Odilo Globocnik - SS in Poland - Directing Forced Labor and Extermination

Directing Forced Labor and Extermination

On November 9, 1939, Himmler appointed Globocnik SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district of the General Government. After a disappointing party career, Globocnik now had a second chance in the ranks of the SS and the police.

In the years that followed Globocnik was responsible for:

• Liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto, which contained about 500,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe and the second largest in the world after New York.
• Liquidating the Bialystok Ghetto, which stood out for its strong resistance to German occupation.
• Resettling a large number of Poles under the premise of ethnic cleansing.
• Implementation and supervision of the Lublin reservation, to which 95,000 Jews were deported, with its adjacent network of forced labour camps in the Lublin district. He was also in charge of over 45,000 Jewish labourers.

On February 16, 1940, Globocnik declared:

There are indications that Globocnik may have been the originator of the extermination camp industrialized murder concept and the one who suggested it to Himmler. At a two-hour meeting with Himmler on October 13, 1941, Globocnik received verbal approval to start immediate construction work on Belzec extermination camp, the first such camp in the General Government. Shortly beforehand, in September 1941, Globocnik had been visited by Phillip Bouhler and Victor Brack, the top officials in the Fuhrer Chancellery responsible for the T4 euthanasia program, which had been using gas chambers disguised as shower rooms to execute many of its victims. Thus, apart from what he may have learned through the SS grapevine, Globocnik had specific occasion to learn about this gassing technology prior to his October 13 meeting with Himmler. Moreover, on or about October 1, 1941, Globocnik had written a memorandum to Himmler containing proposals for actions against the Jews "of a security policy nature," and the October 13 meeting was held to discuss this memorandum and related subjects. Additionally, a colleague's contemporaneous letter reflects Globocnik's state of mind at the time of the October 13 meeting: Globocnik then considered it necessary to undertake a "cleansing of the entire of Jews and Poles" and was "full of good and far-reaching plans" to accomplish this. There are even indications that Globocnik may have begun a crude experimental gassing facility in the woods near Belzec shortly before his mid-October meeting with Himmler. Thus leading historians conclude that it was Globocnik who at this October 13, 1941 meeting proposed exterminating the Jews in assembly-line fashion in a concentration camp utilizing gas chambers. Notably, on October 14, 1941 - - the day after he had met with Globocnik - - Himmler held a five-hour meeting with Reinhard Heydrich to discuss "executions", following which there was a proliferation of other extermination camp gassing sites. One may reasonably speculate that at this meeting, Himmler and Heydrich eagerly seized upon Globocnik's idea for industrialized murder of the Jews and decided to expand upon it. Just days later, Himmler forbade all further Jewish emigration from Reich territory "in view of the forthcoming 'Final Solution' of the Jewish question." Against this background, therefore, Globocnik arguably may be viewed as the real father of the Final Solution.

The gassing facilities that Globocnik established at Belzec soon after his October 13 meeting with Himmler used carbon monoxide, as the T4 program had done, and were designed by T4 program veterans assigned to Globocnik. Before it became an extermination camp, Belzec had been part of Himmler's and Globocnik's Burggraben project. The construction of three more camps, Sobibor and Maidanek in the Lublin district, and Treblinka at Małkinia Górna, followed in 1942. Globocnik was complicit in the extermination of more than 1.5 million Polish, Czech, Dutch, French, Russian, Slovak, German, and Portuguese, Turkey, Spaniard and Austrian Jews and non-Jews in the death camps which he organized and supervised.

He exploited Jews and non-Jews as slave labourers in his own forced labour camps, and was responsible for seizing the properties and valuables of murdered inmates while in charge of Operation Reinhard. Although other arms of the Nazi state were also involved in the overall management of the greater concentration camp system, Globocnik had control over the Aktion Reinhard camps, and any orders that he received came directly from Himmler. Since 1942–1943 he also oversaw the beginning of the Generalplan Ost, the plan to expel Poles from their lands and resettle those territories with German settlers (see Zamość Uprising).