The ‘Disappearance’ of SS-Hauptscharführer 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 © Michael Tregenza (Page 17) victims now had to be cremated immediately after gassing and not buried in the mass graves. SS-NCO Suchomel recalls a second order received shortly afterwards: An even bigger shock came when suddenly we were told that the pits had to be emptied in order to cremate those corpses as well. Here, too, Wirth took a hand with his specialist 'Hacko' as excavator operator, and Floss as cremation expert. As usual, Belzec had been used as the experimental camp. [59] Later, a second excavator was brought to Treblinka and permanent operators employed. Hackenholt returned to Belzec where he remained until the completion of the exhumation/ cremation operation in March. Following this, the entire camp was demolished. When in the spring 1943 all trace of evidence of the genocide carried out in Belzec had been erased, the site was inspected by a special SS-commission and the area disguised by planting fir saplings. On 21 June 1943, Wirth was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer and 28 members of his SS-Sonderkommandos also received promotions on the recommendation of Himmler. Among them was Lorenz Hackenholt who was promoted to SS-Hauptscharführer. [60] Shortly before the closure of the Belzec camp at the beginning of May, several members of the SS-garrisons at the Aktion Reinhard extermination camps were reassigned by Wirth to supervisory duties at a big Jewish labour camp at the old Lublin airfield on the south-eastern outskirts of the city, either because they were redundant or were disciplinary cases. All were especially noted for their inhumanity and among them was SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt. [61] Wirth in the meantime had additionally been appointed Inspector of the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW — German Equipment Works) set up in various labour camps in the Lublin District; his inspectorate for both Aktion Reinhard and DAW was located in a small house on Lublin airfield. The former aircraft hangars on the airfield, which had been abandoned since being bombed by the Luftwaffe in September 1939, and several barracks, had been used since the early summer of 1942 as the main sorting, cleaning and storage depot for the vast amounts of belongings and valuables seized from the Jews murdered in the extermination camps. The loot was delivered to the airfield by rail and also dispatched to the Reich by rail at regular intervals for further utilization. Valuable furs were disinfected with Zyklon B in four specially constructed chambers. After the arrival of SS-Hauptscharführer Hackenholt at the airfield, he used the chambers for killing prisoners no longer for work. [62] _______________ [59] Franz Suchomel, Christian Wirth, gennant 'Christian der Grausame' oder 'Stuka' (Ukr.), Altotting 1972 (private report). [60] Aktion Reinhard promotion list in: BKBZ personal file Christian Wirth. [61] Czeslaw Rajca, 'Podobozy Majdanka' in: Zeszyty Majdanka, vol. 9, pp. 92-93, Panstwowe Muzeum na Majdanka, Lublin 1977. [62] ZStL 208 AR-Z 74/60 (Staff of the SS-und Polizeifuhrer Lublin), pp. 6120-6121    Back Page 17 Forward
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