engineering

Richard Thomalla

Richard Thomalla is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard Thomalla rather than just read about it. In short: Richard Thomalla (German: [toˈmala]; 23 October 1903 – 12 May 1945) was a German war criminal and SS commander of Nazi Germany. A civil engineer by profession, he was head of the SS Central Building Administration at Lublin reservation in occupied Poland.

Key takeaways

Richard Thomalla belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard Thomalla to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard Thomalla from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard Thomalla (German: [toˈmala]; 23 October 1903 – 12 May 1945) was a German war criminal and SS commander of Nazi Germany. A civil engineer by profession, he was head of the SS Central Building Administration at Lublin reservation in occupied Poland. Thomalla was in charge of construction for the Operation Reinhard death camps Bełżec, Sobibor and Treblinka during the Holocaust in Poland.

Operation Reinhardt

Born in Sabine in the former Upper Silesia region of the German Empire (now, the village of Sowin, Opole Voivodeship, Poland). Thomalla became a member of the Nazi Party in 1932: (no. 1,238,872) and Schutzstaffel (SS no. 41,206). The first death camp to be constructed under Thomalla's supervision was Bełżec. Construction started on 1 November 1941 and was completed in March 1942. He then proceeded to design and supervise the construction of Sobibor in March 1942. Workers employed for building the camp were local people from neighboring villages and towns. These workers consisted of about eighty Jews from ghettos within the vicinity of the camp. A squad of ten watchmen trained at Trawniki concentration camp guarded these workers. Upon completion of the camp, these Jews were shot. When Thomalla completed his building assignment in Sobibor he was replaced there as commandant by Franz Stangl in April 1942. He then proceeded to Treblinka which copied the design of Sobibor, with some improvements. SS commander Erwin Lambert who had previously been assigned to the Action T4 euthanasia program and had constructed the new gas chambers in Treblinka, testified about Thomalla:

I and Hengs – euthanasia man – went to Treblinka by car. SS-Hauptsturmführer Richard Thomalla was the camp commander. The Treblinka camp was still in the process of construction. Thomalla was in Treblinka for about four to eight weeks. I was attached to a building team there. Thomalla was there for a limited time only and conducted the construction work of the extermination camp. During that time no extermination actions were carried out. Then Dr. Eberl arrived as camp commander. Under his direction the extermination Aktionen of the Jews began. — Erwin Lambert Between July 1942 and October 1943, around 850,000 people were murdered in Treblinka. Thomalla was reportedly executed by the NKVD (Soviet secret police) in Jičín, Czechoslovakia on 12 May 1945; he was formally declared dead in absentia by a court in Ulm in 1957.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard Thomalla

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard Thomalla claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard Thomalla before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard Thomalla ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard Thomalla

In research: Richard Thomalla appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard Thomalla in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard Thomalla is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1903 births, 1945 deaths, 20th-century German engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard Thomalla outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard Thomalla in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard Thomalla means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard Thomalla out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard Thomalla in simple terms?

Why does Richard Thomalla matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard Thomalla?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard Thomalla.