World War II: SS Warsaw Police Chief Report on Warsaw Ghetto Uprising & Destruction of the Ghetto

World War II: SS Warsaw Police Chief Report on Warsaw Ghetto Uprising & Destruction of the Ghetto

A copy of the original 123-page report often called the "Stroop Report" and a 102-page English translation by the United States’ Office of the U.S. Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, of the 16 May 1943 report by Jürgen Stroop,  SS Police Leader, Warsaw, titled, ""Es gibt keinen judischen Wohnbezirk in Warschau mehr!" ("THERE IS NO JEWISH GHETTO IN ANYMORE.")  The report includes daily operational reports on the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and photographs, it has become one of the most prominent documents of the Holocaust.

The Stroop report is mentioned on pages 76-78, 1078-1079, 1082-1083, 1119, 1901-1902, 1905, 2180-2181, 2454, 2911, 8072,  and 8082 of the final transcript of Military Tribunal II, Case 4, in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, which can be found in the collection Nuremberg Trial: Indictments, Trial Transcripts, Documentary Evidence.

According to Andrzej Zbikowski, University of Warsaw Professor and researcher at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, contrary to Stroop's intentions, the Report became a posthumous tribute for the Jewish people.

Between July 22 and October 3, 1942, the Warsaw Ghetto was "evacuated."  50,000 people were killed, more than 300,000 inhabitants perished in Nazi camps; the 70,000 remaining in the ghetto were employed as slave laborers supplying the German army. In April 1943 Nazis undertook the final destruction of the ghetto which triggered the ghetto uprising.

The original copy of the Stroop Report is arranged by page numbers stamped on the original document by the Nuremberg Tribunals, the pages number from 089744 (the cover page) to 089868.

The Stroop Report documents the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from the period between April 20, 1943 to May 16, 1943. It was created that same year by the Schutzstaffel (SS). Commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm Krueger, Higher SS and Police Leader in Krakow, and bound in leather, the report was intended as a souvenir album for Heinrich Himmler to celebrate the hard-won victory, which took twenty days and 1,200 SS, Wehrmacht, and police troops to accomplish. 

It contains 53 photographs. Franz Konrad confessed to taking some of the photographs, the rest was probably taken by photographers from Propaganda Kompanie nr 689. Ironically the photos include one of the most iconic photographs of the Holocaust. The report includes a casualty list of troops killed and wounded during operations, including Polish General Government policemen, a list of units assigned to the Einsatzkrafte (task force) and their strength in officers and enlisted men, and a narrative summary of events during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising written by SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop. It took Stroop and his forces almost a month and the use of  overwhelming firepower to subdue the Jewish Ghetto fighters whose desire to survive way out striped their food supply and ordinance. Even after Stroop reported total victory,  small bands of the resistance fighters fought on for several more months.

Some 56,000 Jews, according to Stroop's report, were killed or captured during the ghetto revolt. Of those who were taken alive, 7,000 were deported to their immediate death in Treblinka. Another 22,000 were sent to Majdanek. Between 14,000 and 16,000 Jews went to the Poniatowa labor camp, and between 5,000 and 6,000 were sent to the Trawniki camp. The Warsaw Jews who were deported to Poniatowa and Trawniki were shot during the Erntefest action of November 3-4, 1943 that was intended to eliminate the remaining Jews in the Lublin district.

The Stroop Report in its original form consists of three parts. The first section is an introduction consisting of a casualty list of troops killed and wounded during operations, a list of units involved and their strength in officers and enlisted men, and a narrative summary of events during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The second section is entitled “Tägliche Meldung” (Daily Reports) and consists of thirty one daily reports submitted by Jürgen Stroop's command to SS- und Polizeiführer Ost (SS and Police Leader of Poland) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, one for each day during the period of April 20, 1943 to May 16, 1943 and one report for May 24, 1943. These reports detail combat and police actions during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising such as intelligence gathered, troop numbers engaged in each day’s actions including armored fighting vehicles and heavy weapons, casualties suffered in battle, seizures of weapons, equipment, and valuables, descriptions of tactics used both in combat and to locate Jews in hiding, and Stroop's estimates of the numbers of Jews arrested, deported, or killed outright. The third and final section of the Stroop Report is the “Bildbericht” (Pictorial Report). It consists of fifty-three photos taken during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, including a photo on Page 089835b of a Jewish boy with his hands raised which is captioned “Mit Gewalt aus Bunkern hervorgeholt” (forcibly pulled out of dug-outs) and a photo on Page 089859 of Jürgen Stroop and some of his staff observing operations which is captioned “Der Führer der Großaktion” (the commanding officer of the large-scale action).

On April 18, 1943, SS-Brigadeführer Stroop was transferred to Warsaw on the personal order of Heinrich Himmler to crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and liquidate the Jewish Ghetto. Stroop took command of two SS battalions, a company of Wehrmacht combat engineers, police forces, and a unit of "Trawniki men" auxiliaries. His forces systematically destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto with artillery, explosives, and fire, murdering thousands of Jews outright and deporting 56,885 survivors to death camps. In recognition of his actions during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Stroop was made the SS and Police Leader of Warsaw and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class. He held this position until September 8, 1943 when he was appointed Higher SS and Police Leader for Greece. During this period, he ordered a summary execution of nine American airmen taken as prisoners of war. In November 1943, Stroop was reassigned to Wiesbaden, Germany as SS Police Leader in Rhein-Westmark, a position he held for the remainder of the war.

Although ordered to command a Werwolf resistance unit, Stroop deserted his command and surrendered on May 10, 1945 to American forces in the town of Rottau in Bavaria, wearing the uniform of an infantry officer and bearing false discharge papers made out to "Captain Josef Straub." After nearly two months imprisonment, he admitted to being Jürgen Stroop on July 2, 1945. At the U.S. Military Tribunal at Dachau, Stroop was put on trial and convicted for the murder of the nine American POWs. On March 21, 1947, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

However, in May 1947, he was extradited to Poland to be tried for his role in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the mass murder of non-Jewish Polish civilians. Stroop was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on July 23, 1951. He was executed alongside Franz Konrad, one of his staff officers during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, on March 6, 1952 at Mokotów Prison in Warsaw, Poland.