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 29) happy'. She now claimed that the relationship had always been good, and added, 'I reckon that if he were still alive he would have let me know'. The concluding paragraph of Ilse Hackenholt's statement was sufficient grounds for the officers of SK III/a to extend their search in another direction: In August 1959, my brother-in-law Theo Hackenholt visited me for a holiday. On this occasion he told me about an experience which had made a very strong impression on him. On the journey a lorry had passed him and he recognized the driver as his brother. I do not know any more today on which road or between which towns this could have been. Once again the interrogators returned to the subject of the false declaration of death, but Ilse Hackenholt replied that the questioning had already lasted six hours and she could no longer think straight. The two officers terminated the interrogation and left. Almost two weeks passed before the SK III/a inspector who had led the interrogation in Sonthofen travelled to Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr to follow up Ilse Hackenholt's claim that her husband had been seen only two years before by his brother. (One wonders why Lorenz Hackenholt's younger brother Theo had not been questioned much earlier in the investigation as a matter of routine). However, the subsequent police report of Theo Hackenholt's interrogation is worth quoting in full: At the request of the Gelsenkirchen Kriminalpolizei there appeared the married Post Office engineer Theo H a c k e n h o l t, born 19.7.1921 in Gelsenkirchen, domiciled in Gelsenkirchen, Nansen Strasse 6, and made the following statement under oath: It is correct that in August 1959 I went for a short holiday to visit my sister-in-law Ilse Hackenholt in Tiefenbach/Allgäu. During a conversation with my sister-in-law, which lasted one-and-a-half hours, I told her that I believe that I saw my brother Lorenz Hackenholt in 1947. It is incorrect that the encounter took place in 1959 on my way to Tiefenbach, as stated by my sister-in-law. In 1947 I was driving a lorry and trailer from Dortmund to Gelsenkirchen on Bundesbahn 1. On the way we met a delivery van which I cannot describe in detail. It could have been a converted private car. The driver of the approaching vehicle could have been my brother Lorenz. I had no opportunity to observe the driver properly as everything happened too quickly. At this encounter I only had the impression that the driver could have been my brother. I had no opportunity to note the license plate of the vehicle, nor whether or what writing the vehicle had on its side — the things by which to instigate enquiries about my brother. To questions, I reply that the vehicle was in no way a heavy lorry.    Back Page 29 Forward
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