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In 1944, Hackenholt was awarded the Iron Cross,
II Class, for his dedicated and unquestioning service to Aktion
Reinhard, and a year later, in the spring of 1945 — according to his
SS comrades Josef Oberhauser, Hans Girtig and Heinrich Gley — he was
killed in the fighting near Trieste.
The investigators at the Central Office in
Ludwigsburg and the officers of SK III/a in Munich, however, had collected
sufficient evidence indicating the strong possibility that
SS-Hauptscharführer Hackenholt had not been killed during the last days of
the war, but was still alive at least until 1946. Consequently, the State
Prosecutor at the Regional Court in Munich I drew up a detailed indictment
against him for participation in mass murder and crimes against humanity.
But what were the chances that Hackenholt had
not been killed in action, as claimed by some of his comrades, and was indeed
still alive at this stage of the investigation in 1961? What kind of a person
was Lorenz Hackenholt that he could have survived undetected for so many years
while nine of his former SS-comrades had been traced and arrested? The
investigators were given an insight into his character by former members of the
Aktion Reinhard Sonderkommandos. Karl Schluch described the wanted war criminal
thus:
Hackenholt was an inconsiderate, hard
and brutal man, without any sense of honour. I would go so far as to say
characterless and indifferent. He drank a lot and was often locked up for it
… He was characterless enough to carry out all orders without question.
[71] Willy Grossmann, who had known
Hackenholt in Treblinka and Trieste, had some difficulty, however, in
describing his character:
It is difficult for me to give an
appropriate expression which suitably characterises him. I can say that he was
stupid and brazen. He was, moreover, greatly feared, especially in the latter
days. Hackenholt was often very drunk. He was rebellious towards his superiors.
[72] It was former SS-NCO Robert Juhrs who
had served with Hackenholt in Belzec and Trieste, finally gave the most
succinct description of Lorenz Hackenholt:
About his character I can use the
following figure of speech which, to my mind, most appropriately describes it:
'He wanted to go and piss with the big dogs, but he couldn't lift his leg,'
(Er wollte mit den grossen Hunden pissen gehen, aber konnte nicht die Beine
heben). [73]
________________
[71] Ibid., 208 AR-Z 252/59 (Belzec Case), p. 1511. Statement by Karl
Schluch on 11.11.1961 in Kleve.
[72] Ibid., p. 1527. Statement by Willy
Grossmann on 10.11.1961 in Erndtebruck.
[73] Ibid., p. 1469. Statement by
Robert Juhrs on 11.11.1961 in Frankfurt-am-Main.
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