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Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard or Einsatz Reinhard in German) was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the beginning of the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek, almost all of them Jews.
The name It is hypothesized that the operation was named in memory of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the coordinator of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question) - the extermination of the Jews living in the European countries occupied by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. After the plans for the Final Solution were laid down at the Wannsee conference, Heydrich was attacked by members of the Czech underground resistance on May 27, 1942. He died of his injuries eight days later. This hypothesis has been disputed by some researchers, who argue that since the more mainstream designation of the operation was "Aktion Reinhardt" (with "t" after "d"), it could not have been named after Reinhard Heydrich. They argue that it has been named after State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt. But in many official documents Heydrich's name was written as "Reinhardt" *. And historians Witte and Tyas concluded: "...The only interesting reference to the Reich Ministry of Finance to be found in the archives of the IfZ is a Declaration on Oath by Bruno Melmer, Nürnberg, 11th February 1948 (NG-4983). Fritz Reinhardt is not mentioned at all. Another serious problem is that Melmer reported important events for May 1942 which actually took place in mid-August 1942. It will be difficult to explain why Einsatz or Aktion Reinhardt should have been named after a State Secretary whose ministry first became involved in the Aktion over two months after the first known occurrence of the code name..." Extermination process
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