- published: 13 Sep 2013
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Richard Wolfgang Thomalla (help·info) (23 October 1903 — 12 May 1945) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) and a civil engineer by profession who was head of the SS Central Building Administration in Lublin and was in charge of construction of the Operation Reinhard death camps Bełżec, Sobibor and Treblinka during The Holocaust in Occupied Poland.
Born in Annahof 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 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. During this preliminary stage, Thomalla served as the head of the Sonderkommando at Sobibor. The Sonderkommando consisted of about eighty Jews from ghettos within the vicinity of the camp, brought to Sobibor for construction work. A squad of ten Ukrainians trained at Trawniki concentration camp guarded the Sonderkommando. Upon completion of the camp, these Jews were shot. When Thomalla completed his building assignment in Sobibor he was replaced there by Franz Stangl in April 1942. He then proceeded to Treblinka which copied the design of Sobibor.
Till Lindemann (born 4 January 1963) is a German musician, actor and poet who is the frontman for the German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein.
Till Lindemann was born in Leipzig, East Germany, but he grew up in the village of Wendisch-Rambow near Schwerin (in East Germany). His father was children's poet Werner Lindemann and his mother, Brigitte "Gitta" Hildegard Lindemann, was a journalist and writer until she retired. Lindemann has one sister who is six years younger. At age 11 he went to a sports school at the Empor Rostock Sport Club, and from 1977 to 1980 attended a boarding school. His parents lived separately for career reasons after 1975.
In 1978 Lindemann was a participant in the European Junior Swimming Championships in Florence finishing seventh in the 1500 m, and was shortlisted to go to 1980 Olympics in Moscow but discontinued the sport soon after because of an injury. According to Lindemann, "I never liked the sport school actually, it was very intense. But as a child you don't object." Lindemann later worked as an apprentice carpenter, a gallery technician, a peat cutter and a basket weaver.