Commandant of Auschwitz

by Rudolf Hoess

  It was impossible to get the Reichsführer SS to make a definite decision in this matter.

  I myself held the view that only really strong and healthy Jews ought to be selected for employment.

  The sorting-out process proceeded as follows. The railroad carriages were unloaded one after the other. After depositing their baggage, the Jews had to pass individually in front of an SS doctor, who decided on. their physical fitness as they marched past him. Those considered capable of employment were immediately taken off into the camp in small groups.

  Taking an average of all the transports, between 25 and 30 per cent were found fit for work, but this figure fluctuated considerably. The figure for Greek Jews, for example, was only 15 per cent, whereas there were transports from Slovakia with a fitness rate of 100 per cent. Jewish doctors and administrative personnel were without exception taken into the camp.

  It became apparent during the first cremations in the open air that in the long run it would not be possible to continue in that manner. During bad weather or when a strong wind was blowing, the stench of burning flesh was carried for many miles and caused the whole neighborhood to talk about the burning of Jews, despite official counterpropaganda. It is true that all members of the SS detailed for the extermination were bound to the strictest secrecy over the whole operation, but, as later SS legal proceedings showed, this was not always observed. Even the most severe punishment was not able to stop their love of gossip.

  Moreover the air defense services protested against the fires which could be seen from great distances at night. Nevertheless, burnings had to go on, even at night, unless further transports were to be refused. The schedule of individual operations, fixed at a conference by the Ministry of Communications, had to be rigidly adhered to in order to avoid, for military reasons, obstruction and confusion on the railways concerned. These reasons led to the energetic planning and eventual construction of the two large crematoriums, and in 1943 to the building of two further smaller installations. Yet another one was planned, which would far exceed the others in size, but it was never completed, for in the autumn of 1944, the Reichsführer SS called an immediate halt to the extermination of the Jews.

  The two large crematoriums I and II were built in the winter of 1942-43 and brought into use in the spring of 1943. They had five three-retort ovens and could cremate about 2,000 bodies in less than twenty-four hours. Technical difficulties made it impossible to increase their capacity. Attempts to do this caused severe damage to the installations, and on several occasions put them out of action altogether. Crematoriums I and II both had underground undressing rooms and gas chambers in which the air could be completely changed. The bodies were taken to the ovens on the floor above by means of an elevator. The gas chambers could hold about 3,000 people, but this number was never reached, since the individual transports were never as large as that.

  The two smaller crematoriums III and IV were capable, according to calculations made by the constructional firm of Topf of Erfurt, of burning about 1,500 bodies within twenty-four hours. Owing to the wartime shortage of materials the builders were compelled to economize during the construction of crematoriums III and IV and they were therefore built aboveground and the ovens were of a less solid construction. It soon became apparent, however, that the flimsy construction of these two four-retort ovens did not come up to the requirements. Number III failed completely after a short time and later ceased to be used altogether. Number IV had to be repeatedly shut down, since after its fires had been burning for from four to six weeks, the ovens or the chimneys burned out. The gassed bodies were mostly burned in pits behind crematorium IV.

  The provisional structure number I was demolished when work was started on building section III of Birkenau.

  Crematorium II, later designated bunker V, was used up to the last and was also kept as a stand-by when breakdowns occurred in crematoriums I to IV. When larger numbers of transports were being received, gassing was carried out by day in number V and numbers I to IV were used for those transports which arrived during the night. The capacity of number V was practically unlimited, so long as cremations could be carried out both by day and night. Because of enemy air attacks, no further cremations were permitted during the night after 1944. The highest total of people gassed and cremated within twenty-four hours was rather more than 9,000. This figure was attained in the summer of 1944, during the action in Hungary, using all the installations except number HI. On that day, owing to delays on the line, five trains arrived, instead of three, as expected, and in addition the carriages were more crowded than usual.

  The crematoriums were erected at the end of the two main thoroughfares in Birkenau camp, first, in order not to increase the area of the camp and consequently the safety precautions required, and second, so that they would not be too far from the camp, since it was planned to use the gas chambers and undressing rooms as bathhouses when the extermination actions came to an end.

  The buildings were to be screened from view by a wall or hedges. Lack of material prevented this from being done. As a temporary measure, all extermination buildings were hidden under camouflage nets.

  The three railroad tracks between building sectors I and II in Birkenau camp were to be reconstructed as a station and roofed in, and the lines were to be extended to crematoriums III and IV, so that the unloading would also be hidden from the eyes of unauthorized people. Once again shortage of materials prevented this plan from being carried out.

  Because of the increasing insistence of the Reichsführer SS on the employment of prisoners in the armaments industry, Obergruppenführer Pohl found himself compelled to resort to Jews who had become unfit for work. The order was given that if the latter could be made fit and employable within six weeks, they were to be given special care and feeding. Up to then all Jews who had become incapable of working were gassed with the next transports, or killed by injection if they happened to be lying ill in the sick block. As far as Auschwitz-Birkenau was concerned, this order was sheer mockery. Everything was lacking. There were practically no medical supplies. The accommodation was such that there was scarcely even room for those who were most seriously ill. The food was completely insufficient, and every month the Food Ministry cut down the supplies still further. But all protests were unavailing and an attempt to carry out the order had to be made. The resultant overcrowding of the healthy prisoners could no longer be avoided. The general standard of health was thereby löwered, and diseases spread like wildfire. As a result of this order the death rate was sent up with a jerk and a tremendous deterioration in the general conditions developed. I do not believe that a single sick Jew was ever made fit again for work in the armaments industry.

  During previous interrogations I have put the number of Jews who arrived in Auschwitz for extermination at two and a half million. This figure was supplied by Eichmann who gave it to my superior officers, Gruppenführer Glücks, when he was ordered to make a report to the Reichsführer SS shortly before Berlin was surrounded. Eichmann and his permanent deputy Günther were the only ones who possessed the necessary information on which to calculate the total number destroyed. In accordance with orders given by the Reichsführer SS, after every large action all evidence in Auschwitz on which a calculation of the number of victims might be based had to be burned.

  As head of Department DII personally destroyed every bit of evidence which could be found in my office. The heads of other offices did the same.

  According to Eichmann, the Reichsführer SS and the Reich Security Head Office also had all their data destroyed.

  Only his personal notes could give the required information. It is possible that, owing to the negligence of some department or other, a few isolated documents, teletype messages, or radio messages have been left undestroyed, but they could not give sufficient information on which to make a calculation.

  I myself never knew the total number and I have nothing to help me make an estimate of it.

  I can only remembe
r the figures involved in the larger actions, which were repeated to me by Eichmann or his deputies.

  From Upper Silesia and Polish territory under German rule 250,000

  Germany and Theresienstadt 100,000

  Holland 95,000

  Belgium 20,000

  France 110,000

  Greece 65,000

  Hungary 400,000

  Slovakia 90,000

  I can no longer remember the figures for the smaller actions, but they were insignificant in comparison with the numbers given above.

  I regard a total of two and a half million as far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities.

  Figures given by former prisoners are figments of the imagination and lack any foundation.

  “Action Reinhardt” was the code name given to the collection, sorting, and utilization of all articles which were acquired as the result of the transports of Jews and their extermination.

  Any member of the SS who laid hands on this Jewish property was, by order of the Reichsführer SS, punished with death.

  Valuables worth many millions of dollars were seized.

  An immense amount of property was stolen by members of the SS and by the police, and also by prisoners, civilian employees, and railway personnel. A great deal of this still lies hidden and buried in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp area.

  When the Jewish transports unloaded on arrival, their luggage was left on the platform until all the Jews had been taken to the extermination buildings or into the camp. During the early days all the luggage would then be brought by a transport detachment to the sorting office, Canada I, where it would be sorted and disinfected. The clothing of those who had been gassed in bunkers I and II or in crematoriums I to IV was also brought to the sorting office.

  By 1942, Canada I could no longer keep up with the sorting. Although new huts and sheds were constantly being added and prisoners were sorting day and night, and although the number of persons employed was constantly stepped up and several trucks (often as many as twenty) were loaded daily with the items sorted out, the piles of unsorted luggage went on mounting up. So in 1942, the construction of Canada

  II warehouse was begun at the west end of building sector II at Birkenau. A start was also made on the erection of extermination buildings and a bathhouse for the new arrivals. Thirty newly built huts were crammed to capacity immediately after completion, while mountains of unsorted effects piled up between them. In spite of the augmented labor gangs, it was out of the question to complete the job during the course of the individual actions, which always took from four to six weeks. Only during the longer intervals was it possible to achieve some semblance of order.

  Clothing and footwear were examined for hidden valuables (although only cursorily in view of the quantities involved) and then stored or handed over to the camp to complete the inmates’ clothing. Later on, it was also sent to other camps.

  A considerable part of the clothing was passed to welfare organizations for re-settlers and later for victims of air raids. Large and important munition plants received considerable quantities for their foreign workers.

  Blankets and mattresses, etc. were also sent to the welfare organizations. In so far as the camp required articles of this nature they were retained to complete their inventory, but other camps also received large consignments.

  Valuables were taken over by a special section of the camp command and sorted out by experts, and a similar procedure was followed with the money that was found.

  The jewelry was usually of great value, particularly if its Jewish owners came from the West: precious stones worth thousands of dollars, priceless gold and platinum watches set with diamonds, rings, earrings, and necklaces of great rarity. Currency from all countries amounted to many thousands of dollars. Often tens of thousands of dollars in value, mostly in thousand-dollar notes, were found on single individuals. Every possible hiding place in their clothes and luggage and on their bodies was made use of.

  When the sorting-out process that followed each major operation had been completed, the valuables and money were packed into trunks and taken by truck to the Economic Administration Head Office in Berlin and thence to the Reichsbank, where a special department dealt exclusively with items taken during actions against the Jews. Eichmann told me on one occasion that the jewelry and currency were sold in Switzerland, and that the entire Swiss jewelry market was dominated by these sales.

  Ordinary watches were likewise sent in their thousands to Sachsenhausen. A large watchmaker’s shop had been set up there, which employed hundreds of prisoners and- was directly administered by Department DII (Maurer). The watches were sorted out: and repaired in the workshop, the majority being later dispatched for service use by front-line SS and army troops.

  Gold from the teeth was melted into bars by the dentists in the SS hospital and forwarded monthly to the Sanitary Head Office.

  Precious stones of great value were also to be found hidden in teeth that had been filled.

  Hair cut from the women was sent to a firm in Bavaria to be used in the war effort.

  Unserviceable clothing was sent for salvage, and useless footwear was taken to pieces and remade as far as possible, what was left over being converted into leather dust.

  The treasures brought in by the Jews gave rise to unavoidable difficulties for the camp itself. It was demoralizing for the members of the SS, who were not always strong enough to resist the temptation provided by these valuables which lay within such easy reach. Not even the death penalty or a heavy prison sentence was enough to deter them.

  The arrival of these Jews with their riches offered undreamed-of opportunities to the other prisoners. Most of the escapes that were made were probably connected with these circumstances. With the assistance of this easily acquired money or watches and rings, etc., anything could be arranged with the SS men or the civilian workers. Alcohol, tobacco, food, false papers, guns, and ammunition were all in the day’s work. In Birkenau the male prisoners obtained access to the women’s camp at night by bribing some of the female supervisors. This kind of thing naturally affected the whole camp discipline. Those who possessed valuables could obtain better jobs for themselves, and were able to buy the good will of the Capos and block seniors, and even arrange for a lengthy stay in the hospital where they would be given the best food. Not even the strictest supervision could alter this state of affairs. Jewish gold was a catastrophe for the camp.

  In addition to Auschwitz there existed, so far as I am aware, the following extermination centers for Jews:

  Culenhof, near Litzmannstadt — Engine exhaust gases

  Treblinka on the Bug — Engine exhaust gases

  Sobibor near Lublin — Engine exhaust gases

  Belzec near Lemberg — Engine exhaust gases

  Lublin (Maidenek) — Cyclon B

  I myself have only seen Culenhof and Treblinka. Culenhof had ceased to be used, but in Treblinka I saw the whole operation.

  The latter had several chambers, capable of holding some hundreds of people, built directly by the railroad track. The Jews, went straight into the gas chambers without undressing, by way of a platform which was the height of the cars. A motor room had been built next to the gas chambers, equipped with various engines taken from large trucks and tanks. These were started up and the exhaust gases were led by pipes into the gas chambers, thereby killing the people inside. The process was continued for half an hour until all was silent inside the rooms. In an hour’s time the gas chambers were opened up and the bodies taken out, undressed and burnt on a framework made of railroad ties.

  The fires were stoked with wood, the bodies being sprayed every now and then with oil refuse. During my visit all those who had been gassed were dead. But I was told that the performance of the engines was not always uniform, so that the exhaust gases were often insufficiently strong to kill everyone in the chambers. Many of them were only rendered unconscious and had to be finished off by shooting. I heard the same story
in Culenhof and I was also told by Eichmann that these defects had occurred in other places.

  In Culenhof, too, the Jews sometimes broke the sides of the trucks in an attempt to escape.

  Experience had shown that the preparation of prussic acid called Cyclon B caused death with far greater speed and certainty, especially if the rooms were kept dry and gastight and closely packed with people, and provided they were fitted with as large a number of intake vents as possible. So far as Auschwitz is concerned, I have never known or heard of a single person being found alive when the gas chambers were opened half an hour after the gas had been inducted.

  The extermination procedure in Auschwitz took place as follows:

  Jews selected for gassing were taken as quietly as possible to the crematoriums, the men being separated from the women. In the undressing rooms, prisoners of the Special Detachment, detailed for this purpose, would tell them in their own language that they were going to be bathed and deloused, that they must: leave their clothes neatly together and above all remember where they had put them, so that they would be able to find them again quickly after the delousing. The prisoners of the Special Detachment had the greatest interest in seeing that the operation proceeded smoothly and quickly. After undressing, the Jews went into the gas chambers, which were furnished with showers and water pipes and gave a realistic impression of a bathhouse.

  The women went in first with their children, followed by the men who were always the fewer in number. This part of the operation nearly always went smoothly, for the prisoners of the Special Detachment would calm those who betrayed any anxiety or who perhaps had some inkling of their fate. As an additional precaution these prisoners of the Special Detachment and an SS man always remained in the chamber until the last moment.