Grave for SS-Untersturmführer Gottfried Schwarz at Costermano German Military Cemetery. Were Operation Reinhard officers put in harm's way after serving at extermination camps to ensure their silence?
Grave of SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Reichleitner (who served at Sobibór) at the German military cemetery in Costermano, Italy. Graves of Operation Reinhard officers were discovered after The Camp Men was published. The book postulates that officers in this operation were far more likely to die later in combat.
Jürgen Stroop on trial
SS-Standartenführer Arthur Rödl served in four concentration camps, commanding Lichtenburg and Gross-Rosen, before committing suicide in April 1945.
The selection ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II). The column on the left will head directly to the gas chambers. The column on the right will enter the camp and be worked to death. Tall officer right front (wearing peaked cap) appears to be Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious physician that experimented on twins. Mengele escaped post-war justice and fled to South America, where it is almost certain that he died of natural causes in 1979.
Belzec Extermination Camp Staff
(1) SS-Rottenführer Fritz Tauscher, (2) SS-Rottenführer Karl Gringer, (3) SS-Rottenführer Ernst Zierke, (4) SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt, (5) Polizei-Wachtmeister Artur Dachsel, (6) SS-Rottenführer Heinrich Barbl.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele; Mengele served in the 5th Waffen-SS Division Wiking, winning the Iron Cross 1st Class, before transferring to Auschwitz and subsequently Gross-Rosen. After the war, many German sources attempted to separate the frontline SS from those that served in the camps. That was an incorrect assertion as hundreds of SS officers transferred back and forth between the two.
SS-Obersturmführer Rudolf Suttrop (left) and fellow SS officers at Gross-Rosen concentration camp.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Hannes Eisele arrested after the war.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Eduard Strauch, Einsatzkommando 1b & 2
SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Eduard Strauch, born August 17, 1906 in Essen, commander Einsatzkommando 1b and Einsatzkommando 2, winner of the Iron Cross 1st Class, sentenced at Nürnberg to Death, released from prison by reason of insanity, died on September 9, 1955 in a mental hospital in Uccle, Belgium, said in 1943 on killing Jews: “Gentlemen…we are convinced that someone must carry out these tasks. I can state with pride that my men…are proud to act out of conviction and fidelity to their Führer.”
