Hermann Julius Höfle, also Hans (or) Hermann Hoefle (; 19 June 1911 – 21 August 1962), was an Austrian-born SS commander and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. He was deputy to Odilo Globočnik in the Aktion Reinhard program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. Arrested in 1961 in connection with these crimes, Höfle committed suicide by hanging in prison before he was tried. SS career Born in Salzburg, Austria, Höfle joined the NSDAP on 1 August 1933, with party number 307,469. He joined the SS at the same time. Before the war, he worked as an auto mechanic. Crimes against humanity After the conquest of Poland, Höfle served in Nowy Sącz, in Southern Poland. In November 1940 he served as an overseer of a Jewish labour camp southeast of Lublin. Up to December 1941 Höfle was in Mogilev. He was involved in deportations to the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. He lived and worked from the Aktion Reinhard headquarters with the Julius Schreck Barracks, Ostland Strasse, in Lublin. Höfle was "Coordinator" of Operation Reinhard and chief of staff to Odilo Globočnik, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert. Alongside Christian Wirth, Höfle had chief authority of Operation Reinhard beside Globočnik. At the beginning of the operation, he held the rank of Hauptsturmführer (captain). SS members, including those from Action T4 who were assigned to the operation, reported to the headquarters in Lublin and were instructed to their duties by Höfle. For an example of the limited paperwork, every member of Operation Reinhard signed the following declaration of secrecy: As head of the "Main Department" (Hauptabteilung), Höfle was in charge of the organization and manpower of Operation Reinhard. He coordinated the deportations of Jews from all areas of the General Government and directed them to one of the extermination camps. The deportation orders were coordinated and channeled through SS authorities from Höfle's office for the Lublin reservation, through the district SS and Police Leaders, down to the localities where the expulsions were to take place. Around May 1942 in the General Government, a substitution policy developed for a short time in which Polish workers who were sent to the German Reich were gradually replaced with Jewish laborers. It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government, the others