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Gottlieb Hering (right), the second commander of Belzec having a drink with Heinrich Gley, also of Operation Reinhard.
What a survivor, Rudolf Reder, from Belzec had to say about Hering:
We knew that in the most beautiful house close to the station of Belzec lived the commander of the camp. He was an Obersturmführer [sic]... He seldom was present in the camp and came only in connection with some event. He was a tall bully, broad shouldered, age around forty, with an expressionless face. He seemed to me as if he were a born bandit. Once the gassing engine stopped working. When he was informed, he arrived astride a horse, ordered the engine to be repaired and did not allow the people in the gas chambers to be removed. He let them strangle and die slowly for a few hours more. He yelled and shook with rage. In spite of the fact that he came only on rare occasions, the SS men feared him greatly. He lived alone with his Ukrainian orderly, who served him. The Ukrainian orderly submitted to him the daily reports.
Arad, Yitzhak; Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, pp. 187-188