s Chancellery for the execution of Aktion Reinhard”

Copy of a letter dated October 27, 1943, from SS-Gruppenführer Odilo Globocnik to SS-Gruppenführer von Herff of the SS Personnel Office on the personnel assigned to his office during his tenure as SS and Police Leader in Lublin. Globocnik reports a total staff of 405 men, including 92 personnel assigned “from the Führer’s Chancellery for the execution of Aktion Reinhard” – a reference to the Nazi operation responsible for the mass murder of Jews in occupied Poland through the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The letter further notes that “Einsatz Reinhardt has been completely discontinued”.

1944 Swiss Report: Arthur Nebe Fled with Orders for Extermination and Hostage Shootings
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1944-09-01 Swiss Report: SD Sources Claim Former Chief of Einsatzgruppe B Arthur Nebe Fled with “orders concerning the extermination of Jews”

On September 1, 1944, Swiss envoy Hans Frölicher sent a letter to Swiss Foreign Minister Marcel Pilet-Golaz reporting on news he had picked up in Berlin. According to information from the SD (Security Service), the fugitive head of the Reich Criminal Police Office and former chief of Einsatzgruppe B, Arthur Nebe, was “carrying a large amount of material with him – notably orders concerning the extermination of Jews, the shooting of hostages, and other punitive actions”. At the time, the SD feared he might hand this evidence over to the Allies. In reality, however, Nebe had not fled abroad – he was hiding near Berlin and was eventually captured by the Gestapo in January 1945. Footage of a mass gassing carried out by Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B was discovered in his Berlin apartment after the war.

intercepted British messages on Hungarian Jews deportations of Letter of July 5, 1944
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1944-07-05 Intercepted Warnings: Nazi Letter Forwards Report on the Extermination of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau

On July 5, 1944, Horst Wagner, head of Jewish affairs at the German Foreign Office, sent critical information in a letter to SS-Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Security Police and SD. Wagner shared an intercepted radio message between the British Embassy in Bern and the Foreign Office in London. According to the intercepted communication, a Hungarian official had reported that “nearly half of the total 800,000 Jews in Hungary have already been deported” and were “being sent to the death camp at Birkenau near Oswiecim in Upper Silesia.” The message urged immediate military action – “bombing of the railway lines from Hungary to Birkenau” and “strikes on the facilities of the death camps” to disrupt the extermination operations.

Kinna Report of December 16, 1942 on Auschwitz
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1942-12-16 Kinna’s Report on Auschwitz Extermination Policy: “According to RSHA orders, Poles, unlike Jews, must die a natural death”

In late 1942, several thousand Poles were deported from Zamosc, Poland, following Nazi racial classifications that determined their fate. This process was part of Himmler’s directive on November 12, 1942, to make Zamosc the “first German settlement area in the Generalgouvernement”. Those deemed racially “inferior” were sent to Auschwitz, with a transport of 644 individuals departing Zamosc on December 10, 1942. On December 16, SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Kinna from the migration central offic, wrote a report on the transport. He summarized his conversation with Auschwitz deputy commandant Hans Aumeier, who disclosed that “Imbeciles, idiots, cripples, and sick people must be removed from the camp promptly through liquidation to unburden the camp. This measure, however, encounters complications, as per RSHA orders, Poles, unlike Jews, must die a natural death.”

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