Sonderkommando Reinhard

Contemporary Source

1942-07-28 Letter from Ganzenmüller to Wolff on deportation of Jews to the Extermination Camps Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor

On July 28, 1942, Albert Ganzenmüller, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transport and Deputy Director General of the German Reichsbahn, wrote a letter to SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolf. The letter cites a report from the General Directorate of the Eastern Railways in Krakow that “since July 22 [1942], a train with 5,000 Jews has been running daily from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka, and also twice a week a train with 5,000 Jews from Przemysl to Belzek [Belzec]”. The transports to Sobibor were paused due to construction on the route.

Globocnik Aktion Reinhard
Contemporary Source

1943-03-03 Letter from Globocnik to Reichsführer-SS on Delivered Values from Aktion Reinhard (Operation Reinhard)

The following set of documents was provided on 3 March 1943 by the SS- and police leader of Lublin Odilo Globocnik to the staff of Heinrich Himmler. Among other things, the report details the “delivered values from Operation Reinhard”, i.e. the extermination of the Jews in the General Gouvernement, The total value of the confiscated assets reached RM 100,047,983.91 and underscores the vast scale of economic exploitation carried out alongside the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Letter of Viktor Brackt to Heinrich Himmler of 23 June 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-06-23 Letter from Brack to Himmler: “Globocnik expressed the view that the entire Jewish action should be carried out as quickly as possible”

On 23 June, 1942, SS-Oberführer Viktor Brack from Hitler’s Chancellory wrote to Heinrich Himmler on the matter of mass sterilisation of Jews considered fit for work by the Nazis and implies that the Jews not fit for forced labour will perish. He connects the latter activities to the “special task” of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, to whom he had provided “some of my men” (i.e. staff from the Nazi Euthansasia program). Brack notes that “Globocnik expressed the view that the entire Jewish action should be carried out as quickly as possible” and recalls Himmler’s statement that “we must work as quickly as possible for reasons of camouflage”. Globocnik carried out the mass murder of Jews mentioned in this letter through Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard / Reinhardt) in the extermination camps in the General Gouvernement: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka.

Scroll to Top