16 Facts About Erwin Lambert

Erwin Hermann Lambert was a German perpetrator of the Holocaust.

Erwin Lambert supervised construction of the gas chambers for the Action T4 euthanasia program at Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Hadamar, and then at Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard.

Erwin Lambert specialized in building larger gas chambers that killed more people than previous efforts in the extermination program.

Erwin Lambert's father was killed in the First World War; his stepfather owned a construction firm in Schildow.

Erwin Lambert was always employed as a mason and, after becoming a master mason, as a foreman for various Berlin construction firms.

Erwin Lambert joined the Nazi Party in March 1933, after Hitler's assumption of national power, and first worked within the Party as a Blockleiter in Schildow.

Erwin Lambert was not yet a member of any of the party's paramilitary organizations.

Late in 1939, the Action T4 program tried to recruit Erwin Lambert, who had been recommended by the local office of the German Labour Front.

Erwin Lambert was hired to serve as a construction foreman who supervised the other workers; he was "the traveling construction boss of Action T4".

In testimony Erwin Lambert claimed that he merely erected room dividers and installed doors, a claim largely discredited.

Erwin Lambert gave us the exact directives for the construction of the gassing installations.

Reportedly, Erwin Lambert attempted to remain an uninvolved expert devoted solely to his work and not interested in the conditions which surrounded it.

Erwin Lambert turned pale and a frightened look of suffering fell over his face.

Erwin Lambert quickly took me from the place so as not to see what was going on.

At the First Treblinka Trial in 1965, Erwin Lambert was tried for the first time and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for aiding and abetting the murder of at least 300,000 people.

At the trials Erwin Lambert denied involvement in the killing operation and claimed that he merely suspected that the buildings would be used for killing.