by Nigel Jones
Café Backus on the Dutch-German Frontier near Venlo, where the author and two of his companions were captured, and where Lieutenant Klop was killed by the raiding party.
Lt. Dirk Klop.
Jan Lemmens.
The first pictures released by the Gestapo to the German press, showing Major R. H. Stevens, Captain S. Payne Best, and Georg Elser, thus suggesting to the German public that the two former were involved in the Bürgerbrau
During the first two months the warders were constantly finding excuses which resulted in my being docked of my exercise; it was too cold or it was snowing; on Saturdays and Sundays I was never allowed out and as a result my health suffered and I really began to feel very poorly. To spend day and night without a break in an overheated ill-ventilated cell was really quite a trial. When Grothe came to see me one day at the beginning of February he commented on my appearance, saying that I was not looking as well as I had. He asked me whether I was taking regular exercise and when I told him that during the previous month I had only been allowed out on five days he was very angry and going to the door called the warder into the room. In his presence he told me that orders had been given that I should have at least an hour’s exercise if I wished daily and that the decision whether I went out or not depended entirely on me. Turning to the warder he said: “I advise you to be more careful in future as if anything like this comes to my ears again I shall report it to Oberführer Müller—you know what will happen then.” This little incident had a most salutary effect on the behaviour of the warders towards me, for they realized that there was now always danger that I might report irregularities to one of my Gestapo visitors. This, indeed, I did, on one or two occasions and, as I was careful not to make unnecessary trouble, my applications were always successful.
On the 6th January, 1940, the commandant brought me in two books, Hitler’s Mein Kampf and a rather trashy novel and told me that I was now permitted to read and could change books by asking the warder. This was a very great relief for I have always been an avid reader: I even found Mein Kampf interesting, for I was in Nazi Germany and everything which I could learn about the Nazi ideology might be of use to me. A month later and the commandant came again, this time to tell me that in future I might smoke; the warder would provide me with cigarettes. This was great news indeed. I had really suffered very much from the lack of tobacco, indeed, all my most unpleasant memories of imprisonment are of smokeless days. Generally I had managed to get hold of one or two cigarettes a day. When Grothe came to see me he invariably gave me a packet and my guards raised no objection to my smoking in the cell, indeed, when they saw that I had nothing left, I generally found that a cigarette would make its appearance, lying on my table or my bed. I am sure too, that the warders knew that I smoked, but they never made any comment—there is a brotherhood, a freemasonry amongst smokers.
After the Oberführer had gone I waited the rest of the day, with my tongue hanging out, for my cigarettes, but none came. Next morning though Ettlinger brought me twenty-one cigarettes which he told me was my allowance for a week, they lasted me two days. Then, like Oliver Twist, I asked for more. No, I did not get any, but luckily Grothe turned up and presented me with a packet of tobacco and cigarette papers. If the Germans had simply stopped my smoking altogether I should have had to break myself of the habit, and I am sure that I should have been saved a lot of unpleasantness, but what they did was to keep me short and, as it seemed to me, deliberately annoy me every now and again by leaving me with nothing to smoke for days on end. During the first two years my smokes were doled out to me by Ettlinger who made it his regular practice always to keep me waiting a day or two after the date when I should have received my next supply; not only this, but as I discovered later, although instructions had been given from Berlin that I was to receive an allowance of ten cigarettes a day, he had given me three and smoked the rest himself; but more of this later.
The 7th March was another red-letter day for Grothe brought me two packs of patience cards, for which I had asked some time previously. I was now a rich man. I could not read all day, for I always had to wait quite a time before my books were exchanged for new ones; patience though has always been a favourite pastime of mine and had often saved me from boredom in times of forced inactivity during the First World War.
I was gradually getting acclimatized and had got past the first hopeless feeling which attacks everyone when he is deprived of his liberty; but my health was not very good and although the food was really excellent of its kind, it did not seem to suit me and not only did I suffer from indigestion but I also lost weight rapidly. I was not alone in this for all the soldiers and officials at the camp were said to have lost from two to three stones during the first months of the war. The food always seemed very good and there was more than I could manage to eat, but something must have been lacking for my weight declined from about twelve to a little over nine stone and nothing that I ate seemed to make any difference. There was no lack of medical attention either, for during the first month or two I had several visits from senior medical officers who examined me pretty thoroughly, whilst the camp doctor came to see me at least once a week.
The weather became terribly cold and gradually my window, both inside and out, became coated with a thick layer of ice. It was so thick that practically no light shone through and the electric light had to be on all day. I found this most tiring to my eyes, for with the whitewashed cell walls there was a constant glare from which there was no relief. I had gradually left the place by the window where I had first been told to sit, and now had my table facing the wall close to the radiator so that my back was turned to the guard. I had given up pacing up and down my cell for it seemed to me that this had a demoralizing effect owing to its suggestion of impatience; it was far better to control oneself and sit quietly. I frequently noticed subsequently that when a prisoner got into the way of pacing up and down his cell all day long, as some did, this was often the prelude to a nervous breakdown or an attempt to commit suicide. I always tried to pretend that I was free and to behave as though I were just sitting in my own room at home; I refused to permit myself to desire anything which was impossible of achievement and, generally, I succeeded pretty well in maintaining my normal balance.
My greatest difficulty was to keep my thoughts away from May and to convince myself that all was well with her. Whilst in Berlin I had been allowed to dictate a short letter to one of the typists, and the Oberführer himself had promised that it should be sent off at once. After I got to Sachsenhausen I frequently asked the Gestapo people whether I might write but the answer was always that I must wait a bit as at present there were no facilities for sending letters to England. Grothe had already told me soon after I came to the Bunker that May had left Holland for England. This news was a great relief for it assured me that she was being looked after.
One day, at the beginning of March, Schellenberg came into my cell and addressed me in broken English. When I answered in German he said, “No, speak English.” I then saw that a number of men were standing in the passage outside my door and peering at me. There were one or two Japs and the others looked like southerners, Italians or Spaniards, and it occurred to me that they were probably Axis press correspondents. I took the opportunity to ask Schellenberg why I was not allowed to write home, to which he answered that of course I could do so whenever I liked. I said that I had frequently asked for pen and paper but that this had so far been refused, and I then spoke of the chaining at night. At this Schellenberg hurriedly gathered his flock together and went away. Very soon afterwards I went out for my exercise and while I was tramping round my allotted path, Schellenberg and the commandant came out, followed by the men I had seen before, some dozen of them in all. When I showed an inclination to walk up to them, the commandant shouted to me to go on walking. I noticed one of the Japs taking some snaps with a camera which he held under his coat and I hoped that perhaps these might appear in some paper and so give an indication of my pres
ence in the camp.
Next day the commandant told me that I could write to my wife once a week and ordered the warder to give me writing materials. From then onwards I wrote a letter every week which I handed to the commandant who assured me that they were sent on. I went on doing this until November 1940 when one of the Gestapo officials while looking for some paper or other let a file fall open, and in the quick glance at it that I was able to take, I saw that it contained letters which I had written and others in May’s handwriting. A little later I mentioned this to Grothe who admitted that none of my letters had been sent off, but assured me that May was quite well and that she wrote cheerfully and regularly. This interception of correspondence between my wife and myself was far and away the dirtiest trick played on me by the Gestapo and, is indeed, the only one which I still find quite unforgivable. I was quite ready to accept the solitary confinement, the guard day and night, and even the chaining at night merely as signs that the Germans were anxious to retain me as their guest, but to deprive me of all contact with home and possibly, as indeed was the case, leave my wife in ignorance of my fate … well, I can’t express my opinion in terms polite enough for print.
Apart from this the conditions of my existence gradually became easier as I accustomed myself to the routine of prison life. Routine, an indispensable factor, for it is the enemy of uncertainty. At first I never knew from one minute to the next what might happen. Suddenly the door would be flung open and the commandant or the doctor would come in, or the warder would say to me, “Come, you.” It was only to take me to the interrogation room where I would find someone from the Gestapo, but equally well he might have been taking me to execution. I wasn’t afraid of death, but the whole atmosphere of the place had made me jumpy. When Ettlinger was on duty things were always particularly unpleasant. He had a habit of suddenly pulling the door open with a jerk and, after standing looking in without saying a word, slamming it shut again.
He had another trick which occasioned me great discomfort. It was my privilege to be allowed to go to the lavatory whenever I wished, and unlike other prisoners I had no stinking pail in my cell. When Ettlinger was on duty and my guard rang the bell and said that I wanted to go to the lavatory, the answer was always that I must wait a bit; the lavatory was engaged, or it was just being cleaned. In this way he would often keep me waiting for two or three hours, with the result that I developed a nervous constriction of the bladder which caused me great suffering, and proved most difficult to cure. In the end it got so bad that I could not make water when I wanted to and was obliged to consult the doctor, who reported it to the commandant. There was a terrible row and from my cell I could hear the telling off that Ettlinger got. After that I had no more trouble of this kind, but Ettlinger had it in for me and did everything he could to render my life uncomfortable.
Eccarius, nominally the head man, had however, realized danger for himself if I should report things to the Gestapo, and his attitude towards me gradually became much more friendly, and whenever he was on duty went out of his way to satisfy my modest wishes. Previously I had had my hour’s exercise at different times each day, often not until evening when it was getting dusk. This was changed and I went out at noon each day. Then, I had been chained and sent to bed at eight; this was altered to ten. He also brought me my meals as soon as they were received from the kitchen, whilst the food was still hot; previously everything had been tepid or cold by the time it was brought to me. As a matter of fact I always found Eccarius a very decent fellow. He was cowardly, he was incapable of exercising any authority over the other warders, and he was a drunkard, but during the five and a quarter years that I lived in the Bunker I never noticed any sign of cruelty, or even of roughness, in his treatment of prisoners. His main preoccupation always was to keep out of trouble. He had to carry out his instructions, but as long as prisoners did not do anything likely to get him into trouble, he interfered with them as little as possible. His policy was certainly that of ‘Live and let live’.
All the menial work in the Bunker, and indeed in the whole camp, was performed by ‘Trusties’, called by the Germans ‘Kalfaktors’. These were almost all ‘Bible Students’; I believe that in England they are called ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’. This sect was considered by the Nazis to be almost more dangerous to the regime than the Jews, for while no German could turn himself into a Jew, any German could become a Bible Student and, as such, refuse to take part in military service in any shape or form. The fortitude shown by these men was most remarkable and earned the grudging admiration even of their jailers. Most had been imprisoned since 1933 and their treatment had been the worst possible. They had been beaten, tortured, and starved; one man had been publicly hung, but I was told that there had not been a single instance of one of these men forsaking his principles and buying liberty by entry into the armed forces. I know nothing about the details of their belief except that they recognized only Jehovah as their deity, Saturday as their Sabbath, and placed their hope in a Judgment Day in the near future. All that I met were honest, kindly, and very brave men; fanatics, if you will, yet carrying with them something of that sacred flame which inspired the early Christians.
They had another quality, that of devotion to duty. They did not work slowly and ineffectively like other prisoners, but like free men to whom their jobs were important. Because of this they became indispensable in the camp economy and gradually many of the most important and responsible posts were filled by men bearing the little violet triangle which marked the Bible Student. The other classes of prisoners, the political, green triangle, the habitual criminals, red triangle, and the asocial elements, black triangle, often regarded them with distrust, accusing them of being tale bearers and of currying favour with the authorities, but from everything that I observed and heard I am convinced that these men unflinchingly offered themselves as shields for the protection of all other prisoners, and that their influence for good in the camps was incalculable. When I first met these men, who even then had already spent five or six years in concentration camps, and saw their selfless kindness and devotion, I felt that it would be shameful if I showed any weakness or complained of hardship. As I say, I know nothing of their belief and I could never rise to their height of faith, but I take off my hat to them as men who often made me feel very small and humble.
When I first came to the Bunker there were three of these men; Eckhard and Stokowski in the building, and the gardener, Clemens. There were besides, two other trusties, the furnace man and a carpenter, both political prisoners. The former was a great hulking ‘Water Pole’, that is to say a native of the Kattowitz district of Upper Silesia. He was also the executioner and carried out the floggings and other forms of physical torture practised in the Bunker at that time.
Very slowly, with almost imperceptible growth, there was improvement in the conditions of my life. In my cell, I could sit at my table and play patience, or, lying on my bed, read or doze. Becker and Schnaars became increasingly friendly and although we had to be cautious, we managed to talk quite a lot. All guards, too, did their best to be quiet at night and to cause the least possible disturbance when entering or leaving the cell; I had also got hold of a piece of brown paper, and made a sort of shade to the lamp, which kept the worst glare from my eyes when I lay in bed. In the garden I could interrupt my monotonous marching and either sit on a bench in the sun or amuse myself building a snow-man; there was even an attempt at snow-balling with my guards. In March a new guard came on duty who was to remain with me, on and off, for the rest of my stay in Sachsenhausen. This was Karl Boning, who became my faithful and loyal friend, and who remains so to this day.
In the First World War Boning was a sergeant in the field artillery and had seen service on both west and east fronts. After the war he had got a job as tap-man at a small café restaurant at Koepenick, near Berlin, and eventually married the proprietor’s daughter who inherited the business. He had never had anything to do with politics and his presence in the uniform o
f the Waffen-SS was due only to the fact that he was a member of the Kyffháuser Bund, the German organization equivalent to our British Legion. At the outbreak of war the branch secretaries had received instructions to report that all their members had unanimously volunteered for service in the SS, upon which they were promptly called up. Those who had never shown enthusiasm for the Nazi cause, or who, for any other reason were looked upon as politically uncertain, had been drafted for guard duties at concentration camps, so as to have a salutary warning before their eyes of what happened to opponents of the party. Although all these men were subjected to considerable pressure to induce them to join the party, Böning always refused to do so and managed up to the end to keep free from any political affiliations. As he himself said, as a young recruit he had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Kaiser, and although the latter had deserted, that did not relieve him from the obligation of loyalty to his sovereign; and beyond that he wished to have nothing to do with politics. In the past, when he had voted, it had been for the German National Party which represented those who had remained true to their emperor and to German tradition.
To most people in England the letters ‘SS’ symbolize everything that was most horrible in the Nazi regime; a gang of unmitigated ruffians whose main delight was the torture and murder of innocent people. Whilst it is true that most atrocities were committed under the banner of the SS, a large number of men who wore the SS uniform during the war had no sympathy for the Nazi party or its principles. They were muss soldaten, conscripts who had no illusions as to their status; in fact, they described themselves as ‘Prisoners Second Class’—they had been drafted for service at concentration camps merely because they were considered politically insecure. Some forty of these men were on duty in my cell at different times, and with the exception of three or four real party members, all were decent fellows, who certainly showed not the slightest inclination towards cruelty; the worst that I have to say of any of them is that they were surly or untrustworthy. In the SS there were good men and bad just as in any other cross section of the population, and as always, the good predominated.
