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stationed with an SS-unit in northern Italy. A copy of Hackenholt's
SS file was obtained from the Berlin Document Center, the main repository for
the personal files of all former members of the SS and Nazi Party, administered
at that time by the US military authorities in West Berlin. [3] The file, which
also contained his hand-written curriculum vitae dating from 1941,
showed that Laurenzius (Lorenz) Marie Hackenholt was born on 25 June 1914 in
Gelsenkirchen/Ruhr, the son of Theodor and Elizabeth Hackenholt, nee Wobriezek.
After attending the local elementary school until the age of 14 he became an
apprentice bricklayer and on passing the trade examination was employed on
various building sites until 1933 when at the age of 19 he volunteered for the
SS. Hackenholt's c.v. continues:
After joining the SS I was commandeered
on 1 January 1934 to the Fuhrerschule of SS- Abschnitt XVII and remained there
until my discharge at the disbandment of the school. At that time I reported to
the army as a volunteer and was called up to 12 Engineers' Battalion. After two
years military service I was discharged. I then reported to 2. SS-Totenkopf
Standarte (Death's Head Regiment). In November 1939 I was then commandeered to
Berlin for 'special duty'. [4] Certain
important details omitted by Hackenholt from his c.v. were provided by one of
his former SS-comrades, Werner Dubois, questioned in Schwelm by officers of
Department 15 of the Northrhine-Westphalian Kriminalpolizei. Dubois had served
before the war in the same SS-unit as Hackenholt. According to this witness,
they both belonged to the 2. Totenkopf Brandenburg Division stationed at
Oranienburg, north of Berlin, and when in March 1938 an SS vehicle depot was
established at the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Dubois and
Hackenholt were transferred to the camp staff as both SS-men were skilled motor
mechanics and drivers with Class I-III driving licenses. At Sachsenhausen they
also performed the more onerous task of concentration camp guards as well as
serving as SS-drivers for the camp command and staff.
It was from the
Sachsenhausen Kommandantur that the summons to 'special duty' had come in
November 1939 when, together with two other members of the camp staff, Josef
Oberhauser and Siegfried Graetschus (also employed in the vehicle depot)
Hackenholt and Dubois were ordered to report to the Fuhrer's private
Chancellery at Voss Strasse 4 in Berlin. There, the four SS-NCOs from
Sachsenhausen met six other SS-NCO who had also been commandeered from the
concentration camp service. [5]
At Voss Strasse the 10 men were
interviewed by SS-Standartenfuhrer Viktor Brack, the head of Hauptamt II (Main
Office II) of the Fuhrer's Chancellery an office which
_______________
[3] Since 1994, the US
authorities handed over the Berlin Document Center files to the Federal German
authorities. The archives are now administered as a branch of the Bundesarchiv
in Koblenz (Aussenstelle Berlin-Zehlendorf). [4] Bundesarchiv Koblenz,
Aussenstelle Berlin-Zehlendorf (BKBZ), personal file Lorenz Hackenholt.
[5] The other six SS-NCOs were: Kurt Franz, Fritz
Irrmann and Herbert Floss from Buchenwald, and Johann Niemannn and Gottfried
Schwarz from Dachau.
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