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 23) It is very probable that the 'Flakvierling' was one of the pair of anti-aircraft guns previously mentioned by Robert Juhrs. It would have been typical of Hackenholt to arrange his own speedy escape from the frontline by offering to drive the lorry over the border while the sailors manned the weapon against Allied air attacks, which were very frequent. The final rallying place for the Einsatz R units was at Kirchbach in Austria where they were disarmed by British troops and then allowed to continue their retreat. The names of the extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka in Poland was unknown to the British soldiers who regarded all German troops coming over the border from Italy as fighting troops. SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt was last seen outside the town by Willy Grossmann and other SS-men who were heading for the rallying point in a lorry. On the road into the town they came across Hackenholt, again in bizarre circumstances, as Grossmann recalls: I saw Hackenholt outside Kirchbach/Carinthia driving a horsedrawn milk float. (author's italics). On that occasion he shouted joyously as we went by. Whether Hackenholt was in uniform at the time or in civilian clothes, I cannot say. After that, that is until today, I have never heard of him again. [82] Three of the former Belzec SS guards, Karl Schluch, Robert Juhrs and Ernst Zierke, were later captured and interned in an American POW camp at Weilheim, about 50 kilometers south-west of Munich, but were released from the camp on 6 July 1945 as their duty with Aktion Reinhard in Poland was also not known to the US military authorities. They thought that Hackenholt had been in the camp with them, but could not be sure if he had also been released with them. [83] Werner Dubois ended up in the POW camp at Heilbronn-Bockingen, north of Stuttgart. He knew that his former commander at Belzec, Gottlieb Hering, lived not far away in Stuttgart-Fellbach — having been transferred home from Trieste before the end of the war as a disciplinary case and had been appointed head of the Kriminalpolizei in Heilbronn. Dubois wrote to Hering in the hope that his former superior could obtain his early release, not knowing that Hering had died only a few weeks earlier. [84] However, he received a reply from the widow, Frau Helena Hering, who then visited him at the camp but declined Dubois' suggestion of further contact. Dubois told his interrogators from SK III/a that he had written the letter because he knew that immediately after the war the _______________ [82] Ibid., p. 1527. Statement by Willy Grossmann on 9.11.1961 in Erndtebruck. [83] Ibid., p. 1505. Karl Schluch, 11.11.1961/Kleve. [84] Hering died in unknown circumstances on 9.10.1945 in the waiting room of the Katherinen Hospital in Stetten-im-Remstal, Wurttemberg. His death certificate does not give a cause of death and is therefore a legally invalid document. He was being investigated at the time by the French military authorities as a suspected war criminal. Copy of the death certificate in: ZStL 208 AR-Z 252/59 (Belzec Case), p. 416.    Back Page 23 Forward
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