My constantly expressed fears over the danger of disease arising from the inadequate sanitary arrangements, were curtly dismissed with the remark: “You look too much on the dark side of things.”
His interest was only aroused when I discussed the camp area as a whole and produced maps to illustrate what I was saying. His attitude changed at once. He talked with animation about future plans, and gave one directive after another or made notes about everything that was to be done with the land in question.
Auschwitz was to become the agricultural research station for the eastern territories. Opportunities were opened up to us, which we had never before had in Germany. Sufficient labor was available. All essential agricultural research must be carried out there. Huge laboratories and plant nurseries were to be set out. All kinds of stockbreeding was to be pursued there. Vogel was to take immediate steps to gather a force of specialists; to build fisheries and to drain the lands, and to construct a dam on the Vistula would present difficulties compared to which the grievances in the camp previously described would become insignificant. On his next visit to Auschwitz he wanted to see everything for himself.
He remained absorbed in his agricultural planning, down to the smallest details, until the adjutant on duty drew his attention to the fact that an important official had been waiting for a long time to see him.
Himmler’s interest in Auschwitz was indeed stimulated, but it was not directed toward remedying the evil conditions or preventing them from occurring in the future, but rather toward increasing them because of his refusal to acknowledge their existence.
My friend Vogel was thrilled by the bold design for constructing the agricultural research stations. I was too—as a farmer. But as camp commandant I saw all my plans for making Auschwitz a clean and healthy place begin to dwindle. Only his announced intention of making a further visit left me with a vague hope. I felt that a personal inspection would induce him to remedy the obvious deficiencies and grievances.
In the meantime I continued to construct and “improvise” in an attempt to avert the worst of the evils.
My efforts met with little success, for I could not keep step with the rapid expansion of the camp or the constant increase in the numbers of the prisoners. No sooner was a building erected that could normally accommodate over 200 people than a further transport consisting of a thousand or more prisoners would be drawn up at the platform. Protests to the Inspector of Concentration Camps or the Reich Security Head Office or to the Chief of Police in Cracow were of no avail. “The actions ordered by the Reichsführer SS must be carried out” was the reply that was always given.
At last, on March 1, 1941, Himmler arrived in Auschwitz. He was accompanied by the Gauleiter Bracht, the administrative presidents, the SS and police officers of Silesia, high executives of IG Farben Industrie, and the Inspector of Concentration Camps, Glücks. The latter had arrived beforehand and constantly warned me against reporting anything disagreeable to the Reichsführer SS! And I had nothing to say that was not disagreeable. With the help of plans and maps I explained to Himmler the layout of the land that was being taken over and the extensions that had been made, and gave him an account of the present position. I could not, of course, describe to him, in the presence of all those strangers, the shortcomings which weighed so heavily on my mind. Nevertheless, during the tour which we afterward made of the district, when I was alone in the car with Himmler and Schmauser, I made up for this by telling him about them candidly and in detail. But it did not have the effect for which I had hoped. Even when we went through the camp and I drew his attention, in an indirect manner, to the worst of the grievances, such as the overcrowding and lack of water and so on, he hardly listened to me. When I repeatedly begged him to stop sending any more drafts, he snubbed me abruptly. I could not expect any kind of help from him. On the contrary, when we were in the canteen in the SS hospital block, he started to discuss in earnest the new tasks that he had for Auschwitz.
This was the construction of the prisoner-of-war camp for 100,000 prisoners. Himmler had already talked about this during our tour and had given a rough indication of the site. The Gauleiter raised objections and the administrative president tried to put a stop to it on account of the lack of water and drainage difficulties. Himmler dismissed these objections with a smile: “Gentlemen, it will be built. My reasons for constructing it are far more important than your objections. Ten thousand prisoners are to be provided for the IG Farben Industrie according to their requirements and to the progress made in the construction work. Auschwitz concentration camp is to be expanded to hold a peacetime establishment of 30,000 prisoners. I intend to transfer here afterward important branches of the armaments industry. The space for this is to be kept clear. In addition there will be the agricultural research stations and farms!” And all this was to be accomplished, when there was already an acute shortage of building materials in Upper Silesia. The Gauleiter drew Himmler’s attention to this and received the reply: “What have the SS requisitioned the brickworks for, and the cement factory, too? They will have to be made more productive, or the concentration camp will be forced to start some undertakings on its own account!
“Problems of water supply and drainage are purely technical matters, which the specialists have to work out, but they cannot be raised as objections. Every means will have to be taken to accelerate the construction work. You must improvise as much as possible, and any outbreak of disease will have to be checked and ruthlessly stamped out!
“The delivery of drafts to the camp, however, cannot, on principle, be halted. The actions, which I have ordered my security police to undertake, must go on. I do not appreciate the difficulties in Auschwitz.” Then turning to me, he said: “It is up to you to manage somehow.”
Shortly before his departure Himmler found time to pay a visit to my family and gave me instructions to enlarge the house in view of its use as an official residence. He was once more genial and talkative, in spite of his abruptness and irritation during our conversations a little earlier.
Glücks had been shocked by the way I had repeatedly raised objections to the pronouncements of the Reichsführer SS. He, too, could not help me. Nor was he able to arrange for any assistance by transferring personnel and so on. He had no better officers or junior officers available and he could not expect other camp commandants to exchange good material for bad.
“You won’t find it so hard and you’ll manage all right,” were the words with which my interview with my superior officer ended….
In the summer of 1941, Himmler summoned me to Berlin to inform me of the fateful order that envisaged the mass extermination of Jews from almost every part of Europe, and which resulted in Auschwitz becoming the largest human slaughterhouse that history had ever known….
My next meeting with Himmler was in the summer of 1942 when he visited Auschwitz for the second and last time. The inspection lasted for two days and Himmler examined everything in great detail. There were present, among others, Gauleiter Bracht, Obergruppenführer Schmauser, and Dr. Kammler.
After his arrival in the camp we went to the SS officers’ mess where I had to explain the layout of the camp with the aid of maps. Then we went to the architects’ office where Kammler produced designs and models with which to explain the construction work which had been proposed or which was already under way, but he did not pass in silence over the difficulties which stood in the way of these plans or which might even prevent their realization. Himmler listened with interest, inquired about some technical details, and expressed agreement with the scheme as a whole, but he showed no concern over the difficulties which Kammler had repeatedly brought to his notice. Afterward a tour was made of the whole of the camp’s sphere of interest. First an inspection was made of the agricultural areas and the work of reclamation, the building of the dam, the laboratories and plant-breeding establishments in Raisko, the stockbreeding centers and the tree nurseries. Then Birkenau was visited, including the Russian camp, the gypsy sector, and also a Jewish sector. He then climbed the gate tower and had the different parts of the camp pointed out to him and also the water drainage systems which were being built, and he was shown the extent of the proposed expansion. He saw the prisoners at work and inspected their living quarters and the kitchens and the hospital accommodation. I constantly drew his attention to the defects in the camp, and he saw them as well. He saw the emaciated victims of disease (the causes of which were bluntly explained by the doctors), he saw the crowded hospital block, he learned of the mortality among the children in the gypsy camp, and he saw children there suffering from the terrible disease called noma. He also saw the overcrowded huts and the primitive and insufficient latrines and washhouses. The doctors told him about the high rate of sickness and death and, above all, the reasons for it. He had everything explained to him in the most exact manner and saw it all precisely as it really was, and he remained silent. He took me back to Birkenau furious at my perpetual complaints of the miserable conditions in the camp and said: “I want to hear no more about difficulties! An SS officer does not recognize difficulties; when they arise, his task is to remove them at once by his own efforts! How this is to be done is your worry and not mine!” Kammler and Bischoff were told much the same sort of thing.