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 22) that the war was lost and shrewdly released all the Jews still held in the mill, together with Hackenholt, who no doubt considered it prudent to disappear from Trieste. [77] In doing so, he committed another capital offence in wartime: desertion in the face of the enemy. He was next seen on the outskirts of the city driving a civilian bus. SS-NCO Karl Schiffner, a former member of the Treblinka SS garrison, recalls this bizarre turn of events: On 29 April or 2 May 1945, Lorenz Hackenholt was taken on by a private bus company near Trieste. He accepted work there. I even saw him in this job. It was between Trieste and Udine. [78] Former SS-comrades Josef Oberhauser and Kurt Bolender also confirmed to the investigators that Hackenholt was certainly still alive at the end of April, they had come across him 'in the company of other former members of the Belzec camp staff'. They had also seen him alive 'the day before Easter 1945'. [79] In the first days of May 1945, the German forces in northern Italy retreated northwards from Trieste towards the Austrian border. Witnesses are certain that Hackenholt joined the retreat because they saw him driving a lorry on which was mounted an anti-aircraft gun. Werner Dubois recalls the retreating troops reaching Austria and his last sighting of Lorenz Hackenholt, still driving the anti-tank truck: I saw Hackenholt during the early days of May 1945 at Kirchbach/Carinthia in Austria. This was immediately before we were disarmed by British troops. If I remember correctly, he was driving a 'Flak' lorry (Flakvierling). I cannot say who was with him. I was with Hackenholt at the time mentioned, at our disbandment, that is, our dismissal by Dieter Allers. [80] Ernst Zierke, who had served with Hackenholt in Belzec, was less certain that it had been Hackenholt in the anti-aircraft truck: When I am reminded that our unit brought a 'Flakvierling' from Trieste, it does not remind me of Hackenholt. I rather think that this was an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a lorry and manned by three German sailors. [81] _______________ [77] Ibid., p. 1326. Statement by Kurt Bolender on 6.6.18961 in Duisburg-Beeck prison. [78] Ibid., 208 AR-Z 252/59 (Belzec Case), p. 1380. Statement by Karl Schiffner on 19.4.1963 in Salzburg. [79] Ibid., 208 AR-Z 251/59 (Sobibor Case), p. 2429. Extracts from the files of the State Prosecutors Office in Munich I pertaining to the civil action against Ilse Hackenholt by the Social Security Court in Augsburg in 1962. [80] Ibid., 208 AR-Z 252/59 (Belzec Case), p. 1386. Statement by Werner Dubois on 16.9.1961 in Schwelm. [81] Ibid., p. 1728. Statement by Ernst Zierke on 31.1.1963 in Ratzeburg    Back Page 22 Forward   _______________
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