August Becker August Becker ( 17 August 1900 in Staufenberg , Hesse – 31 December 1967 ) was during the Nazi regime in Germany ( 1933 – 1945 ) an SS lieutenant colonel ( " Obersturmbannführer " ) and chemist in the Central Reich Security Office ( RSHA ) . He helped design the vans with a gas chamber built into the back compartment used in early Nazi mass murder of disabled people , political dissidents , Jews , and other " racial enemies , " including Action T4 as well as the Einsatzgruppen ( mobile Nazi death squads ) in the Nazi - occupied portions of the Soviet Union . Generally his role was to provide important technical support , but on at least one occasion he personally gassed about 20 people . Early life . August Becker was born on 17 August 1900 in Staufenberg in the German state of Hesse . He was the son of a factory owner . He was inducted into the German Army toward the end of World War I . Afterward Becker studied chemistry and physics at the University of Giessen , where in 1933 he achieved the PhD degree in chemistry . From 1933 to 1935 he remained as an assistant at the university . Early Nazi career . By September 1930 Becker had joined the Nazi party , and in February 1931 he also became member of the SS . From February to April 1934 he was occasionally active in the Gestapo office at Giessen , before he finally left the university in 1935 . At his trial on 4 April 1960 , Becker testified that in May 1935 he was assigned to the SS - regiment " Germania " at Bad Arolsen , a small resort town near Kassel , the major city in the northern part of the German state of Hesse , in central Germany . During this time Becker held the rank of " SS - Oberscharführer " , and was concerned only with military affairs . He remained with this regiment up to 28 February 1938 . Transfer to Berlin . According to his 1960 testimony , Becker was then transferred to Berlin , to the Reich Security Main Office " ( Reichssicherheitshauptamt " or RSHA ) , Office ( " Amt " ) VI , foreign intelligence . This agency was on the Bernerstrasse in the Grunewald . At this time Werner Best was in charge of RSHA Amt VI . Becker was responsible for the department replicating inks and photocopies . He was employed to detect whether written communications used invisible ink . At this time , he was promoted to rank of " SS - Untersturmführer " ( Second Lieutenant ) . Assignment to Action T4 killing program . Becker remained with RSHA Amt VI until December 1939 , when , shortly before Christmas , he received an order by telephone to report to Oberführer Victor Brack in the Reich Chancellery ( " Reichskanzlei " ) . Becker went to Brack ' s office that same day . Brack was part of the office of the Führer Chancellery ( " Kanzlei des Führers " ) . According to Becker , Brack told him the following : This program came to be known as Action T4 . Carrying out Action T4 . Becker participated in the first " test " , gassing 18 to 20 mentally ill convicts in a former prison known by the euphemistic name of The Brandenburg an der Havel National Institute , which later became known to history as a Nazi killing center ( " NS - Tötungsanstalt " ) . Among the Action - T4 personal , Becker was called " the Red Becker " because of his hair color and also probably to avoid confusion with the similarly named Hans Joachim Becker , director of the " Zentralverrechnungstelle " welfare and institutes for care . After the war , Brack was placed on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity . Brack named Becker among 24 main responsible people for the action T4 in a list Brack produced for the Allied occupying authorities . Setting up the first gas chamber . According to Becker ' s testimony at the trial of Werner Heyde , the first medical director of Action T4 , in the first half January 1940 , Becker drove to the Brandenburg institute , where buildings had been prepared specially for this purpose . An area resembling a shower room with showerheads was laid out , about 3 meters by 5 meters in floor size , with a ceiling about three meters high . A pipe ran around the walls of the room , and in the pipe were small holes , out of which the carbon monoxide gas flowed . The gas bottles stood outside of the area and were already attached to the supply pipe . The assembly of the plant was accomplished by a mechanic of the SS - principal office Berlin . The gas - tight entrance door ( " Gasdichttur " ) included an observation port by which the behavior of the delinquents ( " Delinquenten " ) could be observed during the course of the gassing . Carrying out the first killings . For the first gassing the maintenance personnel led about 18 - 20 persons into the disguised gas chamber . These men had had to undress in an antechamber ( " Vorraum " ) , so that they were completely naked . The door was locked behind them . According to Becker , the victims went calmly into the area and showed no signs of agitation . As Widmann let in the gas Becker watched through the observation port . After about one minute , the victims fell down and lay on top of one another . Becker said he saw no scenes or tumult . After a further five minutes the area was aired out . At this point , using specially designed stretchers , SS personnel cleared the bodies out of the area and took them to the incinerators . Becker ' s boss , Victor Brack , and his office had designed the stretchers and the incinerator equipment , which was intended to allow mechanical feeding of the corpses into the furnace . Brack was present at this first gassing to observe his system in operation . According to Becker , afterwards Brack appeared satisfied , and made some remarks , saying that " this action should be accomplished only by the physicians " and recited the saying that " the syringe belonged into the hand of the physician . " Subsequently , professor Dr . Brandt spoke and stressed likewise that only physicians would carry out these gassings . At the same time , Widmann informed the institute physician Dr . Eberl and Dr . Baumhart , who later took over extermination efforts at Grafeneck and at Hadamar . The second gassing trial and later extermination measures were accomplished thereafter by Dr . Eberl alone and on his own authority . Ongoing conduct of the gassing program . The Brandenburg gassing , together with the gassings of Polish mental patients that the SS - Sonderkommando had carried out in the autumn 1939 gas chamber in Fort VII at Posen , led to the specification that the T4 victims should also be killed with CO gas . Becker was assigned to instruct the physicians , who were to set up six " institutes " for gassing , the first of which was at Grafeneck . According to Becker ' s later testimony , around the end of January 1940 he brought the gas bottles out from Brandenburg to Grafeneck Castle , to put the institute there " into operation " , that is , to start the killing program there . Originally , a Dr . Schumann was to operate the CO valve , but Schumann let the gas flow too quickly , causing it to hiss loudly inside the " shower room . " This caused the victims , whom Becker called , even years later , the " delinquents " to become agitated . Becker took over manometers from Schumann . He slowed down the gas infusion into the chamber , which caused the victims to calm down and die shortly thereafter . Up to the end of Action T4 in August 1941 Becker ' s job was to arrange delivery of CO bottles from the I . G . Farben plant in Ludwigshafen to the killing facilities . The purchase orders for the gas were made by Albert Widmann of the Criminal Technology Institute ( " Kriminaltechnischen Institut " ) or ( KTI ) , of the Central National Security Office ( RSHA ) . Like Becker , Widman was also tried in a German court after the war . In Widman ' s case , the court , based in Stuttgart found that Widman ' s role was to order the CO gas bottles to conceal the fact that the purchase orders were coming from a party agency , and in particular , from the Fuehrer Chancellery . This was decided upon by Becker and Widman ' s superior , Victor Brack , at the Fuehrer Chancellery , but it had been previously suggested by Arthur Nebe . Widmann received from the individual killing institutes their CO demand . He then ordered the CO gas bottles from the Baden Aniline and Soda Works in Ludwigshafen orders , giving KTI as the purchaser . Widman then sent the order and supply confirmations to Becker , who was working at the Fuehrer Chancellery arranging for their delivery to the individual institutes . The Einsatzgruppen . In October 1941 Becker was used again in the Central Reich Security Office and assigned to department II D 3 A under Friedrich Pradel . This was responsible for the Kraftfahrwesen of the state police . The director of department D ( technical affairs ) , SS - Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff , assigned Becker in December 1941 the inspection of the gas van s with the Einsatzgruppen , a Nazi bureaucratic term which technically meant " Special Task Group . " In fact , the Einsatzgruppen were Nazi killing squads that roved about Nazi - occupied Eastern Europe and organized the mass murder of Jews prior to the invention of the death camps . These included , among others , Gypsies , communists , and especially Jews . While there were some variations ( see Friedrich Jeckeln ) , typically the way this was done was to have a trench dug by prisoners of war , with the local population of " undesirables " rounded up by intimidation or force , sometimes with the aid of local collaborators , and then they would be shot with one bullet per victim by an SS man . In this manner , and with the aid of a good number of people to catch , guard , and force - march the victims to the killing site , 10 or 12 shooters could kill 12 , 000 people in a single day . Introduction of the gas vans . To lessen the psychological impact on the killers of the one - on - one style of killing that had characterized Einsatzgruppen operations , the SS , at the direction of Heinrich Himmler , invented the gas van , a type of mobile gas chamber consisting of a van or truck with an air - tight cargo area capable of carrying a number of people . The exhaust pipe of the van could be set to exhaust into the cargo area , so that when the van was loaded with victims , and the cargo door closed and locked , all that was needed was to drive down a road for a time while the carbon monoxide in the exhaust gas killed the people in the van . Once this process was finished , the bodies were pulled out , and the van driven on to another location to kill another group of people . Becker inspects gas van operations . In practice , however , it was more difficult to carry out van killings than the original theory had anticipated . Becker was assigned to solve the problems . He later testified that when , in December 1941 , he was transferred to Rauff ' s command . Rauff explained to Becker that the plan was to gas people rather than shoot them , because the psychological burden of so many shootings could no longer be borne by the killers . Rauff told Becker that the gas vans and drivers had already arrived at the Einsatzgruppen locations or they were on their way . Rauff assigned Becker to inspect how the Einsatzgruppen utilized the vans . Specifically , Becker was to ensure the mass killings ( " Massentötungen " ) made in the gas vans were conducted efficiently , whereby he paid his attention in particular to the technical function of these vans . Pursuant to this order from Rauff , in the middle of December 1941 , Becker drove to Riga to inspect the gas vans used by Einsatzgruppe A . On January 4 or 5 , 1942 , Becker received another order from Rauff directing him to move on to Einsatzgruppe D in the south , which was commanded by Otto Ohlendorf near Simferopol . It took Becker about three weeks to get there . Becker stayed with Einsatzgruppe D until the beginning of April 1942 , when he returned to Einsatzgruppen A at Riga . Becker worried however not only about the technology of the gas cars , but was anxious also around their camouflage as well as the physical and moral health of the " final solvers " ( " Endlöser " ) . Thus he reported on 16 May 1942 from Kiev to Rauff : In this letter Becker criticized also the incorrect execution of the gasification : Becker continued sending messages to Rauff regarding the efficacious use of the gas vans through the middle of 1942 . On 5 June 1942 Becker reported that " for an example , since December 1941 , three vehicles were used to process 97 , 000 , with no down - time on the vehicles . " . In September 1942 , following his return to Berlin , Becker criticized the untidy means by which the murders were carried out to Rauff ' s deputy Pradel : Nazi career after gas vans . After his work as a gas van specialist Becker was employed at the Central Commercial Company East ( " Zentralhandelsgesellschaft Ost " ) , a monopoly company for the agricultural products in the occupied east areas , and afterwards in the Foreign Defense Office ( " Auslandabwehr " ) of the Central Reich Security Office ( RSHA ) . In 1943 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel ( SS - Obersturmbannführer ) . After the war . Because of his membership in the SS , Becker was condemned after end of war to a three years prison sentence . Afterwards he worked as a salesman for animal feeds and then to support himself in 1954 he started working first in a precision machine shop and then in concrete construction . In 1959 he suffered a stroke and moved to a nursing home in the upper Hessian town of Laubach . Trial , conviction , and last years . In 1959 , the public prosecutor ' s office in Stuttgart began a preliminary investigation into offenses committed by Becker , Albert Widmann and Paul Werner . Becker was condemned to ten years prison , but on 15 July 1960 , due to his bad state of health he was released from detention and admitted to the home for the elderly at Butzbach . When in 1967 , the State Criminal Court in Stuttgart sent a summons to Becker , it turned out that Becker had been taken out of the Butzbach home on January 3 , 1966 by persons unknown , and his current whereabouts could not be determined . On June 16 , 1967 , the Baden - Wuerttemburg state criminal police agency issued a bulletin to be on the look out for Becker . By then however Becker had been checked into another nursing home where he remained in a state of almost complete mental and physical breakdown . August Becker died on 31 December 1967 .