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 31) with names similar to Jensen, Jansen, etc. As it was known that Hackenholt was a ruthless character and drank a lot, it was thought there may be a notification under one of these names for a traffic or drink/driving offence. The original list given to the Ingolstadt police was extended to include taxi drivers, public transport drivers and driving instructors who had names similar to the alias. All these men throughout West Germany were meticulously checked, area by area, by their local Kriminalpolizei office. Every single person's photograph and a sample of handwriting was checked against Hackenholt's. This extensive country-wide search also produced no result. Every owner of a Faun van in the south-eastern part of the country was checked through the Federal Vehicle Office in Flensburg. Flensburg informed SK III/a that there were 68 owners registered for the period 1945-47. All of them were individually checked by local police - not only the present owners of the vehicles, but also all previous owners - and in each case the person concerned was shown a photograph of Hackenholt. As a further check, the police additionally examined every owner's and previous owner's Social Security records and place of work. This detailed investigation also led nowhere. The German Armed Forces Information Centre in Berlin (Deutsche Dienststelle für die Benachrichtigung der nächsten Angehörigen von Gefallenen der ehemaligen deutschen Wehrmacht) was asked whether they had any record of any officer or other rank with a name similar to the alleged alias who had been killed in March, April or May 1945 in Italy or Austria whose identity documents Hackenholt could have taken. This enquiry too had no result. The officers of SK III/a now requested from the Central Office in Ludwigsburg further details about the alleged postwar meetings of Hackenholt with Erich Bauer and Fritz Rehwald, but Bauer was unable to add any further useful details to his previous statement, and Rehwald, according to Ludwigsburg, 'could not be traced'. All the defendants at the forthcoming Belzec Trial before the Regional Court in Munich I were questioned again about Hackenholt and his possible whereabouts. These additional interrogations also produced no leads. The investigators now had little option but to continue and extend their enquiries concerning all males with names akin to to the alias mentioned by Bauer. This time they enlisted the help of regional Council Vehicle Permit Offices who were asked to check individual applications for driving licenses — renewals as well as fresh applications — for the period 1945-47. Hackenholt's photograph and handwriting were compared with those of each applicant, but without referring to the applicant's name. This entailed checking over 90,000 individual applications forms. There was no result. One slim possibility had not yet been investigated: the identity of the women known to Bauer only as 'Monika' who had befriended Hackenholt in Trieste, and who just might be still sheltering him. All the female former employees of the R-I unit in Trieste were questioned: Frau Lindner, Frau Fettke, Frau Schmiedel and Frau Allers, as well as Dieter Allers, the last commander of the unit in San Sabba. None of them could recall Hackenholt being friendly with any woman in Italy; they all independently agreed that Lorenz Hackenholt had been a 'drunken, country bumpkin and had little to do with    Back Page 31 Forward
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