Heinrich Barbl (born 3 March 1900, Sarleinsbach,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

; date of death unknown, not before 1965) was an

n-born SS-''

Rottenführer ''Rottenführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in the year 1932. The rank of ''Rottenführer'' was used by several Nazi paramilitary groups, among them the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) a ...

''. He participated in the T-4 euthanasia program in Nazi Germany and, after the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, in Operation Reinhard phase of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

Life

Barbl was a tinsmith and plumber employed at the nitrogen works in

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

as a gas and waterpipe fitter.Gordon J. Horwitz, ''In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen'', p. 69, Maxwell Macmillan International, 1990 He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

and the SS after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

of Austria. He was posted to Hartheim Euthanasia Centre at the onset of the

Action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

forced euthanasia program, and served at

Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre The Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Grafeneck) housed in Grafeneck Castle was one of Nazi Germany's killing centres as part of their forced euthanasia programme. Today, it is a memorial site dedicated to the victims of ...

as well. At both institutions he was a ''Stanzer'', stamping sheet metal with names of the dead to form nameplates. He would then attach them to small urns which he used to fill up with ash; the urns were sent to victims' relatives correctly named, but invariably with the wrong contents, as he filled them up with ashes shoveled indiscriminately from the adjacent crematorium.Henry Friedlander, ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', p. 234, UNC Press, 1995
Google Books
/ref>

Operation Reinhard

In 1942 Barbl was posted to Bełżec extermination camp, the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard. Barbl was often drunk on duty. Not particularly intelligent (which might also explain his low rank), he was frequently made fun of by his SS colleagues. Camp commandant, ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Gottlieb Hering did not allow him to participate in the execution of sick and elderly arrivals because, "he is so daft that he would shoot us, not the Jews". Consequently, he was the only person to be excused from this duty. However, no one was certain whether Barbl was genuinely stupid, or if he was merely acting a fool just to avoid more demanding tasks. Robin O'Neil,
Belzec: Stepping Stone to Genocide (excerpts)
' - Chapter 6. . Barbl was not exempt from his commandant's punishments. He was frequently whipped by

Christian Wirth ), Christian the CruelZenter, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). ''Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'' (pg. 1053), New York: Macmillan; , allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = , rank = Sturmbannführer (Major) , ...

for his drunken behavior,O'Neil,
Belzec: Stepping Stone to Genocide
' – Chapter 8. and for an unknown reason in the winter of 1942–43, Hering allegedly had him imprisoned in a cell for several days. Barbl was sent to

Sobibor extermination camp Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As an ...

by Wirth for his plumbing skills, to help fit the exhaust piping for the gas chambers. Barbl boasted that he had made the gas chambers look like neat shower rooms.Sobibor Interviews: Biographies of SS-men
/ref> After the war Barbl was interrogated by Austrian police but was never put on trial.Dick de Mildt,
In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of Their Post-War Prosecution in West Germany. The "Euthanasia" and "Aktion Reinhard" Trial Cases
'' p. 394, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996. Google Books. He submitted his testimony in

on 6 September 1965 at the Austrian Ministry of Internal Affairs. No further details are known of his life and death.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbl, Heinrich 1900 births Year of death missing People from Rohrbach District Tinsmiths Austrian Nazis Belzec extermination camp personnel Sobibor extermination camp personnel SS personnel