On this date, 31 May 1945, one of the leaders of Operation Reinhard, Odilo Globocnik, committed suicide by biting on a cyanide capsule.
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Globocnik in 1938 at the rank of SS-Standartenführer |
Odilo Lotario Globocnik or Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. As associate of Adolf Eichmann, he had a leading role in Operation Reinhard, which saw the murder of over one million mostly Polish Jews during the Holocaust in Nazi extermination camps Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibór, and Belzec. Historian Michael Allen described him as "the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known".