Contracts for Auschwitz

In autumn 1941 Topf & Sons signed new contracts for the former camp for russian prisoners of war in Auschwitz. The SS wanted to build huge crematories there and therefore they needed bigger furnaces. The main engineer Kurt Prüfer designed furnaces with 3 Muffels (3 burning chambers are connected) and the SS ordered five of these furnaces for Auschwitz. At this time the function of Auschwitz changed from being a concentration camp and became a extermination camp. Since autumn 1941 the gas Zyklon B was used in Auschwitz for the faster killing of people. In 1942 the "Final Solution" was decided on the Wannsee conference, which led to the killing of 6 million jews. The Holocaust started here.
At the same time the engineers at Topf & Sons designed three crematories for Auschwitz-Birkenau. After a conference with the SS and Kurt Prüfer in August 1942 this 8-muffel-furnaces (8 burning chambers are connected) were ordered by the SS. Therefore Topf & Sons installed facilities for the mass extermination.

picture: Crematory in Auschwitz-Birkenau

After Kurt Prüfer was arrested during an interrogation he said, that he knew what was meant with the installation of the crematories nearby the "Baths for special actions" (so called by the SS). Employees of Topf & Sons were on site for up to 12 months to install the facilities and control the "proper functionality", e.g. the mechanics Wilhelm Koch, Martin Holick and Heinrich Messing. In March 1943 the gas chambers and furnaces were brought into service, while Kurt Prüfer and Karl Schultze were on site. They observed the murdering of 150-300 people to control the functionality of their facilities. After that they reported about this at Topf & Sons.

In January 1945 the crematories were blown up, because of the frontline coming closer. Beforehand the furnaces were removed by employes of Topf & Sons. It was planned to reinstall these facilities at the concentration camp Mauthausen. Fortunately this never happened because of the favourable end of WW2.

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