Erfurt, 15 November 1942
To Herr E. and Herr L. Topf
Dear Herr E and Herr L Topf,
Following the discussion that took place between us last year, you agreed to make me a special payment for the new three-muffle cremation furnaces, to be paid as soon as they had been confirmed to be working perfectly.
The two Topf three-muffle cremation furnaces were put into operation in the Buchenwald crematorium twelve and six weeks ago, respectively.
The first furnace has already been used for a large number of cremations, the functioning of the furnace and hence the new design have been shown to work perfectly. The furnaces heat [to a temperature] a third higher than was demanded of me.
So far, eight three-muffle cremation furnaces have been completed and/or are currently being built. A further six are in progress. I therefore request that you kindly pay me the remuneration promised to me as soon as possible.
The Topf brothers rewarded Prüfer’s achievement with a bonus of 450 RM.
In December 1941, Karl Koch was accused of corruption and relieved of his positon at Buchenwald. He was replaced as camp commandant by Hermann Pister, who was commended by his superiors for his smooth running of the camp as a commercial operation.
‘On 19 January 1942 he was given the camp, whose previous commander had made a complete mess of it,’ concentration camp inspector Richard Glucks wrote. ‘With great energy, never ebbing diligence and through his own example, he turned Buchenwald into a model camp.’[49]
After the outbreak of war the numbers of prisoners in Buchenwald rose dramatically: up to 20,000 in August 1943, 37,000 in December 1943, 82,000 by August 1944 and 110,000 in January 1945. By January 1945, Buchenwald consisted not only of the main camp, but also of eighty-seven satellite camps and places of work for inmates including the Gustloff II works next to the barracks, the nearby DAW plant that made carbines and the Mittelbau Dora works where prisoners laboured making V2 rockets.
In total, 238,980 men were committed to Buchenwald and 34,375 died there. Of the 27,000 women sent to sub-camps, 335 died. A further 8,000 Soviet prisoners were shot by the SS, and 1,100 hanged from hooks in the cellar of the crematorium. More than 12,000 people perished on the death marches and during transportation to other camps at the end of the war – bringing the final total for deaths attributable to Buchenwald up to approximately 56,000.
For many years, Goethe’s oak remained the only tree standing in the camp at Buchenwald, casting its shade over the horrors committed there. When it was finally felled by an Allied bombing raid in August 1944, SS officers surrounded its smouldering trunk, distraught that they had been unable to save it. Later, its truncated remnants would come to symbolise Germany’s ruin – and its people’s journey from Goethe to the Holocaust.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALWAYS AT YOUR SERVICE
On 6 December 1943, Kurt Prüfer received an award for twenty-five years employment at Topf and Sons. As the somewhat curt language in the newspaper advert demonstrated, it was an honour grudgingly bestowed. Normally, German employees of longstanding could expect flowery, hyperbolic language and warm sentiments on such occasions. Topf and Sons’ employees also sometimes received thoughtful letters and cards from the Topf brothers, commiserating on the death of a parent, wishing a spouse a speedy recovery, celebrating the birth of a baby. To commemorate Prüfer’s twenty-five years at the company, he, too, received such a letter:
Erfurt, 6 December 1943
Dear Herr Prüfer,
It gives us great pleasure to be able to congratulate you today on your twenty-fifth anniversary with us.
In the last fifteen years you have been working with a great deal of autonomy in the cremation furnace division, which was founded before the World War of 1914–1918, and it is with both pride and satisfaction that we observe that your interest in crematorium construction is matched only by your success in it.
In addition, you took on the unpaid role of factory obmann [representative] for a time, and are still an active member of the consultative council. All this effort you devote to maintaining the well-being of the company of J. A. Topf and Sons gives us all the more reason to express our thanks and appreciation to you on your 25-year anniversary.
Hoping that many more years of fruitful labour will continue to bind you to us personally, we greet you with.
Heil Hitler![50]
Notably, this letter thanks him ‘with pride and satisfaction’ for having worked ‘with great independence’ in the crematorium construction department for the last fifteen years, and for dedicating himself to crematorium construction with ‘both interest and success’. At the request of Ludwig Topf, the Erfurt Economic Chamber presented Prüfer with an award, and both the Thüringer Gauzeitung and the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung were asked to carry reports.
Yet this polite and formal letter contains none of the camaraderie or friendly backslapping that Prüfer must have hoped for. Much as he had done when demanding a pay rise or increased commission, Prüfer demanded recognition for his ‘service’ to the company, and, as usual, he received it, though never in a way that would prove emotionally satisfying. Prüfer would be incensed, like an insecure lover, at these perceived slights. He would repeatedly demand to know the depth of the Topf brothers’ esteem for him, and always find their answers hollow.
The young Kurt Prüfer, who had been so keen to join the prestigious company Topf and Sons, had turned into a resentful man. A man who took dozens of sick days, formally requested to leave work ten minutes early and billed for the expense of snagging his suit jacket on a filing cabinet. Now, in the course of his four short years of association with the SS, he had mutated into something else: a monster. Prüfer had become a man who would not flinch when faced with heinous crimes; a man who would stand with a watch beside the ovens of Auschwitz like the devil’s own helper.
Even in reading decades-old administration files, Prüfer’s difficult personality, and the dislike and distrust between Prüfer and the Topf brothers, leap from the pages.
In July 1940, the Topfs received the most extraordinary call from one of Prüfer’s neighbours, which Ernst Wolfgang carefully documents in a memo. On 6 July, a retired post office worker named Herr Kleinhans rang Topf and Sons and explained that: ‘The Prüfers are our neighbours (worst luck) – they are utterly intolerable people. Frau Prüfer is hysterical and certifiable, and Herr Prüfer just falls out with everyone.’
It seemed that the Kleinhans and the Prüfers quarrelled often; Frau Prüfer accused Frau Kleinhans of gossiping with the Prüfers’ maid. The Prüfers’ maid was the niece of the Kleinhans’ maid, Frau Daniel, whose husband also worked at Topf and Sons (it was a small world). This had led Kurt Prüfer to confront Herr Daniel, at work where he insulted Daniel’s wife by claiming that she was ‘un-German’.
‘After Herr Kleinhans, full of outrage, had poured this all out like a waterfall, I asked what it all had to do with the Topf company,’ Ernst Wolfgang writes. Kleinhans responded by saying that the company should ensure that Prüfer had no contact with Herr Daniel at work and take measures to stop Prüfer from ‘exerting any influence over him [Herr Daniel] on company premises’.
48
Kurt Prüfer’s letter regarding a bonus, November 1942, Landesarchiv Thüringen - Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar.
49
Kurt Prüfer’ letter regarding a bonus November 1942, Landesarchiv Thüringen - Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar.
50
Letter to Kurt Prüfer December 1943. Landesarchiv Thüringen - Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar.