Max Möller (SS officer)

Max Möller

At the Treblinka extermination camp (left to right):
Paul Bredow, Willi Mentz, Max Möller, Josef Hirtreiter
Nickname(s) Amerikaner
Allegiance  Nazi Germany
Service/branch Schutzstaffel
Rank Unterscharführer, SS
Unit SS-Totenkopfverbände
Commands held Treblinka extermination camp

SS-Unterscharführer Max Möller was a member of the German SS in World War II and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland. He was nicknamed "Amerikaner" (or, the American) by the prisoners.[1][2]

Background

Originally from Hamburg, Max Möller belonged to a police detachment before his service at Treblinka. He worked as ordinance in Camp 2 Auffanglager "undressing yard", dubbed "Amerikaner" because of his massive build. Survivors of the prisoner uprising testified that Möller along with Feodor Fedorenko were helping August Miete at the Lazaret killing station where Jews where being shot point-blank upon arrival at the camp.[3]

Möller became a notable figure ahead of the prisoner uprising, because he watched over the German armoury and had to be tricked before the weapons could be stolen from it. Prisoner Sadovits told Möller that he was needed in the potato-workers team due to labor problems there. They left the barracks together, allowing the insurgents to begin removing the weapons. After the closing of the camp, he was assigned to Trieste region in Italy by the SS. After the war he vanished into thin air, and no further details are known about him.[4]

References

  1. Kopówka, Edward; Rytel-Andrianik, Paweł (2011), "Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady" [Monograph, chpt. 3: Treblinka II Death Camp] (PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB), Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] (in Polish) (Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The Drohiczyn Scientific Society]), ISBN 978-83-7257-496-1, retrieved September 9, 2013, with list of Catholic rescuers of Jews imprisoned at Treblinka, selected testimonies, bibliography, alphabetical indexes, photographs, English language summaries, and forewords by Holocaust scholars.
  2. Arad, Yitzhak (1987). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Google Books preview). Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253213053.
  3. Victor Smart (2008). "Treblinka Death Camp Guard – Brought to Justice". Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. Retrieved 26 October 2013. Sources: Yitzhak Arad, Tom Teicholz, Wiener Library et al
  4. ARC (23 September 2006). "The Treblinka Perpetrators". An overview of the German and Austrian SS and Police Staff. Aktion Reinhard Camps ARC. Retrieved 22 October 2013. Sources: Arad, Donat, Glazar, Klee, Sereny, Willenberg et al.