Schongarth represented hsspf of general government

Surprisingly few are aware of the fact that Operation Reinhard death factories (Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka) and Chelmno killing center (responsible for the majority of death toll of “Holocaust by Gas”) were run not by RSHA (or WVHA) but by local HSSPF – Higher SS and Police Leaders (H;herer SS- und Polizeif;hrer).

The HSSPF were the overseeing authority of the Jewish ghettos in Poland and directly coordinated deportations to killing centers (in other words, all deportations of “Holocaust by Gas”).

They provided SS guards and other support personnel for the transports to the death factories, and also negotiated with the agencies and ministries of the Reich for rolling stock, supplies and provisions, rail schedules, and other requirements necessary to keep the roundups and the death trains moving efficiently.

Hence, Heydrich had no other choice but to invite to Wannsee Conference the representative of SS-Obergruppenf;hrer Friedrich-Wilhelm Kr;ger – HSSPF “Ost” (the highest police and security post in General Government).

Enter SS-Oberf;hrer Karl Eberhard Sch;ngarth. After a tumultuous youth (he was a member of a Freikorps in Thuringia, SA and the paramilitary Viking League and took part in the Kapp Putsch and the Beer Hall Putsch), he enrolled at Leipzig University, majoring in economics and law.

Ultimately, he got a doctorate in law (cum laude). He rejoined the NSDAP, joined the SS and in 1935 went to work for Prussian Gestapo in Berlin (where his patron was no other than Reinhard Heydrich).

Subsequently, we worked for SD (domestic intelligence service), returned to Gestapo and in January of 1941 was transferred to Krak;w to work under Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in General Government SS-Obergruppenf;hrer Friedrich-Wilhelm Kr;ger. Which made him a perfect representative of the latter at Wannsee Conference.

Like Rudolf Lange (see below), Sch;ngarth could rightfully be considered as a “living essence” of Wannsee Conference (which was all about serial mass murder of Jews in occupied Poland and other European countries).

For part of the time during his posting in Krak;w, Sch;ngarth led a temporary Einsatzgruppe unit, (Einsatzgruppe z.b.V.) in eastern Galicia. Sch;ngarth was responsible for the murders of approximately 10,000 Polish Jews between July and September 1941 and the massacre of Lw;w professors and their families behind the frontlines during Operation Barbarossa in the Soviet Union. 

The Einsatzgruppe led by Sch;ngarth murdered more than 5,000 Jews from the Brzesc Ghetto between July 10 and 12 1941. Sch;ngarth was a fanatical enemy of Jews and utterly ruthless in his determination to carry out the executions.

In Lw;w, he informed officers under his command that anyone failing to carry out the execution orders would himself be shot, and that he would support any officer that shot a comrade for this failure.

The Wannsee Conference took place during a fraught political atmosphere in the General Government. Hans Frank, the Governor General, was at odds with HSSPF Kr;ger who, though technically subordinate to Frank, was appointed by Reichsf;hrer-SS Heinrich Himmler and took orders only from him.

They had major disagreements over control of the police forces, over Jewish policy and over the issue of the protection of German ethnicity and culture. Himmler, as the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, felt that this was solely in his purview.

Heydrich wanted to ensure that the meeting ran smoothly and came to an agreement with regard to the planned actions. Due to the intense personal and political hostilities involved, Heydrich made the decision not to invite Kr;ger.

He opted, instead, to invite Sch;ngarth (the representative of the latter) who was less likely to clash with the representative of the General Government, Frank’s deputy, State Secretary Josef Buhler. It was a smart decision – there were no clashes and the conference went smoothly as planned by Heydrich.

Sch;ngarth was one out of only three attendees of Wannsee Conference (two others were Eichmann and Buhler) executed for war crimes. After the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands, Sch;ngarth was taken into custody by British authorities who promptly charged him and six of his alleged accomplices with the murder of Americo S. Galle, an American pilot.

Charges were most likely bogus, but Sch;ngarth ordered so many murders that he deserved hangman’s noose thousands of times. On 11 February 1946, all of the defendants were found guilty. Five were sentenced to death; one to 15 years and one to 10 years in prison.

Sch;ngarth and his condemned accomplices were all executed by hanging by famous hangman Albert Pierrepoint at Hamelin Prison on 16 May 1946. Also hanged on the same day for unrelated crimes at Hamelin were Bruno Tesch and Karl Weinbacher – Zyklon B suppliers to killing centers.