Operation Erntefest
(Harvest Festival)
Jakob Sporrenberg SSPF Lublin
Interrogation Report – Extracts
Jakob Sporrenberg (1902--1952), SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district who organized “Erntefest"---the operation in which some 43,000 Jews imprisoned in the camps of Majdanek, Trawniki, and Poniatowa were massacred. |
Interrogation Report – Extracts
Part 1
III. Sporrenberg’s Activities as SS &Police Chief Lublin
In the course of the interview described above PW must have been aware of the task facing him. He must have known that he was chosen for this position for quite definite reasons by a man who knew only too well how to select personnel to carry out work to his own satisfaction and conforming with the principles laid down by him.
In spite of this alleges that Himmler informed him at the time that he was not to concern himself with the Jewish question in Lublin as this was in the hands of the infamous Globocnik and his henchmen. Globocnik was PW’s predecessor in Lublin and Sporrenberg was quite aware of the type of work that had been carried on there for some years past under his leadership.
In the course of a long and detailed talk on policy Himmler told PW it would be his task to care for and look after the German settlers in Lublin and that he expected the entire district to be Germanised by the end of 1944.
Sporrenberg asked him where the Poles were to be sent and received the reply that these were to be despatched to the Ukraine as they were on no account to move westwards.
PW suggested that there might be front-line fighting in the Ukraine before very long, whereupon Himmler ordered him to build fortifications along the River Bug and along the 1941 Russo-German border. Himmler also desired that Sporrenberg should establish friendly relations with the Governor Dr Wendler, which up to that time had apparently not been achieved.
Sporrenberg went to Lublin at the end of August 1943 with mixed feelings. It was arranged that he should get to know his duties and then proceed on the compassionate leave still due to him.
His predecessor, SS – Gruppenfuhrer and Generalleutnant der Polizei Odilo Globocnik had not left yet. Globocnik had not been a member of the old “Fuhrer Corps,” but had previously been the notorious Gauleiter of Vienna, where he had to be relieved as a result of a shady business deal.
Sporrenberg had only once before met Globocnik at the Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei, but in the meantime had heard a great deal about his character and activities and he expected both co-operation and the handing over of duties to be extremely difficult. He maintains, however, that he under-estimated the difficulties and says that right from the start he came up against a wall of distrust and reservedness.
Globocnik explained that the task he was now handing over to PW was negligible compared with the work he had carried out in his time and again told Sporrenberg that he was to concern himself primarily with the settlement of Germans.
After PW’s return from leave, a great many outstanding affairs had been settled and some of the business concerns which worked for Globocnik and mostly employed Jewish and slave labour had been wound up.
Sporrenberg felt relieved because he was under the impression that some of these concerns and their subsidiary undertakings were extremely unsavoury and he wanted to have nothing to do with them.
Even after Globocnik himself had left with some members of his staff, one group stayed behind, called the “Globocnik unit,” which was in charge of the remaining concerns (in work camps) and the prisoners employed there.
Sporrenberg must have at least shared the responsibility for anything that happened in the district, including conditions and events in these working camps, and he does in fact, admit that he was very much concerned with these affairs and frequently attempted to visit all working and concentration camps in his area.
Organisation
The chain of command and personalities holding important positions during PW’s tenure of office in Lublin were as follows:
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/sporrenberg.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009
