Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globočnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was a Nazi Party official and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. A high-ranking member of the SS, Globočnik was the leader of Operation Reinhard, the organized murder of around one and a half million Jews, mostly of Polish origin, during the Holocaust in the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibór and Bełżec extermination camps.Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy, Susan Zuccotti. Yale University Press, 2002. , . p. 287Mazower, Mark (2008) Hitler's Empire, pages 382, 384–387, . Historian Michael Allen described him as "the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known". Globočnik committed suicide shortly after his capture and detention by British soldiers.
Early life Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globočnik was born on 21 April 1904 in the Imperial Free City of Trieste, then the capital of the Austrian Littoral administrative region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now within Italy). He was the second child of Franz Globočnik, a Slovene cavalry lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, p. 11.
His father was unable to save enough money required to get an officer's marriage permission and had to leave the service. As was the practice at this time, he was given a job in the Imperial and Royal Mail. Odilo's mother Anna (née Petschinka), was born in Versecz, Kingdom of Hungary (now Vršac, Serbia), scholars have variously described her background as Slovene, Hungarian, or Volksdeutsche. In 1914, the family left Trieste for Cseklész, where Franz Globočnik was recalled to active duty after the outbreak of the World War I.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 9–14.
The same year, Globočnik joined the army, via a military school. The war ended his military education prematurely. He moved with his family to Klagenfurt in Carinthia. There as a teenager, he joined the pro-Austrian volunteer militia fighting Slovene volunteers and, later, the Yugoslav Army during the Carinthian War (1918–19).Siegfried J. Pucher: „… in der Bewegung führend tätig“. Odilo Globocnik. Kämpfer für den „Anschluß“. Vollstrecker des Holocaust. Drava, Klagenfurt 1997, p. 18 In 1920, he worked as an underground propagandist for the Austrian cause during the Carinthian plebiscite.Siegfried J. Pucher: „… in der Bewegung führend tätig“. Odilo Globocnik. Kämpfer für den „Anschluß“. Vollstrecker des Holocaust. Drava, Klagenfurt 1997, p. 19
He later enrolled at the Höhere Staatsgewerbeschule (a higher vocational school for mechanical engineering), where he passed his Matura (the Austrian equivalent of the German Abitur) and graduated with honours.Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925–1945, Volume 1 (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann), R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, p. 245, . He worked as a porter at the railway station, among other jobs, to help financially support his family.
Globočnik first became politically active in 1922, when he became a prominent member of pre-Nazi Carinthian paramilitary organisations and was seen wearing a swastika. At the time, he was a building tradesman, introduced to his job while engaged to Grete Michner. Her father, Emil Michner, had talked to the director of KÄWAG (Kärntner Wasserkraftwerke AG)—an electricity distribution company of Carinthia—and secured Globočnik a job as a technician and construction supervisor.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 24–25.
Slavic ancestry In 1938, an English provincial newspaper noted his Slavic origins, describing him as "a Slovene from Carinthia", in what may have been an attempt to undermine his standing among Austrian Nazis.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, p. 12.
In his 2004 biography of Globočnik, historian Gregor Joseph Kranjc devoted the entire first chapter to the debate concerning Globočnik's ancestry. He says that Globočnik was ridiculed by other Nazis for his surname, because of the Nazis classifying Slavs as sub-human (Untermenschen). p. 47. However, with Globočnik having a powerful and high-ranking ally such as Heinrich Himmler, he was protected from other Nazis, and Himmler defended him by claiming that he was of Aryan origin and that his surname was a result of "Slavicisation".
In his biography, historian Joseph Poprzeczny cited Austro-Hungarian census data from 1910 and evidence of multi-generational Germanisation to characterise the Globočniks as enculturated southern Slavs rather than ethnic Germans.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, p. 16.
Nazi Party and SS career
In August 1933, Globočnik was arrested for the first time, for his attempt to contact imprisoned Nazis in Klagenfurt. In the same year, he became a member of the Austrian SS. He was arrested due to his public support for the Nazi Party (NSDAP), as he had become a member of the party in 1931 while he was in Carinthia. Although he was arrested four times between 1933 and 1935, he served just over a year in jail on various political charges.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 28–29. Heinrich Himmler intervened on his behalf, after two years of arguments between Globočnik and the authorities.
His first documented activity for the NSDAP occurred in 1931 when he was documented as distributing propaganda for the party. By then, he had nearly abandoned his work as a building tradesman, and attached himself very closely to the NSDAP. He was assigned to develop a courier and intelligence service for the NSDAP, which channeled funds from the German Reich into Austria. In June 1933, in Vienna, Jewish jeweller was killed when a bomb was thrown at his shop. This was among the earliest murders in Austria attributable to the Nazis, and a number of historians believe that Globočnik was involved in the attack.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 32–34.
Globočnik joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) on 1 September 1934. His devotion to the Nazi cause paid off, as he was quickly promoted in the party apparatus in Austria. He became a Deputy Gauleiter briefly in Vienna and then in Carinthia between January and May 1933. He was appointed as the head of the party intelligence apparatus in Carinthia, serving from 1934 to 1936. From September 1936 to May 1938, he served as the Chief of Staff of the National Leadership of the Austrian Nazi Party under Hubert Klausner.Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925–1945, Volume 1 (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann), R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, pp. 246–247, .
Globočnik was a key player in the usurpation of the Austrian government by the Nazis.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 45–59 With the Anschluss, Nazi Germany annexed Austria on 12 March 1938.William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 325–329 He was rewarded with an appointment as a State Secretary in the Nazi government, established by Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart on 15 March. At the parliamentary election of 10 April, he was elected as a Nazi deputy to the Reichstag from the newly renamed Ostmark.Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925–1945, Volume 1 (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann), R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, pp. 248–249, . Next came his appointment as Gauleiter of Vienna on 22 May 1938 by Adolf Hitler.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 45–59. According to Robin O'Neill:
In his early tenure as Gauleiter, Globočnik espoused Nazi anti-Jewish philosophy: "I will not recoil from radical interventions for the solution of Jewish questions." Later that same year he opened Vienna's first anti-Semitic political exhibition, which was attended by 10,000 visitors on the first day. Prominent at the exhibition and received enthusiastically by the public was the film, "The Eternal Jew".Robin O'Neill, The Belzec Death Camp and the Origin of Jewish Genocide at Galicia (Hebrew and Jewish Department, University College, London: 2002), Chapter IV, cited in Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, p. 64.
Early gestures of accommodation to the new government by Cardinal Theodor Innitzer did not assuage the Austrian Nazi radicals, foremost among them being Globočnik.Mark Mazower; Hitler's Empire – Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe; Penguin; 2008; ; pp. 51–52 He launched a crusade against the Church, and the Nazis confiscated property, closed Catholic organisations and sent many priests to Dachau. Anger at the treatment of the Church in Austria grew quickly, and in October 1938 the first act of overt mass resistance to the new regime took place. A rally of thousands left Mass in Vienna chanting "Christ is our Führer", before being dispersed by police.Mark Mazower; Hitler's Empire – Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe; Penguin; 2008; ; p.52 A Nazi mob ransacked Cardinal Innitzer's residence, after he denounced Nazi persecution of the Church.
Globočnik was relieved of his posts and stripped of his party honours on 30 January 1939, when it was discovered that he was involved in illegal foreign currency speculation. As punishment, Himmler transferred Globočnik to the Waffen-SS, in the rank of junior sergeant (Unterscharführer), where he served with SS Standarte "Germania" during the Polish campaign.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 76–80. In late 1939, Globočnik was pardoned, promoted to SS-Brigadeführer, and assigned to Lublin province.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, pp. 80, 83.
Crimes in occupied-Poland On 9 November 1939, Himmler appointed Globočnik as SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district of the General Government territory. After the initially disappointing party career, Globočnik now had a second chance in the ranks of the SS and the police.Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, p. 90. On 16 February 1940, Globočnik declared: "The evacuated Jews should feed themselves and be supported by their countrymen, as these Jews have enough [food]. If this does not succeed, one should let them starve".Saul Friedländer. The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, p. 35.. Von der "Judenpolitik" zum Judenmord: Der Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements, 1939–1944. Frankfurt am Main, 1993, p. 52.
In the following years, Globočnik was responsible for: Liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto, which contained about 500,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe and the second-largest in the world after New York City. Liquidating the Białystok Ghetto, which had strongly resisted German occupation. Resettling a large number of Poles under the premise of 'ethnic cleansing'. Implementation and supervision of the Lublin reservation, to which 95,000 Jews were deported, with its adjacent network of forced labour camps in the Lublin district. He was also in charge of over 45,000 Jewish labourers. Globočnik is reported to have taken great joy in killings and organizing killings of Jews, stating that—in Höss' rendition—Globočnik "wanted to be in the forefront with his exterminations" even when transportation capacities did not allow for it and then he "carried out executions at his own discretion".
Extermination camps