Hermann Höfle Hermann Julius Höfle also Hans ( or ) Hermann Hoefle ( 19 June 1911 – 21 August 1962 ) was an Austrian - born " SS - Sturmbannführer " ( Major ) . He was deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the " Aktion Reinhard " program , serving as his main deportation and extermination expert . As such he was heavily involved in crimes against humanity . Background . Born in Salzburg , Austria , Höfle joined the NSDAP on 1 August 1933 , with party number 307 , 469 . He joined the SS at the same time . Before the war , he worked as an auto mechanic . Crimes against humanity . After the conquest of Poland , Höfle served in Nowy Sącz , in Southern Poland . In November 1940 he served as an overseer of a Jewish labour camp southeast of Lublin . Up to December 1941 Höfle was in Mogilev , Russia . He was involved in deportations to the camps of Belzec , Sobibor , and Treblinka . He lived and worked from the Aktion Reinhard headquarters with the Julius Schreck Barracks , Ostland Strasse , in Lublin . Höfle was " Coordinator " of Operation Reinhard and deputy to Odilo Globocnik ( effectively making Höfle second - in - command within the program ) , serving as his main deportation and extermination expert . Höfle had chief authority of Operation Reinhard beside Globocnik . At the beginning of the operation , he held the rank of " Hauptsturmführer " ( Captain ) . SS members , including those from Action T4 who were assigned to the operation , reported to the headquarters in Lublin and were instructed to their duties by Höfle . For an example of the limited paperwork , every member of Operation Reinhard signed the following declaration of secrecy : As head of the " Main Department " ( ) , Höfle was in charge of the organization and manpower of Operation Reinhard . He coordinated the deportations of Jews from all areas of the General Government and directed them to one of the camps . The deportation orders were coordinated and channeled through SS authorities from Höfle ' s office in Lublin , through the district SS and Police Leaders , down to the localities where the expulsions were to take place . Around May 1942 in the General Government , a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with Jewish laborers . It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able - bodied Jews for work in the General Government , the others being sent on to their deaths in Belzec . In this way , many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor . Hermann Höfle was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy . Höfle personally oversaw the deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto , the so - called Großaktion Warschau . The operation was preceded on 20 and 21 July 1942 by a spree of randomly killing actions along the streets of the Ghetto and by the arrest and brutal imprisonment of many others taken as hostages among counselors , department managers and those connected in a way or another to the Judenrat . All this was to intimidate and soften the Judenrat to the new upcoming measures . The day after , in the morning of 22 July , " Sturmbannführer " Höfle , accompanied by an entourage of SS and government officials , arrived at the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto and announced to the chairman , Adam Czerniaków , that the Jews , regardless of sex or age and with but a few exceptions , were to be evacuated to the East . The exceptions were workers in German factories who had valid work permits , Judenrat employees , the Jewish Order Service , hospital patients and employees , and the families of the exempt . The deportees were allowed to carry with them 15 kg of baggage , food for three days , money , gold , and other valuables . The order also called for 6 , 000 Jews to report to the Umschlagplatz every day by 4 p . m . to board the trains for deportation . Adam Czerniaków wrote in his diary on 22 July 1941 ( he committed suicide the next day ) : Höfle also played a key role in the Harvest Festival massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943 . Approximately 43 , 000 Jews were murdered during this operation which was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war . Höfle rejoined Globocnik in Trieste , after various missions in the Netherlands and Belgium . Höfle Telegram . On 11 January 1943 , Höfle sent a radiogram from Lublin to " SS - Obersturmbannführer " Franz Heim in Kraków , who was at the time the deputy commander of the Security Police and SD in the General Government , and to " SS - Obersturmbannführer " Adolf Eichmann in Berlin . The message documented the total deportations of Jews to the four Operation Reinhard camps through 31 of December 1942 . Today this document is called the Höfle Telegram . After the war . On 31 May 1945 Höfle was found hiding in Möslacher Alm on the Weißensee in Kärnten by the British , along with SS storm troopers Ernst Lerch and Georg Michalsen . After two years in the British interrogation center Wolfsberg at Kärnten , he was released to the Austrian judicial system . On 30 October 1947 , under oath , he was released to continue his earlier occupation as an auto mechanic in his birthplace , Salzburg . After an extradition request on 9 July 1948 by the Polish government , he fled to Italy where he lived under a false name until 1951 . Later he returned to Austria , and then emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany . There he was employed briefly as an informant for U . S . Army Counterintelligence . Höfle returned to Salzburg where he lived as a free man until 2 January 1961 when he was arrested by the Austrian authority and sent to prison in Vienna where in 1962 he hanged himself before his trial could begin .