Crematoria Builders Were Accessories to MassMurder

While crematorium oven is (obviously) not a murder weapon, all twelve German companies that that designed and built crematorium ovens for SS concentration camps and death factories were still accessories to murder – and not just “accessories after the fact”. Accessories because they used their considerable expertise to assist the Nazi regime to make serial mass murder into a highly efficient, industrial process.

The largest and the most prominent of these companies was Erfurt-based J. A. Topf and Sons (J. A. Topf & S;hne) was an engineering company, founded in 1878. Originally, it made heating systems and brewing and malting equipment.

Later, the company diversified into silos, chimneys, incinerators for burning municipal waste, and crematoria. During World War I, it made weapons shells, limbers (carts for carrying artillery) and other military vehicles. In World War II, it also made weapons shells and aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe.

The company not only made crematorium ovens, it also made ventilation systems for the gas chambers at Auschwitz II. Topf & S;hne’s main competitor in making concentration camp ovens was the Berlin firm H. Kori GmbH, founded in 1887.

At its peak, Topf & S;hne was the largest company of its type in the world. It sold its products globally, as far afield as Russia, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In the 1940s, less than 2% of its total business came from its concentration camp contracts.

In addition to Auschwitz and Auschwitz II–Birkenau, Topf & S;hne built crematorium ovens for Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen-Gusen, Mogilev ghetto, and the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

Out of the five ovens at Dachau concentration camp, four were made by H. Kori and one by Topf & S;hne. In all, Topf built 25 crematorium ovens which had a total of 76 incineration chambers (called ‘muffles’) for concentration camps. H. Kori built 42 single-chamber ovens at various camps.

From 1941, Topf & S;hne used forced labor in its factory, as did many other German firms in the Nazi period. At least 620 foreigners were forced to work for the company. They received wages, but they were paid 25-30% less than the German employees. After the war, the company was confiscated and nationalized by the Soviet occupation administration.

Kurt Pr;fer, the head of Topf & S;hne’s small crematoria department, was the main oven designer. He developed a two-muffle transportable oven in September 1939, which was delivered to Dachau concentration camp in November 1939.

A ‘muffle’ is the incineration chamber where the body is put. In order to improve the speed at which bodies burned, the muffles were internally joined, resulting in the ashes of individual bodies being mixed.

This was illegal, but all subsequent multi-muffle ovens built for the concentration camps were designed in the same way. A further four, single-muffle ovens were built at Dachau by Topf & S;hne’s competitor H. Kori.

The muffles of the concentration camp ovens were smaller than those for civil crematoria, because no space for a coffin was needed, which saved both space and fuel. Pr;fer later designed ovens with muffles large enough for several bodies to be burned simultaneously.

Later, Topf & S;hne’s instructions on using the ovens, advised adding bodies to the muffles at 20-minute intervals as the previous body burned down. Bodies were often pushed in four, five or even six at a time.

In addition to making ovens for Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Dachau, Topf & S;hne also supplied a transportable double-muffle oven and a stationary double-muffle oven to Mauthausen-Gusen; a triple-muffle oven to Gross-Rosen and a four-muffle oven to Mogilev ghetto. It is also believed that they supplied transportable ovens to at least one of the Nazi euthanasia institutions (Aktion T4 killing centers).

From August 1940 to May 1942, Topf & S;hne built three double-muffle ovens at Auschwitz I. In October 1941, the SS placed an order for five three-muffle ovens for the Auschwitz II) where it was initially estimated that over 1000 people per day would be gassed.

According to calculations made by the Zentralbauleitung der Waffen-SS und Polizei Auschwitz on June 28, 1943, its crematoria could burn 4,416 corpses per day -1,440 each in crematoria II and III, and 768 each in crematoria IV and V. This meant that the crematoria could potentially burn over 1.6 million corpses per year, however, the actual numbers were much lower.

The first transport of Jewish victims arrived at Auschwitz II on March 26, 1942. To deal with the increased demand for body disposal, Topf & S;hne installed a further two 8-muffle ovens in September 1942. An additional five triple-muffle ovens were installed at Auschwitz II by mid-March 1943.

Surviving Sonderkommando prisoners assigned to burn the bodies stated that all four of Auschwitz II’s crematoria had the capacity to cremate a total of 8000 bodies per day, although the actual numbers were usually lower.