Walter Rauff - Gas Van Engineering

Gas Van Engineering

In 1941-1942 Rauff was involved in the development of gas vans, mobile gas chambers used to fatally poison Jews, disabled people, communists and others who were considered by the SS to be enemies of the German State. According to declassified C.I.A. documents:

"As an official of the Criminal Technical Institute of the Reich Security Main Office, Rauff designed gas vans used to murder Jews and persons with disabilities."

The MI5 file is more explicit concerning Rauff's "technical" skills:

"Rauff supervised the modification of scores of trucks, with the assistance of a Berlin chassis builder, to divert their exhaust fumes into airtight chambers in the back of the vehicles. The victims were then poisoned and / or asphyxiated from the carbon monoxide accumulating within the truck compartment as the vehicle travelled to a burial site. The trucks could carry between 25 and 60 people at a time."

In 1972, in Santiago de Chile, Rauff made a deposition as a witness before a German prosecutor. On the subject of the extermination of Jews in Poland and Russia, asked whether at that time he had any doubts concerning the use of gas vans, Rauff answered:

"I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the men who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans."

Rauff delegated the task of keeping the gas vans operating in the Soviet Union and other Nazi-occupied areas to an SS chemist, August Becker. Becker kept Rauff fully informed on the gas van killing operations.