Gottlieb Hering

Gottlob Hering ( Warmbronn , 2 of June of 1887 - Stetten im Remstal , 9 of October of 1945 ) was an official Nazi member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) during World War II . He took part in the so-called Aktion T4 , and also served as second and final commander of the Bełżec Extermination Camp .

Biography

Hering was born in Warmbronn, a district of the city of Leonberg. Between 1907 and 1909 she performed military service in the 20th Uranian Regiment “King Guillermo I”, which Hering decided to extend another three years voluntarily. In 1914, the year he married, World War I broke out . Hering participated in the conflict, fighting on the Western Front between 1915 and 1918. For his services he ascended to the rank of sergeant and was awarded the first-class Iron Cross.

At the end of the contest he briefly joined the Schutzpolizei , and from 1919 he became part of the Kriminalpolizei (KriPo) of Göppingen , near Stuttgart. During the time of the Weimar Republic, it strongly suppressed the Nazi Party militants , as well as their paramilitary militias: the SA and the SS . When the Nazis took power in 1933, many voices demanded that Hering be expelled from the police. Nevertheless , Hering maintained for many years friendship with the Nazi Christian Wirth , which saved to him of the reprisals. In May 1933 he joined the Nazi Party and continued his career at KriPo. After the beginning of World War II , it was transferred to Gotenhafen in December of 1939, with the mission to settle Volksdeutsche in occupied Poland.

Action T4

Towards the end of 1940, Hering occupied several positions in the euthanasia program Action T4 . Having completed his orders in Gdynia, he was first transferred to work at the Euthanasia Center in Sonnenstein , where Hering served as assistant supervisor of a police officer. After Sonnenstein, Hering was appointed officer in charge of the Center for Euthanasia in Hartheim . ¹ It would also be destined in the offices of regristro of the centers of Euthanasia of Bernburg and Hadamar .

Operation Reinhard

After the Euthanasia program, Hering briefly served in the Sicherheitsdienst delegation in Prague in June 1942, and was later transferred to Lublin , occupied Poland, to participate in Operation Reinhard . At the end of August he replaced Christian Wirth as commander of the Bełżec Extermination Camp , a position he held until the camp was closed in June 1943. Heinrich Himmler visited Operation Reinhard’s camps in March 1943 and was so impressed by The work of Hering that this would be promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain). ² The SS- Scharführer Heinrich Unverhau, who had served in Bełżec, later came to testify: “Hering and Wirth were definitely bad people, and all the camp staff were afraid of them … I heard Hering shot two guards Ukrainians who expressed their discontent with what was happening in Bełżec. ” ³

Last years

Following the completion of Operation Reinhard and the closure of the Bełżec camp in June 1943, Hering remained as commander of the Poniatowa concentration camp , reassigned as a subfield of Majdanek from the forced labor camp to support the German war effort . Between the 3 and 4 of November of 1943 the German police assassinated all the surviving Jews in Poniatowa during the call Aktion Erntefest . Hering was then sent to the Italian city of Trieste and joined other SS officers who had participated in Operation Reinhard who were already there. ⁴

After the end of the war, and after being captured, on October 9, 1945, Gottlieb Hering died of some mysterious complications in the waiting room of the Hospital of Santa Catalina in Stetten im Remstal . ⁵

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