J. A. Topf and Sons () was an engineering company, founded in 1878 in Erfurt, Germany by Johannes Andreas Topf (1816–1891). Originally, it made heating systems and brewing and malting equipment. Later, the company diversified into silos, chimneys, incinerators for burning municipal waste, and crematoria. During World War I, it made weapons shells, limbers (carts for carrying artillery) and other military vehicles. In World War II, it also made weapons shells and aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe.Schüle, Annegret (2017) J.A Topf & Söhne: ein Erfurter Familieunternehmen und der Holocaust. Erfurt: Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Thüringen
J. A. Topf and Sons was the largest of 12 companies that designed and built crematorium ovens for concentration and extermination camps during the Holocaust, planned and carried out by the Nazi regime from 1935 to 1945. It also made ventilation systems for the gas chambers at Auschwitz II–Birkenau.Stutz, Rüdiger (2002) "Saubere Ingenieursarbeit": Moderne Technik für Himmlers SS-drei Thüringer Unternehmen im Bannkreis von Vernichtung und Vertreibung (1940–1945) in Firma Topf & Söhne – Hersteller der Öfen für Auschwitz Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag. Topf & Söhne's main competitor in making concentration camp ovens was the Berlin firm , founded in 1887.
At its peak, Topf & Söhne was the largest company of its type in the world. It sold its products globally, as far afield as Russia, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In the 1940s, less than 2% of its total business came from its concentration camp contracts.Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora (2005)The engineers of the "final solution". Topf & Sons – Builders of the Auschwitz Ovens . Retrieved 22 July 2017.
In addition to Auschwitz and Auschwitz II–Birkenau, Topf & Söhne built crematorium ovens for Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen-Gusen, Mogilev ghetto, and the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Of the five ovens at Dachau concentration camp, four were made by H. Kori and one by Topf & Söhne. In all, Topf built 25 crematorium ovens which had a total of 76 incineration chambers (called 'muffles') for concentration camps. H. Kori built 42 single-chamber ovens at various camps.Schule, Annegret (ed.) (2017) Industrie und Holocaust: Topf & Söhne – Die Ofenbauer von Auschwitz. Berlin: Hentrich und Hentrich Verlag.
Epithets such as "the engineers of the final solution" and "the technicians of mass murder" have been applied to Topf & Söhne, because, to a greater extent than its competitors, it used its considerable expertise to assist the Nazi regime to make mass execution into an efficient, industrial process.
From 1941, Topf & Söhne used forced labour in its factory, as did many other German firms in the Nazi period. At least 620 foreigners were forced to work for the company. These people received wages, but they were paid 25–30% less than the German employees. After the war, the company was confiscated and nationalised by the Soviet administration. The company's history was not fully researched until after German reunification in 1990.Topf and Sons memorial site. The site and its history . Retrieved 7 July 2017
The site of the former factory is now a Holocaust memorial site and a museum. It is the only memorial of its type relating to a civilian company's collaboration in the Holocaust.Analyzing and documenting the history of the J. A. Topf & Söhne company. Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation. Retrieved 12 July 2017
Early history
When Johannes Topf founded the firm on 1 July 1878 he was already 62 years old. He owned his own brewery and had also worked in the fuel technology industry. He established the new company to sell a system for heating brewing coppers which he had invented and patented.
He had four sons: Gustav (1853–1893); Albert (1857–1896); Max Julius Ernst, known as Julius (1859–1914) and Wilhelm Louis, known as Ludwig, (1863–1914). A fifth son died in childhood. He founded the firm against the advice of his sons, although the younger two sons, Julius and Ludwig, joined him. By 1885 J.A. Topf & Söhne was producing heating, brewing and malting systems and working collaboratively with other firms to sell products all over Germany and beyond. The two older brothers also joined the company in the late 1880s, but they both died by the mid-1890s; Gustav, aged 40 and Albert, aged 39. Johannes Topf died in 1891, and in 1904 Julius Topf stepped down to become a sleeping partner due to ill health, leaving Ludwig managing it on his own.
The company began manufacturing incinerators for burning municipal waste and, from 1914, crematoria for local authorities, due to the increasing acceptability of cremation as a means of body disposal. By 1914, it was one of the largest firms of its type in the world, employing over 500 staff and exporting to 50 countries.Montag, Andreas (27 January 2016) Erfurter Firma Topf & Söhne Techniker der Todesfabrik in Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
Ludwig Topf was wealthy and successful, but committed suicide in February 1914, aged 51, due to the stress of running the business. His brother Julius died of blood poisoning later the same year. With the second generation of the Topf brothers all dead, Else Topf (1882–1940), Ludwig's widow, became the owner. The firm's senior managers already had a lot of independence and operations continued without any major upheaval. It prospered during World War I due to contracts for weapons shells and military vehicles.
Third generation Ludwig and Else Topf had three children: Johanna, known as Hanna, (1902–?); Ludwig (1903–1945), and Ernst Wolfgang (1904–1979). When their father died, the two sons, aged 10 and 9, were sent away to a boarding school. The brothers later became the owners and managers of the firm during the Nazi period.
After leaving school, Ludwig studied machine engineering at the Technische Hochschule Hannover, now the University of Hannover. After graduating from Hannover, he spent a further five years at Leipzig, Berlin, and Rostock universities, studying a wide range of subjects, including economics, law, and sociology. Ernst also studied at Hannover, but took business studies. He returned to Erfurt to do two six-month internships, one in a bank and another in a malting company. He then joined Ludwig in Leipzig, studying at the Handelshochschule, now the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, graduating in 1929.
In 1929, Ernst was employed at Topf & Söhne, and in 1931 Ludwig also joined the firm. In the early 1930s, due to the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, the company lost business to such an extent that by Spring 1933 it was in danger of bankruptcy. Because of this, at the end of 1932, the brothers were made redundant. They were banned from the company site, due to a rift with their mother, who would not speak to them, and because of political problems. Else Topf was also estranged from her daughter, whose marriage she disapproved of.
This was happening against a backdrop of rising Nazism. The Nazi party first gained seats in the German parliament in 1928. In the 1932 elections they became the second largest party; Adolf Hitler became chancellor in March 1933.Kolb, Eberhard (2005) The Weimar Republic. London/New York: Routledge
The influence of Nazi staff within the firm also grew. The Topf brothers wanted to return and manage the firm, but at a company works council meeting on 30 January 1933, they were labelled "Judengenossen" (friends of Jews) and not suitable to lead the company. Else Topf supported this stance. The brothers, like their father, did have many good relationships with Jewish friends, neighbours and business contacts. However, for appearances' sake, they were persuaded to join the Nazi party, in April 1933. The ambitious engineer Kurt Prüfer joined at the same time. They were then permitted to return and were appointed joint managers, with Ludwig as the technical manager, and Ernst as the business manager.
Concentration camp crematoria
Kurt Prüfer, the head of Topf & Söhne's small crematoria department, was the main oven designer. He developed a two-muffle transportable oven in September 1939, which was delivered to Dachau concentration camp in November 1939. A 'muffle' is the incineration chamber where the body is put. In order to improve the speed at which bodies burned, the muffles were internally joined, resulting in the ashes of individual bodies being mixed. This was illegal, but all subsequent multi-muffle ovens built for the concentration camps were designed in the same way. A further four, single-muffle ovens were built at Dachau by Topf & Söhne's competitor H. Kori.
Initially, Buchenwald camp, which opened in July 1937, sent bodies to the local Weimar city crematorium. From April 1938 to March 1939, 90% of all cremations at Weimar came from Buchenwald. The unusually high numbers looked suspicious, so the SS wanted their own on-site facilities, although it was illegal for crematoria to be outside of local authority control.Zimmerman, John C. (1999)Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial. Retrieved 6 August 2017. A Topf transportable, double-muffle oven was delivered in winter 1939/40, and two, three-muffle stationary ovens were ordered. As with all Topf & Söhne stationary ovens, the parts were made in the factory in Erfurt, and the firm's staff went on site to build them, often spending months at the camps. One staff member, Martin Holich, spent almost 12 months in 1942–43 installing and repairing equipment at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The muffles of the concentration camp ovens were smaller than those for civil crematoria, because no space for a coffin was needed, which saved both space and fuel. Prüfer later designed ovens with muffles large enough for multiple bodies to be burned simultaneously. Later, in Topf & Söhne's instructions on using the ovens, they advised adding bodies to the muffles at 20-minute intervals as the previous body burned down. Bodies were often pushed in four, five or even six at once.Auschwitz-Birkenau Crematoria: Civilian Ovens Comparison (2016). Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
In addition to making ovens for Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Dachau, Topf & Söhne also supplied a transportable double-muffle oven and a stationary double-muffle oven for Mauthausen-Gusen, a triple-muffle oven at Groß-Rosen and a four-muffle oven at Mogilev ghetto. It is also thought that they supplied transportable ovens to at least one of the Nazi euthanasia institutions, in which a total of over 70,000 physically and mentally disabled people were murdered in 1940 and 1941.
Auschwitz I and II From August 1940 to May 1942, Topf & Söhne built three double-muffle ovens at Auschwitz I. In October 1941, the SS placed an order for five three-muffle ovens for the new Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp (Auschwitz II), where it was initially estimated that over 1000 people per day would die. According to calculations made by the on 28 June 1943, the crematoria could burn 4,416 corpses per day—1,440 each in crematoria II and III, and 768 each in crematoria IV and V. This meant that the crematoria could potentially burn over 1.6 million corpses per year, however, the actual numbers were lower.
The first transport of Jews arrived at Auschwitz I on 26 March 1942. To deal with the increased demand for body disposal, Topf & Söhne installed a further two 8-muffle ovens in September 1942. An additional five triple-muffle ovens were installed at Auschwitz II by mid-March 1943.Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (2007)Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The Gas Chambers & Crematoria Mass Extermination. Retrieved 6 August 2017.