2. Odilo Globočnik was considered so evil he was refused a burial by a priest on the grounds he would not permit “the body of such a man” to rest on consecrated soil
Odilo Globočnik (b. 1904) served as Gruppenführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), becoming one of the chief architects of the Holocaust and described by historian Michael Allen as “the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known”. From a military family, Globočnik joined the pro-Austrian militia as a teenager to fight the Yugoslav army in the Carinthian War (1918-20) and later worked as a propagandist for the Austrian cause during the Carinthian Plebiscite. Joining the Austrian Nazi Party in 1930 – a proscribed organization at this time – Globočnik subsequently joined the Austrian SS in 1933, becoming linked with numerous anti-government or violent actions including the fatal bombing of Jewish jeweler Norbert Futterweit in Vienna.
Arrested repeatedly for these activities, Globočnik served little time behind bars due to the personal intervention of Himmler and the Nazi leadership in Germany. Rising to the rank of Deputy Gauleiter (Party Leader) for Austria by the age of 29, Globočnik was a key figure in the Anschluss of 1938 which saw the annexation of Austria by Germany. In reward, Globočnik was appointed Gauleiter of Vienna on May 24 1938.
Globočnik’s anti-antisemitism served as the guiding star for many of his policies throughout his career, hosting a political exhibition in Vienna on the subject in 1938 including screenings of the film “The Eternal Jew”. Globočnik also launched a sustained attack on the Catholic Church in Austria, confiscating properties and imprisoning clerics. Whilst Globočnik was stripped of his position in Austria for his involvement in foreign currency speculation in 1939, Himmler transferred him to a position in the Waffen-SS in Poland and pardoned the newly promoted SS-Brigadeführer. During his career in the SS Globočnik was responsible for an array of atrocities, including the liquidation of the Warsaw and Bialysok Ghettos and the ethnic cleansing of wider Poland.
It is widely believed that Globočnik was one of, if not the chief architect behind the Nazi policy of industrialized extermination, receiving approval from Himmler for the construction of the first such extermination camp – Belzec – in October 1941. There is evidence Globočnik had begun testing the practicalities of this policy even earlier, with a crude gas facility near Belzec existing prior to his October meeting with Himmler. By the time of his death Globočnik had overseen the exterminations of over 1.5 million Jews as part of Operation Reinhard, in addition to several hundred thousand non-Jews and countless deaths in forced labor camps under his control.
Captured by British forces on the Möslacher Alm, a mountain in the Eastern Alps along with seven other wanted Nazis, Globočnik committed suicide by cyanide capsule before he could be interrogated in the town of Paternion. The priest of the local church in the Austrian village refused to accept the body for burial, and Globočnik was instead buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave outside the town.