Pohl persistently supported requests for the release of prisoners who were known to him, when he believed that they had been wrongly imprisoned, or when he considered that the length of their sentences was unjustifiable. This brought him into irreconcilable hostility with Eicke and the Reich Security Head Office, and later on with Kaltenbrunner. Pohl was never afraid to make a complaint, and in especially bad cases he would go to the Reichsführer SS himself, which he otherwise avoided doing. But he met with little success, for in matters relating to releases the Reichsführer SS deferred on principle to the opinions of the Reich Security Head Office.
In 1941 the concentration camps were incorporated in Department D of the Economic Administration Head Office, and placed under Pohl’s authority.
Through his contacts with the industrial undertakings which were concerned with all the camps, and through the heads of those undertakings and their temporary inspector Maurer, and also through the chiefs of the department groups and of departments A, B, C, and W, Pohl was kept well informed about all the camps.
After he had taken over the concentration camps, Pohl immediately started to reform them in accordance with his ideas. First of all, some of the camp commandants had to go, either because they failed to comply with Pohl’s new instructions, or because, like Loritz, they were (in Pohl’s opinion) no longer tolerable for service in a concentration camp.
Pohl’s main demands were: decent treatment of the prisoners, elimination of all arbitrary handling of the prisoners by subordinate members of the SS, improvements in the system of provisioning, the supply of warmer clothing for the winter, sufficient accommodation, and improvement of the sanitary arrangements. All of these improvements were proposed with the object of keeping the prisoners sufficiently fit to do the work demanded of them!
Pohl constantly inspected all the concentration camps and also a large proportion of the labor camps. He saw the deficiencies and tried whenever he could to remedy them. If he discovered somewhere that an officer or a junior officer was at fault, he would deal ruthlessly with him, without regard to his person or position. His inspections were mostly unheralded and very thorough. He would not let himself be taken around, but insisted on seeing everything for himself. Regardless of time, or people, or meals, he rushed from one place to another. He had a prodigious memory. Figures, which he had been told only once, he never forgot. He was always on the lookout for things which he had seen and to which he had objected on previous inspections.
Next to Dachau, Auschwitz received his special attention. He spent a great deal of energy in connection with the construction and development of the camp. Kammler often said to me that Pohl began every building conference in Berlin by first asking how matters were going at Auschwitz. The SS department concerned with raw materials had a voluminous file of demands, memorandums, and angry letters from Pohl regarding Auschwitz. I must have been the only SS officer in the whole SS who possessed such a comprehensive blanket authority for procuring everything that was needed in Auschwitz.
Later on as DI he was; perpetually harrying me about defects that he had found in the concentration camps and labor camps, which he had not been able to clear up, and demanding that the culprits be discovered and the worst of the abuses be rectified.
But so long as Himmler’s basic attitude remained unchanged, any attempts to improve the conditions were hopeless from the start.
Anyone who had distinguished himself by his proficiency could come to Pohl at any time with requests or wishes, and he would give him all the help that he could.
Pohl was very capricious and often went from one extreme to the other. It was inadvisable to contradict him when he was in a bad humor, for this would result in a snub. But when he was in a good humor, even the most disagreeable and unpleasant things could be told him and he would not take them amiss. It was not easy to work with, him in his immediate presence for any length of time, and his adjutants were changed frequently and often with startling suddenness.
Pohl liked to show his position and his power. His uniform was deliberately simple and he wore no decorations, although Himmler forced him to wear the German Cross and the Knight’s Cross to the War Service Cross, with which he was later decorated.
In spite of his age (he was over fifty) he was exceptionally brisk and active, and tremendously tough. To accompany him on a duty journey was not an unmixed blessing.
Pohl’s behavior toward the Reichsführer SS was peculiar. He did everything through Himmler. Every letter and every teletype message was dispatched under Himmler’s name, and yet Pohl only went to him in person when he was summoned.
For Pohl every wish expressed by the Reichsführer SS, and they were not few in number, was a command. I have never known of an occasion when Pohl criticized or even expressed disapproval of an order from Himmler. An order from the Reichsführer SS was something that was settled and fixed, and had to be carried out exactly as it stood. Nor did he like there to be any discussion as to the interpretation or impracticability of these orders, which were often very obscure. This was especially so with regard to Kammler and Glücks, both of whom were very talkative; they were often bluntly reproved in this connection, although in other respects Pohl allowed them to take many liberties. In spite of his commanding personality Pohl was the most willing and obedient executive of all the wishes and plans of the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler.
APPENDIX 6
Maurer
He was a businessman and a veteran member of the Party and the SS. He originally came from Saxony. Before 1933 he held a senior position as accountant in his local SS unit.
In 1934 he took an administrative post in the SS in Munich, and Pohl brought him into the auditing department. His skill as an auditor had already been noticed by Pohl, and he was employed in the newly established Central Administrative Office concerned with the commercial undertakings of the SS, of which Pohl later made him inspector.
Maurer thus gained a knowledge of the concentration camps and took a particular interest in matters connected with the industrial employment of the prisoners. He obtained an insight into the peculiarities of the commandants and commanders of the protective custody camps and their negative attitude toward these industrial schemes. Most of the older commandants and commanders felt that the prisoners employed in the commercial undertakings were too well treated and also that the heads of these undertakings were learning too much from the prisoners about what went on in the camps. They played many tricks on the executives of these industries. They would, for example, suddenly remove skilled men and employ them on outside work, or retain them in the camp, or they would send them prisoners who were quite unfit for work.