Heinrich Arthur Matthes (11 January 1902 – 16 December 1978) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as a deputy commandant of

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

during the Operation Reinhard phase of

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

. Matthes was appointed chief of the extermination area at Camp 2 where the gas chambers were built and managed by the SS personnel overseeing some 300 slave labourers disposing of corpses under penalty of death. He was tried in the 1964

Treblinka trials The two Treblinka trials concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Je ...

, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Life

Matthes was born in 1902 in

Wermsdorf Wermsdorf is a municipality in the Nordsachsen district in Saxony, Germany. Two hunting castles of the Saxon Dukes and Kings are to be found here. Geography Landscape Wermsdorf is situated within Wermsdorf Forest a wooded area of some 30&n ...

, near

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. His father was a senior male nurse. Matthes attended public elementary school for eight years. He then became a

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

, but changed careers to

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

. He trained at Sonnenstein and took his exam there. Then he worked at the Arnsdorf and Bräunsdorf hospitals. He married and had one daughter. At the beginning of 1934, he joined both 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 SA. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out, he was drafted into the army. After about two years, Matthes was then recruited by

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 ...

, the Nazi state-sponsored program to kill disabled persons. He worked in the T4 photo laboratory and then served in the T4 unit with

Organization Todt Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering proje ...

in Russia. Matthes last rank in the Heer was

Obergefreiter Obergefreiter (''abbr.'' OGefr.) is an enlisted rank of the German and Swiss militaries which dates from the 19th century. In today's Bundeswehr, every ''Gefreiter'' is normally promoted ''Obergefreiter'' after six months. The NATO-Code is OR-3 ...

. Henry Friedlander (1995). ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 242.

Treblinka death camp

In August 1942, Matthes was ordered to

Lublin reservation The Nisko Plan was an operation to deport Jews to the Lublin District of the General Governorate of occupied Poland in 1939. Organized by Nazi Germany, the plan was cancelled in early 1940. The idea for the expulsion and resettlement of the Jews ...

, where he was in short time drafted into the SS with the rank of ''

Scharführer ''Scharführer'' (, ) was a title or rank used in early 20th Century German military terminology. In German, ''Schar'' was one term for the smallest sub-unit, equivalent to (for example) a "troop" , " squad", or "section". The word ''führer'' ...

'' (Sergeant), dispatched to Operation Reinhard, and sent to

. There he was appointed chief officer commanding Camp II (the extermination area) and the gas chambers. Matthes was remembered by fellow Treblinka SS officer Franz Suchomel in the following way: Matthes was obsessed with cleanliness. In the autumn of 1942, Matthes shot two prisoners because at the end of the work day they had not properly cleaned to his satisfaction the stretcher which they used to transport corpses. In the winter of 1942–43, a

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

epidemic broke out in Treblinka. Matthes took eight sick inmates to the ''Lazarett'' and had them shot. During that same winter he shot the prisoner Ilik Weintraub because, while transferring bodies from the gas chambers to the pits, Weintraub had stopped for a moment to drink some water from the well. Matthes as remembered by Jerzy Rajgrodzki, a prisoner in the extermination area: In the autumn of 1943 Matthes was transferred 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 ...

. He later served in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

with the other Operation Reinhard perpetrators. At the

Treblinka Trials The two Treblinka trials concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Je ...

in 1965 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mathes died in prison in 1978.First Treblinka Trial
holocaustresearchproject.org; accessed 26 April 2016.

Matthes testimonies at trial

Matthes Rank Summary SA- Sturmmann

C. 1942 SS-

August 1942 SS-

Oberscharführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberscharführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between 1932 and 1945. ''Oberscharführer'' was first used as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions ...

Oberwachtmeister Oberwachtmeister (OWm) ( ge: for senior master-sentinel; senior watch-master) is in Austria and Switzerland a military rank of non-commissioned officers (NCO). Besides Austria and Switzerland today, the rank was also used for example in Germany a ...

der Polizei Early 1944

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matthes, Heinrich 1902 births Year of death unknown People from Wermsdorf German nurses People convicted in the Treblinka trials Sturmabteilung personnel SS non-commissioned officers Treblinka extermination camp personnel People from the Kingdom of Saxony German prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Germany Prisoners who died in German detention Nazis who died in prison custody