|
|
 |
 |
AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © |
|
|
| Page 92
is blank |
 |
Back |
 |
Contents |
Page 93 |
|
Home
Page |
Forward |
 |
| |
PART TWO
CHAPTER 1
GENERAL STUDY OF THE CREMATION FURNACES
PRODUCED BY MESSRS TOPF & SONS OF ERFURT
Brief
history of Topf & Sons
1878 - 1963 |
| |
MESSRS TOPF & SONS
THE
FIRM OF TOPF & SONS, 1878-1963 |
| |
| [The following history is a fairly complete
exposé of the documentation collected by the author concerning the now
defunct firm of Topf & Sons, originally of Erfurt, later of Wiesbaden. Only
the essential documents are presented. The author is at present of the opinion
that his research into this firm should be pursued, and if the findings are
interesting he will produce an in-depth study, fully documented and
illustrated.] |
| |
A historical study of the firm of Topf & Sons of Erfurt
may appear irrelevant in the context of the homicidal gas chambers of KL
Auschwitz-Birkenau, for the production of cremation furnaces was only one of
the firm's areas of activity, and was in no way blameworthy given the
tradition in Germany, a country where, unlike in France, the cremation of the
dead is normal practice. In these circumstances it is only natural that there
should be firms producing the necessary equipment. During the Second World War,
the two main suppliers of furnaces for the concentration camps were TOPF &
SONS of Erfurt and H KORI of Berlin.
Despite this apparent innocence,
Messrs Topf & Sons was the only civilian firm to have been directly and
wittingly involved in the extermination of the Jews in Auschwitz, not simply as
the supplier of cremation furnaces, but in the fitting out of the gas chambers
in Birkenau Krematorien II and III. This complicity, scarcely suspected by
anyone after the war, led the elder of the two directors at the time, Ludwig
Topf Junior, to commit suicide on 31st May 1945. The arrest by the Russians on
4th March 1946 of four Topf engineers (Gustav BRAUN, production manager; Kurt
PRÜFER, head of the "crematorium construction" division; Fritz
SANDER, inventor of a continuous cremation furnace; and Karl SCHULTZE [or
SCHULZE], probably Prüfer's deputy) should have led to a detailed
examination of the role of Topf in the extermination installations in Birkenau,
which would have been entirely possible at the time. The first Camp Commandant
of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, having been arrested by the British on 11th
February 1946, testified before the Nuremburg Military Tribunal on 15th April
1946 and was then handed over to the Polish authorities on 25th May 1946.
Judged in Warsaw between 11th and 19th March 1947 and condemned to death on 2nd
April, he was hanged behind the "Old Krematorium" in the Auschwitz
camp on 16th April 1947. Given the speed with which Hoess was brought to
justice, there is no reason why the four Topf engineers should not have had
similar treatment and appeared before the Warsaw High Court in March 1947.
However, this appears not to have been the case and they disappeared without
trace. It is likely that their being charged and imprisoned was occasioned by
their participation in the construction of cremation furnaces, not in the
Auschwitz Krematorien, but in Buchenwald (near Erfurt), where there were two of
the three-muffle furnaces designed by Prüfer. This is the most probable
origin of their disappearance and presumed execution.
The fact that an
enterprise, generally considered to be honorable and respectable, for the
Wiesbaden Chamber of Commerce and Industry in December 1947, not knowing of its
darker side between 1941 and 1943, deemed it "worthwhile and deserving of
a subsidy", should have got itself involved in the most criminal of all
the programs of the Third Reich, calls for a historical study in order to
understand the reasons and identify who was, or were, responsible. Contrary to
what has been believed up to now, there is a world of difference between
Topf's participation and that of Degesch of Frankfurt am Main, the
suppliers of Zyklon-B. Degesch certainly supplied the poison, but the same
product was used for BOTH disinfesting the camp and its inmates AND for gassing
the Jews, but the managing director, Dr Gerhard PETERS, did not learn of this
"abnormal" use of his product until summer 1944. and then only by
chance, whereas Prüfer and Schul[t]ze collaborated closely on the criminal
conversion of the Birkenau Krematorien, for Prüfer had been designated
"technical advisor" for the entire "installation" (the four
Krematorien) by the Auschwitz Bauleitung. |
| |
| ¤ |
| |
| The firm was founded by Johann Andreas TOPF (1816-92),
whose initials were later used in the name of the enterprise. It would seem
that J A Topf had four sons: Gustav, the eldest, two others whose first names
are not known, and Ludwig, born in 1863, who was subsequently to be known as
Ludwig Topf Senior to distinguish him from his eldest son, Ludwig Topf Junior.
Between 1865 and 1875 J A Topf produced heating installations. Being also a
master brewer ["Braumeister"], he ran his own brewery from 1875, and
although the was regarded as an experimental operation, it was joined by a
malting installation, also experimental, and then by a laboratory, which the
eldest son, Gustav, managed and developed. In 1878, two more sons entered the
firm and what was to be its final name was duly registered J A TOPF &
SÖHNE. In 1882, the last son, Ludwig (Senior), then aged 19, entered the
family firm in his turn. However, during the 1890s, Johann Andreas and two of
his sons died. Dr Gustav Topf had also probably died, leaving Ludwig in sole
charge of the firm. Early in the new century his wife, Else, gave him a first
son, Ludwig Topf Junior, then in 1902 a daughter Johanna and finally, on 30th
November 1904, the second and last son, Ernst-Wolfgang. Ludwig Topf Senior
developed the business enormously until his death in 1914 at the age of 51.
Ownership then passed to his widow Else Topf. At that time, the firm employed
about one thousand people and exported its products to over thirty countries
throughout the world. |
|
AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and operation
of the gas
chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
|
|
Back |
Page 93 |
Forward |
|
|
