Hermann Julius Höfle, also Hans (or) Hermann Hoefle ((; 19 June 1911 – 21 August 1962), was an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

-born SS commander and

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; ...

perpetrator during the

Nazi era Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. He was deputy to Odilo Globočnik in the ''

Aktion Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin ...

'' program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. Arrested in 1961 in connection with these crimes, Höfle committed

suicide by hanging Suicide by hanging is the intentional killing of oneself (suicide) via suspension from an anchor-point such as an overhead beam or hook, by a rope or cord or by jumping from a height with a noose around the neck. Hanging is often considered ...

in prison before he was tried.

SS career

Born in

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

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 ...

, Höfle joined the

NSDAP 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 ...

on 1 August 1933, with party number 307,469. He joined the SS at the same time. Before the war, he worked as an

auto mechanic An auto mechanic (automotive technician in most of North America, light vehicle technician in British English, and motor mechanic in Australian English) is a mechanic who services and repairs automobiles, sometimes specializing in one or more ...

Crimes against humanity

After the conquest of Poland, Höfle served in

Nowy Sącz Nowy Sącz (; hu, Újszandec; yi, Tzanz, צאַנז; sk, Nový Sonč; german: Neu-Sandez) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. It has ...

, in Southern Poland. In November 1940 he served as an overseer of a Jewish

labour camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espe ...

southeast of

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

. Up to December 1941 Höfle was in Mogilev. He was involved in deportations to the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and

Treblinka 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 cam ...

. He lived and worked from the Aktion Reinhard

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

with the

Julius Schreck Julius Schreck (13 July 1898 – 16 May 1936) was an early senior Nazi official and close confidant of Adolf Hitler. Born in Munich, Schreck served in World War I and shortly afterwards joined right-wing paramilitary units. He joined the Nazi ...

Barracks, Ostland Strasse, in Lublin. Höfle was "Coordinator" of

Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...

and chief of staff to Odilo Globočnik, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. Alongside Christian Wirth, Höfle had chief authority of Operation Reinhard beside Globočnik. At the beginning of the operation, he held the rank of ''

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

'' (captain). SS members, including those from

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 ...

who were assigned to the operation, reported to the headquarters in

and were instructed to their duties by Höfle. For an example of the limited paperwork, every member of Operation Reinhard signed the following declaration of secrecy: As head of the "Main Department" (''Hauptabteilung''), Höfle was in charge of the organization and manpower of Operation Reinhard. He coordinated the deportations of Jews from all areas of the

General Government The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

and directed them to one of the extermination camps. The deportation orders were coordinated and channeled through SS authorities from Höfle's office for the

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 ...

, through the district SS and Police Leaders, down to the localities where the expulsions were to take place. Around May 1942 in the

, a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

laborers. It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government, the others being sent on to their deaths in Belzec. In this way, many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor. Hermann Höfle was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy. Höfle personally oversaw the deportation of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

, the so-called Großaktion Warschau. The operation was preceded on 20 and 21 July 1942 by a spree of randomly killing actions along the streets of the Ghetto and by the arrest and brutal imprisonment of many others taken as hostages among counselors, department managers and those connected in a way or another to the

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...

. All this was to intimidate and soften the Judenrat to the new upcoming measures. The day after, in the morning of 22 July, ''

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

'' Höfle, accompanied by an entourage of SS and government officials, arrived at the

in the

and announced to the chairman,

Adam Czerniaków Adam Czerniaków (30 November 1880 – 23 July 1942) was a Polish engineer and senator who was head of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council (''Judenrat'') during World War II. He committed suicide on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day a ...

, that the Jews, regardless of sex or age and with but a few exceptions, were to be evacuated to the East. The exceptions were workers in German factories who had valid work permits, Judenrat employees, the Jewish Order Service, hospital patients and employees, and the families of the exempt. The deportees were allowed to carry with them 15 kg of baggage, food for three days, money, gold, and other valuables. The order also called for 6,000 Jews to report to the

Umschlagplatz ''Umschlagplatz'' (german: collection point or reloading point) was the term used during The Holocaust to denote the holding areas adjacent to railway stations in occupied Poland where Jews from ghettos were assembled for deportation to Nazi ...

every day by 4 p.m. to board the trains for deportation.

wrote in his diary on 22 July 1942 (he committed suicide the next day): Höfle also played a key role in the

Harvest Festival A harvest festival is an annual celebration that occurs around the time of the main harvest of a given region. Given the differences in climate and crops around the world, harvest festivals can be found at various times at different places. ...

massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943. Approximately 43,000 Jews were murdered during this operation which was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war. Höfle rejoined Globočnik 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 pr ...

, after various missions in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

Höfle Telegram

On 11 January 1943, Höfle sent a radiogram from Lublin to SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' Franz Heim in Kraków, who was at the time the deputy commander of the

Security Police Security police officers are employed by or for a governmental agency or corporations to provide security service security services to those properties. Security police protect facilities, properties, personnel, users, visitors and enforce cer ...

and SD in the

, and to SS-''Obersturmbannführer''

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
'' Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...

camps through 31 of December 1942. Today this document is called the

Höfle Telegram The Höfle Telegram (or Hoefle Telegram) is a cryptic one-page document, discovered in 2000 among the declassified World War II archives of the Public Record Office in Kew, England. The document consists of several radio telegrams in translatio ...

After the war; arrest and suicide

On 31 May 1945 Höfle was found hiding in Möslacher Alm near the Weissensee Lake in

Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Bavarian group. Carin ...

(Southern Austria) by the British, along with SS-''

Gruppenführer __NOTOC__ ''Gruppenführer'' (, ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA. Since then, the term ''Gruppenführer'' is also used for leaders of groups/teams of the police, fire d ...

Odilo Globocnik Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was an Austrian Nazi and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. He was an official of the Nazi Party and later a high-ranking leader of the SS. Globocnik had a leading role in Operation Re ...

, and SS-''

s''

Ernst Lerch Ernst Lerch (19 November 1914 – 1997) was said to be one of the most important men of Operation Reinhard (german: Aktion Reinhard), responsible for "Jewish affairs" and the mass murder of the Jews in the General Government (''Generalgouverne ...

and Georg Michalsen. After two years in the British interrogation center Wolfsberg (Carinthia), he was released to the Austrian judicial system. On 30 October 1947, under oath, he was released to continue his earlier occupation as an auto mechanic in his birthplace, Salzburg. After an extradition request on 9 July 1948 by the Polish government, he fled to Italy, where he lived under a false name until 1951. Later he returned to Austria and then emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany. There he was employed briefly as an informant for U.S. Army Counterintelligence. Höfle returned to Salzburg, where he lived as a free man until 2 January 1961, when he was arrested by the Austrian authorities and sent to prison in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where in 1962 he

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...

himself before his trial could begin.

References

Literature