Sonderaktion 1005

The Sonderaktion 1005, also called Aktion 1005, or Enterdungsaktion ("Exhumation action") was an operation conducted by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, the aim of which was to hide traces of mass murder conducted by German forces during Aktion Reinhard. Conducted in strict secrecy during 1942-1944, it made use of prisoners from concentration camps, Jews, or men from neighbouring areas. Workers in this capacity were officially called Leichenkommando ("corpse units"); they were often put in chains in order to prevent escape. The Aktion was overseen by Sonderkommando 1005, along with squads of the Sicherheitsdienst and Ordnungspolizei.

The Operation
In March 1942 SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich met with SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel and placed him in charge of Aktion 1005. The assignment was initially delayed with Heydrich's assassination in June 1942, but was initiated later that same month. Blobel was then officially tasked with the project by SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo. Blobel began experimentation at Chelmno, digging up mass graves and using incendiary bombs, but this approach set the nearby forests on fire. Blobel then developed a more effective technique: Alternating layers of bodies with firewood or the use of rails as giant grills, and then crushing the bones in a specialized machine. The ash and bone fragments were then re-buried in the mass graves.

The operation was initiated in Sobibor, with slaves exhuming bodies from mass graves and burning them. While the principal effort was erasing evidence of Jewish exterminations, the Aktion also included places where non-Jewish victims of German were murdered. After the task in Sobibor was complete, the workers involved were executed. The process was then moved to Belzec in December 1942. As newer extermination camps (e.g. Auschwitz) set up crematoria to dispose of bodies, the Aktion 1005 groups were dispatched to the scene of earlier mass killings, such as Babi Yar and the Ninth Fort. By 1944, with Soviet armies advancing, SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe, head of the Reichsgau Wartheland ordered that each of the General Government's five districts set up its own Aktion 1005 group to begin "cleaning" mass graves. The operations were not entirely successful, as advancing Soviet troops reached some sites before they could be "cleaned"; additionally, Leichenkommado laborers occasionally managed to sabotage operations.

In his affadavit submitted at the Nuremberg Trials, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny &mdash; a deputy of Adolf Eichmann involved in the Final Solution &mdash; submitted the following testimony regarding Aktion 1005:

In November 1942, in Eichmann's office in Berlin, I met Standartenfuehrer Plobel [sic], who was leader of Kommando 1005, which was specially assigned to remove all traces of the final solution (extermination) of the Jewish problem by Einsatz Groups and all other executions. Kommando 1005 operated from at least autumn 1942 to September 1944 and was all this period subordinated to Eichmann. The mission was constituted after it first became apparent that Germany would not be able to hold all the territory occupied in the East and it was considered necessary to remove all traces of the criminal executions that had been committed. While in Berlin in November 1942, Plobel [sic] gave a lecture before Eichmann's staff of specialists on the Jewish question from the occupied territories. He spoke of the special incinerators he had personally constructed for use in the work of Kommando 1005. It was their particular assignment to open the graves and remove and cremate the bodies of persons who had been previously executed. Kommando 1005 operated in Russia, Poland and through the Baltic area. I again saw Plobel [sic] in Hungary in 1944 and he stated to Eichmann in my presence that the mission of Kommando 1005 had been completed.

In Fiction
Aktion 1005 was depicted in the TV miniseries War and Remembrance (1987).

Aktion 1005 also plays a central role in Daniel Silva's novel A Death In Vienna (2005).

Links

 * Operation Reinhard: "The attempt to remove traces"
 * Aktion 1005 — effacing the murder of millions

Sonderkommando 1005

Sonderaktion 1005 Sonderaktion 1005 מבצע 1005 Akcja 1005 Aktion 1005