From the start of his activities as Inspector of Concentration Camps Eicke placed a special importance on increasing the strength of the guards in the camps.
Up to the end of 1935, the financing of the concentration camps was a matter for the districts concerned, but this did not apply to the financing of the guards. Up till then Eicke had paid his men out of contributions from the treasury, subsidies from the Party, and SS bank credits and canteen profits.
Finally he got the Reichsführer SS to agree that he should ask the Führer to make a decision in the matter. The Führer authorized an establishment of twenty-five companies of 100 men each who were to be financed out of state funds. The financing of the concentration camps remained the responsibility of the various districts until further notice.
Eicke had now taken the first decisive step toward building up the strength of the guards, which were later called the Death’s Head formations.
In the meantime plans and preparations were made for the construction of further concentration camps. The acquisition of suitable sites and the arrangements for the necessary finance gave rise to great difficulties which were nevertheless overcome by Eicke’s perseverance.
Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald were created. They were erected from the start by prisoners under Eicke’s administration, who were alone responsible for deciding on the way they were to be built. As a result he came into sharp conflict with Pohl, who had meanwhile been put in charge of all SS building operations and was responsible for financing them.
The Esterwegen camp was closed down and transferred to Sachsenhausen, similarly Berlin-Columbia. Sachsenburg, Lich-tenburg, and Bad Suiza were transferred to Buchenwald. Lichtenburg then became a women’s camp. In addition, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, and Gross-Rosen were also under Eicke’s administration before the war. At first these were entirely labor camps, which Eicke had planned for use in the quarries acquired by the SS, but they very soon became independent concentration camps.
Eicke built all these camps autocratically, using the experiences he had gained to assist him in his perpetual battle of opinions with Pohl.
Pohl already wanted more space to accommodate the prisoners and he also foresaw the future development of the camps more clearly than Eicke, who adopted a narrow-minded attitude in this matter. Eicke was in favor of keeping the camps compact, so that they could be more easily guarded, and he was against any substantial enlargement. The following is an example of this, which Ï experienced for myself when I was adjutant at Sachsenhausen.
It is 1938. Plans have been made for the construction of a new women’s camp. Lichtenburg is not suitable for a concentration camp and is far too small. After much search, Pohl and Eicke have picked on an area by the lake near Ravens-brück. The Reichsführer SS has expressed his approval. A conference is arranged to take place between Pohl and Eicke on the site to discuss details of construction. The commandant of Sachsenhausen who is to provide the prisoners for the building work and who has to arrange for their accommodation is summoned to attend, and also myself. The question of the size of the women’s concentration camp is still undecided. Eicke estimates that at the very most there will be not more than 2,000 female prisoners. Pohl wants to build for 10,000. Eicke says that he is crazy and that number will never be reached.
Pohl wants the camp to be built in such a way that it can be extended in the future to hold the number of prisoners that he envisaged. Eicke sticks stubbornly to his figure of 2,000 and considers that even this figure is unreasonably high. Eicke wins with his 2,000!
The Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp is built and later on has to be perpetually enlarged under the most difficult conditions and in a completely unmethodical manner. Ravensbrück ultimately had to accommodate up to 25,000 women. They were crowded together under the most cramped conditions with the inevitable results. Pohl’s judgment was correct and farseeing. Eicke was always narrow-minded and petty in matters relating to concentration camps.
His inability to see sufficiently far ahead was to blame for the fact that the old camp could not be extended to accommodate the enormous increase in numbers that came to be imprisoned during the war.
The extension of the camp was nevertheless continued, to the detriment of the prisoners, who were packed together even more tightly. I have already sufficiently described the consequences of this overcrowding. Not only was it practically impossible to increase the living accommodation, but the water supply and drainage installations, which were barely adequate under normal conditions, could not be improved in any important respect. Thus the way was laid for future defects, which were to prove impossible to remedy.
In contrast to the narrow-mindedness which Eicke displayed in all matters relating to the concentration camps, he showed an unprecedented liberality in all that concerned the troops. The strengthening of the Death’s Head formations had become his main preoccupation. The concentration camps with their “enemies of the state” were for him only a means to an end.
At later budget conferences he constantly produced overwhelming arguments concerning the danger represented by the “enemies of the state” and the consequent necessity for increasing the strength of the guards.
The new barracks, which were under construction, were never big enough or spacious enough for him. The furnishings were never comfortable enough. For every bit of space that was saved in the concentration camp, the troops were given ten times as much in return. He had to square matters with Pohl in order to get the necessary money for furnishing the troops’ quarters.
Eicke had no knowledge of human nature and time and again he allowed himself to be deceived by appearances and clever talk by men who knew how to make themselves seem skillful and adept, and he trusted these individuals far too much. His opinions of people were apt to be colored by chance events or by his moods. If an SS officer had got himself disliked, or if Eicke, for some reason or other, could not tolerate him, then it was best for that officer to arrange to be transferred from Eicke’s service as rapidly as possible.
Any officers or Junior officers (he hoped to bring the men around to his way of thinking) whom he considered unsuitable for service with the troops would either be removed from his command or (after 1937 when, at his instigation, the troops and the concentration camps were separated from each other) transferred to a post in a concentration camp. As a result, the commandants’ staffs were gradually filled with incapable officers and junior officers, whom Eicke did not want to get rid of completely because of the length of time during which they had been a member of the Party or of the SS. The camp commandants would have to worry about them. They were constantly transferred in an effort to find them a suitable post and most of them eventually found their way to Auschwitz, which gradually became used by the Inspector of Concentration Camps as a dumping ground for discarded personnel. If Eicke had only removed these incapable officers entirely out of his command, the concentration camps would later on have been spared a great deal of unpleasantness and brutality. The effects of Eicke’s philosophy were to continue to make themselves felt for many years.
It can be ascribed to Eicke’s ignorance of human nature that camp commandants such as Koch and Loritz possessed his complete confidence, which could not be displaced even by the most disagreeable incidents. They were allowed to do as they pleased in their camps.
He indulged them in every respect and never interfered with them, even though he was fully informed about all that went on.