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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
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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
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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.

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.

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