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Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

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J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 243<br />

The construction <strong>of</strong> any camps for the alleged total extermination<br />

within “Aktion Reinhardt” where even able-bodied Jews are said to<br />

have been murdered contrasts starkly with Himmler’s and Pohl’s search<br />

for Jewish manpower to be employed for “Generalplan Ost.”<br />

The crucial contradiction is Globocnik’s claimed second “appointment”<br />

by Himmler to be the head <strong>of</strong> “Aktion Reinhardt.” In this respect,<br />

J. Schelvis writes: 708<br />

“Globocnik was personally appointed by Himmler to lead Aktion<br />

Reinhard. It is certain that on 13 October 1941 Hitler ordered the<br />

Beec extermination camp to [be] built, and probably the one at Sobibór<br />

as well.”<br />

Leaving aside the fact that “certainty” in this case stands for mere<br />

conjecture, how can we explain that Himmler made Globocnik commissioner<br />

for the installation <strong>of</strong> SS and police agencies in the new eastern<br />

region on 17 July 1941 and then, on 13 October <strong>of</strong> the same year, asked<br />

him to build an extermination camp while still retaining his former<br />

function?<br />

With an unusual lack <strong>of</strong> consistency, the Enzyklopädie des <strong>Holocaust</strong><br />

states: 709<br />

“When he visited Lublin in July <strong>of</strong> 1942, Himmler charged Globocnik<br />

with the planning and erection <strong>of</strong> SS and police agencies on<br />

the territory <strong>of</strong> the Soviet Union to be occupied in the future, and<br />

soon thereafter with the erection <strong>of</strong> extermination camps.”<br />

Globocnik thus would have had to simultaneously carry out a task<br />

that needed a very large supply <strong>of</strong> Jewish manpower – within his tasks<br />

as commissioner for the installation <strong>of</strong> SS and police agencies in the<br />

new eastern region – and a task which required him, as head <strong>of</strong> the future<br />

“Aktion Reinhardt,” to arrange for the complete extermination <strong>of</strong><br />

these very same Jews.<br />

Such mutually contradictory functions would call for an order by<br />

Himmler, which is even more mysterious and ambiguous than the<br />

Führerbefehl.<br />

8.2.2. “Aktion Reinhardt”<br />

The Enzyclopedia <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Holocaust</strong> has this to say under the heading<br />

“Aktion Reinhard”: 710<br />

708<br />

709<br />

710<br />

J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 70), pp. 33f.<br />

I. Gutman, E. Jäckel, P. Longerich, J. Schoeps (eds.), op. cit. (note 15), vol. I, p. 546.<br />

Enzyklopädie des <strong>Holocaust</strong>, op. cit. (note 15), vol. I, p. 14.

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