Lorenz Hackenholt (26 June 1914 missing 1945, declared legally dead as of 31 December 1945, but believed to have still been alive) was a member of the ''
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (SS) with the rank of ''
Hauptscharführer __NOTOC__
''Hauptscharführer'' ( ) was a Nazi paramilitary rank which was used by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank was the highest enlisted rank of the SS, with the exception of the special Waffen-SS rank ...
'' (First Sergeant). During World War II Hackenholt built and operated the gas chamber at the
Bełżec extermination camp
Belzec (English: or , Polish: ) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the "Final Solution" which in total ...
in
occupied Poland
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
. In so doing, he personally carried out the murder of hundreds of thousands of people.
Hackenholt was deeply involved in the operation of
death camps
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
during the deadliest phase of
the Holocaust in Poland
The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
...
, known as
Operation Reinhard
or ''Einsatz Reinhard''
, location = Occupied Poland
, date = October 1941 – November 1943
, incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps
, perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...
, as well as in other Nazi war crimes, including the murder of mental patients and the disabled in
Action T4
(German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...
programme of forced euthanasia.
[Klee (2003), ''The Good Old Days'', pp. 230, 237, 241, 294.]
Life
Hackenholt's full name was Laurenzius Marie Hackenholt. He was born on 26 June 1914 in
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
/Ruhr. His father was Theodor Hackenholt and his mother was Elizabeth Wobriezek. He attended the local elementary school until he reached the age of 14. He then became an apprentice bricklayer. After he passed the trade examination he worked on various building sites.
[Tregenza, "The ‘Disappearance’ of SS-Hauptscharfuhrer Lorenz Hackenholt", at Mazel on-line library](_blank)
Concentration camp guard
In 1933, Hackenholt volunteered for the SS. After joining the SS he was sent to a training school on 1 January 1934. After that he volunteered for service in the army, where he was assigned to the 12th Engineers' Battalion. After two years military service he was discharged, and then joined the SS Death's Head troops. He was a skilled driver and mechanic and, beginning in March 1938, served at
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
in the motor pool. He also worked as a guard at Sachsenhausen.
Action T4
''
Aktion T4
(German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...
'', the so-called "Euthanasia Program", lasted from early 1940 until the summer of 1941 when the gassings were stopped on
Hitler's
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
orders. In November 1939 Hackenholt was assigned to Action T4, when he was transferred to Berlin for 'special duty'.
This special duty was under
Viktor Brack
Viktor Hermann Brack (9 November 1904 – 2 June 1948) was a member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and a convicted Nazi war criminal, who was one of the prominent organisers of the euthanasia programme Aktion T4; this Nazi initiative resulted in the ...
. According to
Werner Karl Dubois, another camp guard transferred to special duty with Hackenholt:
There were six T4 killing facilities. Hackenholt served in all of them. He drove a bus with the SS staff from facility to facility. He also removed the bodies from the gas chambers and burned them. For a while Hackenholt was a driver for ''
SS-Untersturmführer'' Dr.
August Becker, the T4 chemist who was responsible for delivering bottled carbon monoxide gas from
I.G. Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, ...
manufacturing plants to the T4 gas chambers.
[ Hackenholt worked primarily in ]Grafeneck
Grafeneck is a small rural village in the German municipality of Gomadingen, south of Stuttgart.
World War II history
Grafeneck Castle, which had previously been an asylum for crippled people, was turned by the Nazis into an extermination fa ...
and Sonnenstein.
Operation Reinhard and beyond
In the fall of 1941, some of the Action T4 personnel, including Hackenholt, were transferred to Lublin Reservation
The Nisko Plan was an operation to deport Jews to the Lublin District of the General Governorate of occupied Poland in 1939. Organized by Nazi Germany, the plan was cancelled in early 1940.
The idea for the expulsion and resettlement of the Jews ...
in occupied Poland
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
where they came under the authority of '' SS-Brigadeführer'' Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was an Austrian Nazi and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. He was an official of the Nazi Party and later a high-ranking leader of the SS. Globocnik had a leading role in Operation Re ...
. On vacation leave, Hackenholt went to Berlin to marry Ilse Zillmer, who was then 29 years old. Hackenholt returned to Poland and was sent to Bełżec, a remote labour camp near the rail station, to conduct experiments to establish a method for the mass-murder of Jews by gassing. Hackenholt set up three gas chambers in an insulated barracks. Using engine exhaust, piped into the chambers from a disassembled Soviet tank, Hackenholt murdered over 50,000 Jews in one month (mid March to mid April 1942). In August 1942, Hackenholt built and operated newer and larger gas chambers at Belzec. Once Belzec came into operation, a sign was placed over the gas chambers which said "Hackenholt Foundation"; with potted geraniums on either side of the entrance. Hackenholt also designed and operated gas chambers at the Treblinka and Sobibor extermination camps.
Hackenholt, who was called "Hacko" by other guards, was a tough, large man who was willing and able to do any task at the extermination camps, although he reportedly balked at cleaning up seeping corruption from bodies rotting in mass graves. At Belzec, where all ages of people were murdered, some Jews, because of infirmity or age, could not enter the gas chamber. These people were instead laid down in the mass graves, and, according to the testimony of other guards, shot by Hackenholt. In 1943, when Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
ordered the mass graves at Belzec to be reopened and the bodies burned, Hackenholt was in charge of the operation. Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
considered Hackenholt to be "one of the most deserving men of Operation Reinhard" (german: einer der verdientesten Männer der Aktion Reinhard).[ Klee, Ernst: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945?'', p. 215. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2003 ]
In December 1943, Hackenholt and other personnel from Operation Reinhard
or ''Einsatz Reinhard''
, location = Occupied Poland
, date = October 1941 – November 1943
, incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps
, perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...
were transferred to northern Italy (Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...
), where they attempted to find and murder the few remaining Italian Jews. In 1944 Hackenholt was awarded the Iron Cross (Second Class) for his role in Operation Reinhard.
Colleagues from Einsatz R were last seen in Austria at the time of his unit's retreat. On the way to Kirbach, their car column had to supposedly avoid a horse-drawn dairy car driven by Hackenholt...
In the summer of 1945, Rudolf Kamm, an essayist from the Bełżec crew, was to report to Hackenholt's wife Ilse (née Zillmer, b. 1912), who was in Berlin at the time. He claimed that Hackenholt sent him to his wife to give him civilian clothes through him.
1945 disappearance and investigation
Hackenholt was supposedly killed in Italy in 1945, possibly by execution for selling guns to the partisans. However this was never quite certain. Hackenholt disappeared after 1945, and based on an application by his wife was declared dead by a Berlin court on 1 April 1954, with an official date of death of 31 December 1945. At the end of July 1959, the Headquarters for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg opened an investigation into the crimes committed in Bełżec. The West German authorities began an investigation in 1959. They were able to locate Hackenholt's wife and mother. Both certified that Hackenholt had not been heard from since the war, and surveillance of the wife's residence showed there were no attempts by him to visit her there.
Post-1946
Hackenholt's brother, Theo, testified that in 1946 he saw him on the road from Dortmund
Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...
to Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
. In 1961, the West German police were able to find Hermann Erich Bauer, who had been in the SS with Hackenholt. Bauer claimed that Hackenholt had definitely survived the war, because he had met him in 1946 near Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Bav ...
, Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, where he allegedly worked as a driver or courier. He also claimed that Hackenholt had become a slain Wehrmacht soldier named Jansen, Jensen or Johannsen and lived with a woman he had met in Trieste. The West German police conducted an investigation but were not able to locate Hackenholt, or to determine whether he might still be alive. West German investigators took seriously the reports that Hackenholt may still be at large: they searched the homes of his wife and mother, interrogated his former friends from the time of service in the SS. Archives and records of offences were examined, as well as numerous inquiries to potential witnesses to determine whether a driver named Jansen or similar was working in the Ingolstadt area. Up to 90,000 people have been tested. Licence applications submitted near Ingolstadt between 1945 and 1947, comparing their contents with photos of Hackenholt and samples of his writing. However, several years of police searching did not produce any official results. British researcher Michael Tregenza spent many years exploring Hackenholt's postwar whereabouts and was repeatedly warned against looking for him. Tregenza believed that Hackenholt had survived the war and was living under a false name somewhere in Germany.["Bryant" (pp.48-50)]
See also
* List of fugitives from justice who disappeared
Notes
References
*Bryant, Michael S.: Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955–1966. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2014. .
* Klee, Ernst, Dressen, Willi, and Riess, Volker, eds. ''"The Good Old Days" -- The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators and Bystanders'', MacMillan, New York 1991 (translation by Deborah Burnstone)
Tregenza, Michael, "The ‘Disappearance’ of SS-Hauptscharfuhrer Lorenz Hackenholt -- A Report on the 1959-63 West German Police Search for Lorenz Hackenholt, the Gas Chamber Expert of the Aktion Reinhard Extermination Camps", 2000, at Mazel on-line library
*Webb, Chris: The Belzec death camp. History, Biographies, Remembrance. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2016. . ()
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hackenholt, Lorenz
1914 births
1945 deaths
Aktion T4 personnel
Belzec extermination camp personnel
Fugitives
German military personnel killed in World War II
Holocaust perpetrators in Italy
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
People declared dead in absentia
People from Gelsenkirchen
People from the Province of Westphalia
Sachsenhausen concentration camp personnel
Sobibor extermination camp personnel
SS non-commissioned officers
Treblinka extermination camp personnel