The Einsatzgruppen came under the administration of R.u.S.H.A., the Central Department for Security of the Reich (the Reichssicherheitshauptamt), which came, in turn, under the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the Reichsführer of the S.S. and Ministry, Heinrich Himmler, at its head. While in Lublin, in Poland, Globoĉnik lives in a luxurious villa quite lavishly. He is remembered not only for his monstrous murders of unfathomable proportions but also for his campaign to amass astonishing quantities of stolen and confiscated property from the “undesirable” population living in the occupied territories. Their property is then catalogued and listed in detail, ranging from items such as fountain pens, rings and women’s opera glasses, to apartment buildings and factories, the value of which reaches 178 million Reichsmarks. All the stolen goods on the road to Berlin pass through Lublin, and some are warehoused at Trieste harbour. In late 1943, 667 containers, each holding between five and eight cubic metres, wait in Trieste for detailed cataloguing and listing at precisely the time Globočnik is staying at Via Nizza. On 31 May, 1945, near Weisensee in Carinthia, Globočnik is arrested by the British Army. Two hours later he commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule.
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* I am restless like murmuring water,
Shattered like a waterfall spraying chasmward its force,
And numbers to itself droplets of pain,
That drip every day, every day.
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*Josef Oberhauser, S.S.-Oberscharführer, born in 1915 in Munich. Seventh-grade education, farm worker. Joins S.S. troops in 1935, joins the T4 programme in 1939. Works as cremator at Bernburg, later at Grafeneck, Brandenburg and Sonnenstein. In 1941 goes to Lublin, becomes Globočnik’s officer for communication and Wirth’s faithful escort during tours of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. Transferred to Trieste in autumn 1943, where after Wirth’s death he is in command at the San Sabba camp. Sentenced to fifteen years in prison in Magdeburg in 1948, but amnestied in 1956. Nine years later on trial in Munich, sentenced to four and a half years in prison and released after two. For crimes committed in Belzec, where 600,000 Jews were murdered, only Josef Oberhauser is convicted. Most of the S.S. men stationed at the death camps in Aktion Reinhard were never brought to trial.
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