KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
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The real number of victims was higher still, since the number of murdered Niederhagen prisoners is unknown (OdT, vol. 7, 23). Also, further T-4 selections may have been carried out in late 1941 or early 1942 in Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen (StANü, IKL to LK, December 10, 1941, ND: 1151–C-PS).
93. StANü, WVHA to LK, March 26, 1942, ND: 1151–P-PS. By now, the IKL was officially called Office Group D of the WVHA (see chapters 6 and 8). However, I will continue to use the term Camp Inspectorate in this chapter to avoid confusion.
94. On paper, the program continued into 1943; as late as April 1943, Glücks still referred to selections by T-4 doctors (DaA, 3220, WVHA to LK, April 27, 1943). However, there is no evidence for any visits after spring 1942 (Ley, “‘Aktion 14f13,’” 234, 240).
95. See also Orth, System, 133–34.
96. The Sachsenhausen SS sent 232 prisoners to Bernburg in October 1942 (Ley and Morsch, Medizin, 320). The Dachau SS sent over 500 prisoners to Hartheim between August and December 1942 (ITS, KL Dachau GCC 3/92 II E, Ordner 152, Invaliden-Transporte KL Dachau, May 18, 1945, September 20, 1968). Sonnenstein and Bernburg stopped operating in 1942, Hartheim did not operate in 1943 (Ley, “‘Aktion 14f13,’” 234).
97. Stein, Juden, 110–12; Hackett, Buchenwald, 76–77.
98. LG Ansbach, Urteil, April 11, 1961, JNV, vol. 17, 174–78; LG Hagen, Urteil, October 29, 1968, ibid., vol. 30. For more detail, see Orth, System, 134–37.
99. Quote in NAL, WO 235/307, Examination of Dr. Rosenthal, January 21, 1947, 25. See also Strebel, Ravensbrück, 243, 248–49; Klee, Auschwitz, 22–23; Hördler, “Ordnung,” 139–40; Kaienburg, “Funktionswandel,” 265; HLSL, Anklageschrift gegen Koch, 1944, ND: NO-2366, p. 58.
100. This is what happened in Mauthausen. See Maršálek, Mauthausen, 46, 94; YUL, MG 1832, Series II—Trials, 1945–2001, Box 10, folder 50, Bl. 1326–27: statement J. Niedermayer, February 11, 1946.
101. The SS sometimes still used the code name “Action 14f13” for these murders; NAL, HW 16/11, Maurer to LK Dachau, October 29, 1942.
102. Quotes in HLSL, Anklageschrift gegen Koch, 1944, ND: NO-2366, pp. 47, 69. Several Camp SS officials testified after the war that they had received orders to murder sick, infirm, and infectious prisoners; YVA, Tr-10/1172, LG Düsseldorf, Urteil, June 30, 1981, 78; IfZ, EE by F. Entress, April 14, 1947, ND: NO-2368.
103. Quote in BArchB, NS 3/425, Bl. 119: WVHA to LK, November 4, 1942. On the afternoon of October 29, 1942, the IKL informed the Dachau commandant about the plan to move most “infirmary patients” from other KL to Dachau, and made clear the murderous intentions behind this order (NAL, HW 16/11, Maurer to LK Dachau, October 29, 1942). The first of these transports was in fact already under way. Early the same day, the Buchenwald SS had cabled Dachau that a group of 181 “debilitated and invalid prisoners” was about to depart (NAL, HW 16/11, KL Buchenwald to KL Dachau, October 29, 1942). The old program of deporting “invalids” to Dachau had never been fully abandoned, it seems, although the number of transports had declined in the wake of mass killings elsewhere (for one transport in summer 1942, see NAL, HW 16/21, GPD Nr. 3, Pister to WVHA-D, August 24, 1942).
104. The former Sachsenhausen commandant Kaindl testified that more than five thousand invalid prisoners were sent from his camp to Dachau for extermination between 1942 and 1944; BStU, MfS HA IX/11, ZUV 4/23, Bl. 320–46: Vernehmungsprotokoll, September 16, 1946, Bl. 344.
105. Tired of corpses spilling out of the trains, the Dachau SS complained to the IKL, which duly banned transfers of prisoners who were about to die. BArchB, NS 3/425, Bl. 119: WVHA to LK, November 4, 1942.
106. Zámečník, “Aufzeichnungen,” 206–10, quote on 210; Kupfer-Koberwitz, Tagebücher, 31–32, 36, 41.
107. Zámečník, “Aufzeichnungen,” 213–14; DaA, A 3675, testimony F. Blaha.
108. For a direct link between “invalid transports” and the construction of the Dachau gas chamber, see Rascher to Himmler, August 9, 1942, in Comité, Dachau (1978), 161. By contrast, it is highly unlikely that the gas chamber was built for the mass murder of Soviet POWs (cf. Zámečník, Dachau, 297–98), since their systematic killing actually ended around the time the construction began. For background, see Distel, “Gaskammer.”
109. For Mauthausen, see Maršálek, Mauthausen, 174; YUL, MG 1832, Series II—Trials, 1945–2001, Box 10, folder 50, Bl. 1326–27: statement J. Niedermayer, February 11, 1946.
110. Overy, Russia’s War, 72–85; Kershaw, Nemesis, 388–93.
111. Halder diary, in Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, vol. 3, 483.
112. Gerlach, Krieg, 15–30; Aly and Heim, Vordenker, 365–76.
113. Jochmann, Monologe, 60; OKW, Kriegsgefangenenwesen, June 16, 1941, ND: PS-888, in Jacobsen, “Kommissarbefehl,” doc. 23, pp. 510–12.
114. Quote in Rosenberg to Keitel, February 28, 1942, in Michaelis and Schraepler, Ursachen, vol. 17, 350. More generally, see Gerlach, Krieg, 30–56.
115. OKW, Richtlinien für Behandlung politischer Kommissare, June 6, 1941, in Jacobsen, “Kommissarbefehl,” doc. 12, pp. 500–503. See also ibid., 457–58; Neitzel and Welzer, Soldaten, 122, 199; Römer, Kommissarbefehl, passim.
116. Quotes in RSHA, Einsatzbefehl Nr. 8, July 17, 1941, in Jacobsen, “Kommissarbefehl,” doc. 24, pp. 512–16.
117. Quote in Keller and Otto, “Kriegsgefangene,” 22. See also Otto, Wehrmacht, 61–69, 111.
118. For figures, see Gestapo Regensburg to RSHA, January 19, 1942, IMT, vol. 38, 452–54, ND: 178–R. For Jews, see Nolte, “Vernichtungskrieg”; Römer, Kommissarbefehl, 299.
119. Keller and Otto, “Kriegsgefangene,” 20.
120. Otto, Wehrmacht, 110–11.
121. Gestapo Munich, Überprüfung der russischen Kriegsgefangenen, November 15, 1941, IMT, vol. 38, 424–28, ND: 178–R.
122. RSHA, Einsatzbefehl Nr. 8, July 17, 1941, in Jacobsen, “Kommissarbefehl,” doc. 24, pp. 512–16.
123. Quote in RSHA, Einsatzbefehl Nr. 9, July 21, 1941, in Jacobsen, “Kommissarbefehl,” doc. 26, pp. 517–19. See also Otto, Wehrmacht, 33–38.
124. Otto, Wehrmacht, 9, 71; StANü, EE by P. Ohler, August 15, 1947, ND: NO-4774; BArchL, B 162/16613, Bl. 15–32: Vernehmung Erwin S., October 11, 1965. Some POW transports were carried out by bus or truck, not train.
125. AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 171.
126. Müller to Gestapoleitstellen et al., November 9, 1941, IMT, vol. 27, 42–44, ND: 1165–PS.
127. Quote in Johe, “Volk,” 339–40. For reactions elsewhere, see Steinbacher, Dachau, 184–85.
128. Quote in Müller to Gestapoleitstellen et al., November 9, 1941, IMT, vol. 27, 42–44, ND: 1165–PS.
129. Keller and Otto, “Kriegsgefangene,” 33, 41; Ibel, “Kriegsgefangene,” 120; Römer, Kommissarbefehl, 567. For further KL executions of “commissars” in 1942–43, LaB, B Rep. 057–01, Nr. 296, GStA Berlin, Abschlussvermerke, November 1, 1970, 142–44, 224–27.
130. There are no reports of executions in Natzweiler, while executions in Neuengamme remained highly exceptional (Otto, Wehrmacht, 268). Although it has been suggested that no women were selected in POW camps on German soil (Strebel, “Feindbild,” 164), there are reports of female prisoners being executed alongside male “commissars” in Dachau (Zámečník, “Aufzeichnungen,” 186).
131. Figures in OdT, vol. 3, 64.
132. Orth, System, 124–29; Riedel, Ordnungshüter, 257–58; AS, JD 21/66 T1, Vernehmung G. Sorge, August 5, 1946 (my thanks to Jörg Wassmer for this document). The meeting cannot have taken place before early August (cf. Orth) because Eicke was recuperating until then in a Berlin hospital; BArchB (ehem. BDC), SSO, Eicke, Theodor, 17.10.1892, Universitätsklinik to Himmler, August 4, 1941.
133. BArchB (ehem. BDC), SSO, Eicke, Theodor, 17.10.1892, Totenkopfdivision to Reichsführer SS, July 7, 1941. More generally, see Sydnor, Soldiers, 152–66.
134. Quote in BArchB (ehem. BDC), SSO, Eicke, Theodor, 17.10.1892, Himmler to Frau Eicke, Mar
ch 2, 1943. See also Witte et al., Dienstkalender, 199–200; Hördler, “Ordnung,” 111; IfZ, F 13/6, Bl. 369–82: R. Höss, “Theodor Eicke,” November 1946, Bl. 380–81; Tuchel, Inspektion, 50.
135. Quote in AS, J D2/43, Bl. 86–98: Vernehmung G. Sorge, April 26, 1957, Bl. 89. For Eicke’s injuries, see BArchB (ehem. BDC), SSO, Eicke, Theodor, 17.10.1892, Universitätsklinik to Himmler, August 4, 1941.
136. Sorge testimony in Dicks, Licensed, 102.
137. LG Cologne, Urteil, May 28, 1965, JNV, vol. 21, 125–26; AS, J D2/43, Bl. 86–98: Vernehmung G. Sorge, April 26, 1957; ibid., JD 21/66 T1, Vernehmung G. Sorge, August 5, 1946; BArchL, B 162/4627, OStA Cologne, Anklageschrift, November 18, 1963, 146; USHMM, RG-06.025*26, File 1558, Bl. 157–75: Vernehmung G. Sorge, December 19, 1946, Bl. 165.
138. BArchL, B 162/4627, OStA Cologne, Anklageschrift, November 18, 1963, 158; ibid., B 162/16613, Bl. 95–104: Vernehmung G. Link, November 17, 1964, Bl. 101.
139. Naujoks, Leben, 266–67.
140. AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 165; Hohmann and Wieland, Konzentrationslager, 33; Witte et al., Dienstkalender, 199; Hördler, “Ordnung,” 111–12.
141. Otto, Wehrmacht, 71; AS, JD 21/66 T1, Vernehmung G. Sorge, August 5, 1946; USHMM, RG-06.025*26, File 1560, Bl. 243–58: Vernehmung M. Knittler, December 20, 1946, Bl. 248. See also the SS photos of POWs taken in September 1941 in Sachsenhausen; Morsch, Mord, 172–73; Naujoks, Leben, 277.
142. Dwork and Van Pelt, Auschwitz, 260.
143. AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 165–66; Naujoks, Leben, 266; USHMM, RG-06.025*26, File 1560, Bl. 243–58: Vernehmung M. Knittler, December 20, 1946, Bl. 247–48.
144. For this and the previous paragraph, see LG Cologne, Urteil, May 28, 1965, JNV, vol. 21, 126–27, 134; LG Bonn, Urteil, February 6, 1959, in ibid., vol. 15, 451–52; AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 165; BArchL, B 162/4627, OStA Cologne, Anklageschrift gegen M., November 18, 1963, 151; BStU, MfS HA IX/11 ZUV 4, Bd. 24, Bl. 101–105: M. Saathoff, “Erklärungen zu meiner Zeichnung,” September 6, 1946; ibid., Bl. 115–25: Gegenüberstellungsprotokoll, June 21, 1946; ibid., Bl. 207–30: Vernehmungsprotokoll P. Sakowski, August 3, 1946. During the 1934 Röhm purge, the Dachau Camp SS had also covered the sound of shots with loud music; Internationales Zentrum, Nazi-Bastille, 100–101.
145. BStU, RHE-West 329/1, Bl. 282–88: Vernehmungsprotokoll F. Ficker, August 22, 1946 (my thanks to Kim Wünschmann for checking this document); LG Bonn, Urteil, February 6, 1959, JNV, vol. 15, 452.
146. BStU, MfS HA IX/11 ZUV 4, Bd. 24, Bl. 207–30: Vernehmungsprotokoll P. Sakowski, August 3, 1946, Bl. 224.
147. USHMM, RG-06.025*26, File 1558, Bl. 157–75: Vernehmung G. Sorge, December 19, 1946, Bl. 167–68; AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 222.
148. For the dating, see Orth, System, 128–29.
149. Quote in DöW, Nr. 5547, Vernehmungsprotokoll F. Ziereis, May 24, 1945, 6. See also LG Cologne, Urteil, May 28, 1965, JNV, vol. 21, 131; BArchL, B 162/16613, Bl. 15–32: Vernehmung Erwin S., October 11, 1965, Bl. 18, 20; AdsD, KE, E. Büge, Bericht, n.d. (1945–46), 215; Friedlander, Origins, 66, 224.
150. Witte et al., Dienstkalender, 208.
151. For background, see Beer, “Gaswagen,” 407; Browning, Origins, 353; Hilberg, Vernichtung, vol. 2, 937.
152. Quote in DöW, Nr. 5547, Vernehmungsprotokoll F. Ziereis, May 24, 1945, 6. “Politruk” is an abbreviation for the political instructors of Red Army units; McCauley, Longman, 221. For Mauthausen, see Speckner, “Kriegsgefangenenlager,” 46.
153. LG Kassel, Urteil, October 20, 1953, JNV, vol. 11, 432–51; LG Waldshut, Urteil, June 13, 1953, in ibid., vol. 10, 746–72. It has been suggested that the Buchenwald execution chamber was built from early August 1941, simultaneous with the Sachsenhausen installation (OdT, vol. 3, 337–38). This seems highly unlikely. According to a well-informed former Buchenwald prisoner, the neck-shooting apparatus was not installed until mid-October 1941 (Polak, Dziennik, 89). After the war, a former SS man confirmed that the Buchenwald killings were carried out “in accordance with the system used at Oranienburg” (JVL, DJAO, United States v. Berger, RaR, February 20, 1948, 10).
154. DA, 37.144, Vernehmung J. Thora, October 20, 1950; Hammermann, “Kriegsgefangene,” 96–97. 102–107; Zámečník, “Aufzeichnungen,” 186.
155. Otto, Wehrmacht, 40–41, 111–12; Hammermann, “Kriegsgefangene,” 110.
156. Zámečník, “Aufzeichnungen,” 188.
157. Siegert, “Flossenbürg,” 465–66; Otto, Wehrmacht, 93–94. For the start of the killings in Flossenbürg, Stapostelle Regensburg to Stapoleitstelle Munich, January 17, 1942, IMT, vol. 38, 449–51.
158. Otto, Wehrmacht, 93; Siegert, “Flossenbürg,” 465–66.
159. Otto, Wehrmacht, 87–90. There is some ambiguity about the date. While several former prisoners and historians prefer September 3, 1941 (e.g., Czech, Kalendarium, 117), September 5, 1941, is more likely, as it is mentioned in two near-contemporaneous documents (Kłodziński, “Vergasung,” 271; Piper, Mass Murder, 120).
160. Kłodziński, “Vergasung”; Dwork and Van Pelt, Auschwitz, 174–75.
161. The first murders of Soviet “commissars” in Auschwitz had occurred around late August 1941, with the SS shooting its victims in the gravel pit or outside block 11 (Broszat, Kommandant, 188, 240). The suggestion that several hundred POWs arrived as early as July 1941 (Brandhuber, “Kriegsgefangenen,” 15–16; Smoleń, “Kriegsgefangene,” 131) is probably incorrect (Hałgas, “Arbeit,” 167; Otto, Wehrmacht, 90, n. 17).
162. Several Auschwitz officials saw the Sonnenstein gas chambers in late July 1941; Czech, Kalendarium, 105–106.
163. Kalthoff and Werner, Händler, 152, 156, 173; Dwork and Van Pelt, Auschwitz, 292–93; Morsch, “Tötungen,” 260–62.
164. Czech, Kalendarium, 115–17; Broszat, Kommandant, 188; IfZ, Interview with Dr. Kahr, September 19, 1945, p. 3, ND: NO-1948. Fritzsch had begun his Camp SS career in Dachau in 1934; DAP, p. 220.
165. Kłodziński, “Vergasung”; Kogon et al., Massentötungen, 282–85; Broszat, Kommandant, 188–89; Trunk, “Gase,” 37, 40.
166. Broszat, Kommandant, 189–90, 241.
167. Kłodziński, “Vergasung,” 272–74, quote on 274.
168. Dwork and Van Pelt, Auschwitz, 293; Piper, Mass Murder, 128.
169. Some historians have dated this action to September 16, 1941 (Czech, Kalendarium, 122), though September 13, 1941, is a more likely date (DAP, Aussage Lebedev, October 1, 1964, 19870).
170. Quote in Broszat, Kommandant, 189. See also ibid., 241; DAP, 12705–07.
171. Otto, Wehrmacht, 92; Czech, “Calendar,” 139.
172. Quote in Broszat, Kommandant, 190.
173. Perz and Freund, “Tötungen,” 248–55; Maršálek, Mauthausen, 198–200. Ziereis may have been inspired to build a gas chamber by the killings in nearby Hartheim, rather than the Auschwitz experiments; Hördler, “Ordnung,” 119.
174. Maršálek, Vergasungsaktionen, 16–17; OdT, vol. 4, 323; Freund and Perz, “Tötungen,” 257–58; BArchB, R 58/871, Bl. 7: Rauff letter, March 26, 1942.
175. Beer, “Entwicklung”; Morsch, “Tötungen,” 262–64; Kalthoff and Werner, Händler, 188.
176. Morsch, “Tötungen,” 264–74.
177. Möller, “‘Zyklon B.’” The Camp SS also constructed gas chambers in Majdanek (summer 1942), Natzweiler (April 1943), and Stutthof (June 1943); Kranz, “Massentötungen”; Orski, “Vernichtung”; Schmaltz, “Gaskammer.”
178. The other exception was Majdanek (see chapter 6). In Mauthausen, too, the gas chamber was used continuously until 1945, though on a far smaller scale; Hördler, “Ordnung,” 377.
179. Broszat, Kommandant, 189–90, 240–41.
180. A well-placed former prisoner estimated that five thousand or more Soviet POWs were gassed in the Auschwitz crematorium in 1941–42 (Piper, Mass Murder, 129, n. 405). This figure probably includes Soviet POWs who had initially been taken to Auschwitz for forced
labor (see below). The figure of Soviet POWs executed as “commissars,” following Gestapo selections, was smaller, probably more in the region of two thousand (Otto, Wehrmacht, 268).
181. In Dachau alone, some forty SS men are said to have participated in each mass shooting; Affidavit J. Jarolin, n.d. (c. autumn 1945), in JVL, JAO, Review of Proceedings, United States v. Weiss, n.d. (1946), 22–25.
182. Hördler, “Ordnung,” 125.
183. For Schubert, see LG Bonn, Urteil, February 6, 1959, JNV, vol. 15, 452.
184. Affidavit J. Jarolin, n.d. (c. autumn 1945), in JVL, JAO, Review of Proceedings, United States v. Weiss, n.d. (1946), 23; Musial, “Konterrevolutionäre,” 200–209; BArchL, B 162/16613, Bl. 15–32: Vernehmung Erwin S., October 11, 1965, Bl. 20; ibid., Nr. 4627, OStA Cologne, Anklageschrift, November 18, 1963, 146; Neitzel and Welzer, Soldaten, 135–36. For praise for SS executioners more generally, see IfZ, Himmler, Durchführungsbestimmungen für Exekutionen, January 6, 1943, ND: NO-4631.