- Two and a half million people who were sent to Auschwitz were actually liquidated?

Yes, destroyed.

- But a significantly larger number of prisoners were sent to Auschwitz?

Yes. To the number of prisoners that I told you about, you should add 20 or 30% who were used as labor force.

- Those two and a half million people died in the gas chambers?

- And what can you say about 500 thousand killed in other ways?

They died from diseases.

Best of the day

- Is it true that people who were supposed to be burned in stationary installations undressed right on the street, outside these huge buildings?

No, there was a special room.

"But didn't you just say that people were undressing in the street?"

No. The train was unloading. Prisoners left luggage and were selected for suitability for work. Then those who passed the selection were taken away, and all the rest undressed in a special room.

- Were they warned about what awaits them?

They were told that they should wash and disinfect. There were even special posters with relevant instructions.

- How many people could be liquidated at one time in a stationary gas chamber?

There are two thousand people in one cell.

- Whole squad?

- And how did it all happen?

Everything happened underground. There were three or four disguised holes in the ceiling through which gas entered the chamber.

- What happened then?

Everything was as I already told you. Everything depended on the weather. If the weather was dry and there were many people in the gas chambers, then everything ended very quickly.

- How long did the procedure take?

As I said, from 3-4 to 15 minutes.

The massacres in the Auschwitz camps continued until the end of the summer of 1944. On October 28, 1944, the last train with Jewish prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, in which there were 2,000 people. This was the last batch of gassed.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) operated until January 1945. They employed 2,500 SS men. Until now, there is no exact number of victims, but we are talking about millions.

The approach of the Soviet troops forced the Germans to start evacuating the prisoners. Some of the prisoners were killed on the spot, others were driven on foot to Germany. These columns were called "death marches". On the eve of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, the Nazis blew up the crematoria.

Parts of the Soviet Army, liberating Polish Silesia, discovered the Auschwitz camp on January 27, 1945. 2819 prisoners were rescued, miraculously surviving.

On the territory of the Auschwitz camp there were 35 warehouses for sorting and packing looted things, clothes and shoes. Before the retreat, the Germans burned 29 warehouses. In the remaining six, a huge number of things and various utensils were found, as well as about 1.2 million sets of men's and women's upper and lower clothing. A large number of children's clothing was found: shirts, undershirts, pants, coats, hats.

On clothes, footwear and other things, brand names of France, Belgium, Hungary, Holland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and other countries were found. Labels of hotels in various European cities have been preserved on the suitcases.

Seven wagons with things already prepared by the Germans for shipment to Germany were found on the territory of the camp. The documents found indicated that only within 47 days, from December 1, 1944 to January 15, 1945, about 515 thousand sets of children's, women's and men's outerwear and underwear were processed for sending to Germany.

At the camp tannery, 293 bales of packaged women's hair were found, weighing seven tons. The commission found that the hair was cut from 140,000 women.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Hess, the first commandant of the Auschwitz camps, who rose to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer, worked there from May 1940 until November 1943, and then, on the recommendation of Bormann, was promoted.

Commandant of Auschwitz

Commandant of Auschwitz

Autobiographical Notes by Rudolf Hoess

Foreword
The emergence, features of the notes of Hess and the history of their publication

The former SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, who from the summer of 1940 to January 1945 led the Auschwitz concentration camp for a total of three and a half years, and therefore can rightfully be called the commandant of Auschwitz, was arrested by the British military police on March 11, 1946. near Flensburg (Schleswig-Holstein). The record of the first interrogation conducted on 13/14 April 1946 by British military counterintelligence 1 was followed by hearings at Nuremberg. There, in April, Hoess acted as a witness in the case of the main defendant Kaltenbrunner, and in mid-May he was interrogated by employees of American justice in connection with the so-called “Paul trial” and the “IG Farben trial”. 2

On May 25, 1946, Hoess was extradited to Poland, where the Supreme People's Tribunal, which began the trial of war criminals, brought charges against him. Ten months passed before the start of the process in Warsaw. Only on April 2, 1947, the Supreme People's Tribunal of the Republic of Poland handed down a sentence to Hoess, which was carried out 14 days later. On April 16, 1947, Hoess was hanged in Auschwitz. The time between his extradition to Poland and his conviction, Höss spent in the investigation prison of Krakow, where from September 1946 to January 1947 a preliminary investigation took place.

While imprisoned in a Krakow prison, Höss wrote part of an extensive manuscript, the most important fragment of which is published here for the first time in the original language, German. This fragment occupies 237 sheets written on both sides. This manuscript (on 237 pages) is divided into two parts according to the time and causes of its origin, as well as according to its content. One half of it is a sequential narrative on 114 pages, which Hoess entitled "My soul. Becoming, life and experiences” is a description of the outer side of the life path and the inner life (autobiography). The other part is represented by 34 manuscripts of a very unequal size. For the most part, they deal with the leadership of the SS (Himmler, Pohl, Eick, Globocnik, Heinrich Müller, Eichmann, etc.), 3 as well as a number of SS functionaries who played the main roles in Auschwitz. Adjoining this part is a small group of notes devoted to certain topics (execution of the order to exterminate the Jews in Auschwitz, the use of labor by prisoners, intra-camp routine, etc.)

While Höss was writing the autobiographical report on his own initiative (he did not begin this occupation until January-February 1947, after the completion of the preliminary investigation and in anticipation of the start of the process), the notes made between October 1946 and January 1947 , are more or less closely related to the interrogations conducted by the Krakow investigator Dr. Jan Sen. Since the Polish side not only wanted to quickly prepare the material necessary for passing a verdict in the Höss case, but also, given the fatal historical significance of Auschwitz, wanted to collect as much information as possible about this camp, conversations with Höss also extended to questions relating not only to him himself. 4 The preparations for the next trial of the Supreme People's Tribunal in Krakow, in the case of 40 staff members of Auschwitz, also played a role. 5 It should also be taken into account that during the investigation in Krakow, the same peculiarity that was noticed back in Nuremberg appeared: the commandant of Auschwitz turned out to be a person under investigation, extremely ready for cooperation; this unexpected readiness, supported by a good memory, as a rule, allowed him to answer the questions put to him accurately and adequately. Höss showed a kind of belated interest in the subject of conversation - this is already evident from the interrogations by the American military tribunal in Nuremberg; 6 This feature of Hoess's behavior was also noted by Dr. Senj's reports of his interrogations in Krakow. Spontaneous statements, corrections that came to Hoess's mind testified to his readiness to help the investigator almost in a friendly way.

Although Höss was informed in Krakow that the Polish criminal procedure legislation gave him the right to withdraw his testimony, he did not use this right in any way. On the contrary, in his additional notes, which Hoess handed over to the Polish investigator, he voluntarily gave very detailed and business-like information about numerous persons and the secrets entrusted to him. Goess wrote these messages between interrogations. In part, they were the result of his preparation for the next interrogations. Sometimes such affidavits were created retroactively to complement statements already made. Göss also covered some topics on his own initiative.

The psychological basis of such behavior will be discussed later. However, it is quite clear - this is clear from the verification and revision of the testimony and records of Hoess - that they are by no means the product of vanity. Despite a lot of perspective distortions and an abundance of retouching, these records amaze with their accounting dryness and efficiency.

Thanks to the friendly assistance of Dr. Jan Sen and the former director of the Auschwitz Museum K. Smolen, the Institute of Contemporary History has photocopies of all the notes of Hoess made in Krakow, which served as the basis for this publication. The originals are in the Ministry of Justice of Poland (Warsaw) and, along with other German documents from the time of the German occupation, belong to the administration of the Polish Main Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of National Socialism in Poland (Głowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce). In November 1956, the editor of this publication had the opportunity to get acquainted with them. The formal authenticity of the notes was firmly established as a result of an examination, the material for which was also the notes of Hoess, made by him even earlier. 7 However, the authenticity of the records is evidenced primarily by their psychological and historical authenticity. What Höss wrote, and the way he wrote, clearly points to the authorship of the commandant of Auschwitz, who is well acquainted with the described object. At the same time, this awareness is also a sign that we are dealing with records made voluntarily, without any extraneous influences or manipulations. In addition, many of the details of the Krakow notes and the surprising, growing frankness of the author were already recorded in the Nuremberg protocols and in Dr. Gilbert's story about Hess. eight

Like the notes that arose between interrogations, Höss's autobiography also owes the urge to confess to the investigators. The trouble-free operation of the commandant of Auschwitz also proved to be an exemplary prisoner, who not only accurately distributed knowledge about the concentration camp and the extermination of Jews, but also sought to facilitate the work of the prison psychiatrist, for which he wrote a detailed report about himself, about his life and about his own, as far as he understood it, "soul." Such a context also explains the strangeness of behavior, even more clearly captured in Hoess's autobiography: the diligently hasty conscientiousness of a person who recognizes any authority only in the service, performing his duties, whether he is an executioner or a prisoner, only in secondary roles, always renouncing his personality , and in the form of an autobiography who obligingly betrayed his "I", his terribly empty "I" to the court - in order to serve cause .

How terrible were the circumstances that made these notes possible, so they, as a historical document, represent the unique, in the same sense, personality of the author. The reader is offered not only the fullness of facts, but at the same time a look into the depths of psychology, a look at intellectual and mental structures that under normal conditions could not become apparent. As early as seven years ago, the unusual nature of this source prompted the Warsaw Main Commission to publish the first edition of Höss' notes translated into Polish. They were published in the Bulletin of the Main Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of National Socialism in Poland (Volume VII), which was published in 1951 by the Warsaw Ministry of Justice Publishing House. In addition to the autobiography, this edition also includes some of the brief special notes of Hoess. The introduction to this publication was written by the already mentioned Polish criminologist, Professor Dr. Stanisław Batavia (according to the professor, he had a total of 13 many hours of conversations with Goess). Then, in 1956, the Warsaw Law Publishing House published a second, complete edition of Hoess's notes in Polish under the title "Wspomnienia Rudolfa Hoessa, Komendanta Obozu Oswiemskogo" ("Memoirs of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the Auschwitz camp"). It included all the notes of Hoess, including his autobiography, and in addition, both farewell letters - Hoess wrote them on April 11, 1947 to his wife and children. Both letters were photographed before being sent from Poland to Germany. 9 The preface to the second Polish edition was written by Dr. Sen. The publication was provided with comments and some explanations.

Only a few experts in Germany and in the Western countries have become acquainted with both Polish editions, 10 and the dazzlingly terrifying content of this document gave one French writer an excuse to transfer the action into a novel. 11 And yet, acquaintance with the notes of Hoess can no longer be limited to such a narrow circle. Their Polish translation is clearly not enough. Edition requires the original itself, written in German. The specific style of the notes, which, according to the writer, was of great importance, can only be understood in the German original. The constant pretentiousness in the choice of words and expressions with which Hess wanted to appear as an aesthete, his “self-exposures” constrained by pictorial clichés, and finally, the Nazi jargon, to which Hess nevertheless accidentally but constantly resorts, all this is inevitably lost in translation.

In preparing the German original, the publishers did not consider it appropriate to follow the Polish example and publish all of Hoess's notes. Such a publication is possible, but hardly desirable in this case. In his autobiography, Hoess very often referred to things that he had already told in the same words in other manuscripts. These multiple repetitions were taken into account. Moreover, the Krakow notes of Hoess are only a part of what he has already reported since the moment of his arrest. Indeed, the continuous publication of all the statements of Höss about Auschwitz, concentration camps, etc. would also mean the publication of the protocols of all his interrogations. Finally, due to their lack of content, as well as the subjectivity of judgments, many entries simply do not deserve publication.

Therefore, the present edition is limited to the publication of an autobiography written in January-February 1947. In addition, it includes two special notes written by Höss in November 1946. In fact, they became the end of the autobiography. These notes were selected primarily because they contain information about Auschwitz. And since both documents are based on the life experience and experiences of Goess himself, the publishers supplement their autobiography with them. The reference apparatus provides references to a number of important testimony of Goess, which are not included in this edition.

With regard to the editorial work, the following should also be added: four fragments of several pages in size have been removed from the text; these exemptions are negotiated and justified in the relevant places. 12 In addition, a number of relatively infrequent spelling and syntax errors have been corrected. The peculiar punctuation inherent in Hoess's notes was also subjected to editing. Speech and style, on the contrary, remained untouched everywhere. The clarification of a small number of words is caused by the need to reconstruct illegible fragments of the text. It also turned out to be appropriate to decipher when publishing most of the abbreviations made by Goess - especially those that (for example, the names of ranks, etc.) were common in SS turnover, but still incomprehensible to most readers. Only well-established and official abbreviations, often repeated in the presentation of Hoess, were preserved (for example, KL - concentration camp). Although Hoess quite often and not always underlined individual words and whole sentences, all sections of the text that he marked in this way are in italics.

To make the autobiography, written without any intervals, more readable, it was divided into 10 titled parts. It was not Höss who gave the corresponding titles to the chapters, but the editor. It also proved appropriate to make, in addition to this preface, a number of notes, explanations, corrections and references to other sources. These notes refer only to persons, places, institutions and individual facts that are especially important for understanding Hoess's autobiography. However, these notes do not aim to correct in any way the subjective and often incorrect judgments contained in the notes.

The publishers are grateful to their Polish colleagues for their courtesy, as well as for their assistance in preparing the scientific edition of Hoess's notes. They would like to express their special thanks to Mr. Dr. Jan Sen (Krakow), the Auschwitz Museum and Mr. Hermann Langbein of the Auschwitz Committee (Vienna).
^ The essence and significance of the autobiographical notes of Hoess

The first sheet of the Hoess manuscript.
Of course, the information about Auschwitz and the extermination of the Jews is not new. This was discussed at the post-war trials. Collected a lot of documentary evidence and testimonies of former prisoners and former SS. All of them are at the disposal of historians, a significant part of these sources has already been published.

The difference between Höss's autobiographical notes and these documents is as follows: the commandant of Auschwitz himself speaks here, who tells in detail and coherently about his career from Dachau and Sachsenhausen to Auschwitz; he gives many details about the concentration camps and the practice of exterminating Jews. By the time Hoess spoke at Nuremberg, much was already known about Auschwitz. And yet, when he reported on the events in Auschwitz with the same phenomenal efficiency that is inherent in this publication, his narrative became a sensation, shocking almost to the point of paralysis. As is also confirmed by Dr. Gilbert's report, Hoess's speech at the time, his everyday explanations about the gas chambers and the massacres at Auschwitz, aroused in the bench of the main accused that prolonged feeling of horror, which, in particular, deprived all credibility through and through of theatrical, imaginary ignorance Goering. Anyone who still could not bring to consciousness the truth about Auschwitz, which was already breaking out abroad during the war, and which was confirmed by rumors inside Germany, was deprived of the last doubts by the reports of the former commandant about the sophisticated technique of mass murder, surpassing the possibilities of human understanding, implemented in Auschwitz by the demons of National Socialism. The Höss notes can play a similar role today - despite other evidence, the fact of Auschwitz and the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers is still opposed by widespread doubts, or at least not entirely accurate, not self-confident knowledge. This publication opposes bottomless inhumanity. It can and must bring closer the catharsis that national self-respect requires after the era of the Third Reich.

The value of Höss's autobiography as a historical source lies, of course, not only in providing detailed information about the concentration camp system and the Auschwitz disaster. The autobiography is also a self-report of the man who created the Auschwitz concentration camp and disposed of it. This is a description of the type of people who served the factory of death, an explanation of their mental constitution, a definition of mental and psychic properties that were revealed in the practice of mass murder. In his notes, Hoess subconsciously strives for clarity in these matters, and here, perhaps, his highest spiritual achievement is observed. The Hoess case makes it clear that mass murders are not associated with such qualities as personal cruelty, diabolical sadism, bloodthirstiness, with the so-called "brutalism", which are innocently considered an attribute of murderers. Hoess' notes radically refute these extremely naive notions, but recreate a portrait of a man who really led the daily murder of Jews. On the whole, this man was quite ordinary and not at all angry. On the contrary, he had a sense of duty, loved order, animals and nature, had a kind of inclination towards the spiritual life, and could even be considered "moral". In a word, Hoss's autobiography is an indication that such qualities do not protect against inhumanity, that they can be perverted and placed at the service of political crime. Hoss's notes are terrible because they are based on a completely philistine consciousness. This autobiography no longer makes it possible to categorically separate the cruel by nature from those who did their job out of a sense of duty, or from people whose good nature was perverted by the devil's craft. The example of Hoess shows that the inhuman essence of the Third Reich cannot be understood; there is to reduce gas chambers and concentration camps only to a manifestation of special Teutonic cruelty. Undoubtedly, the concentration camps naturally became a rallying point for degraded and feral personalities from the ranks of the SS, and the systematic education of the supervisory staff in the spirit of indispensable firmness, as well as the ideological appeal to base instincts, exacerbated these vices. Himmler, Heydrich or Eike (the inspector of concentration camps) allowed and in every possible way covered the arbitrariness of individual commandants and guards in relation to prisoners, took note of them in order to increase the level of terror. And yet this diabolical calculation of base instincts and impulses (and Himmler, in his manner of the greatest Machiavellian, did not lose sight of them), was not the basis of the system. He did not correspond to Himmler's own ideas about what he wanted. Arbitrary torture of prisoners by individual SS men, their own sadism, and even cases of profiting from prisoners - this was regarded by Himmler as weakness, along with outbursts of compassion. His ideal was embodied in a disciplined camp commander like Hoess, who was recklessly executive, not afraid of any orders, and at the same time remained personally "decent". The head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp lived up to Himmler's expectations, who on October 4, 1943, stated at a meeting of the SS leadership regarding the extermination of the Jews:

“Most of you know what it's like to see a hundred or five hundred or a thousand corpses laid in a row. To be able to stand it steadfastly, apart from individual cases of human weakness, and to remain decent at the same time - that is what tempered us. This is a glorious page in our history that has not yet been written and that will never be written. thirteen

In these words, the same interpretation of mechanical diligence as the highest virtue is proclaimed, as in the notes of Hess. Hoess steadily repeats in them how he fought the "gangster types" from the SS supervisory staff, with self-respect he declares that the bullying and arbitrariness of the guards, along with their "sloppy good nature", undermined the concentration camp system. Ultimately, the ideal commandants for National Socialism were not personally cruel, depraved and degraded personalities from among the SS, but Höss and his ilk. Their "selflessness" in the service in the concentration camps and their tireless activity made the camp system workable. Thanks to their "good faith", what looked like an institution of order and education was an instrument of terror. They were also the perpetrators of "hygienic" mass murders in forms that made it possible for the murderers of thousands of people not to feel like murderers. Because as operators of the gas chambers, they felt superior to ordinary murderers, bank breakers and anti-social elements. The performers were too sensitive to constantly deal with blood. Here is a noteworthy passage in Hoess's notes, where he tells how he felt a sense of relief when he found out that with the help of "Zyklon-B" massacres can be carried out simply, silently and without bloodshed (p. 122 et seq.). The less blood, torture, perversions there were during the murders, the more they acquired an organized, “factory”, “purely” military look, the more the massacres turned out to be the clear work of an anonymous mechanism, the less these events worried. All the more true, mass killings fit into the doctrine of the eradication of "racially and biologically alien elements and defilers of the people," in which the killing of Jews became a necessary act of a nationwide "pest control." 14 However, in itself, the nightmarish massacre, the extreme facelessness of the uniformed mass of prisoners, the diabolical dramatizations that gave the executive bodies of the SS the appearance of Jewish Sonderkommandos - all this psychologically protected the supervisory staff from outbursts of compassion, and from cases of depression. Hoess's biography explains that the technique of mass murder was not invented and used by some degenerates - no, it became the work of conceited, obsessed with a sense of duty, authoritarian, brought up in the tradition of being obedient to the state of carrion, haughty townsfolk who allowed themselves to be convinced and convinced themselves that the "liquidation" of hundreds of thousands of people was a service to the people and the fatherland.

The most terrible manifestation of this document seems to us that already noted connection between philistine arrogance and obliging sentimentality, on the one hand, and the icy ruthlessness of the performer, on the other. Gas chambers are not capable of disturbing the soul of a sentimental killer, the murder becomes a technique, a naked organizational issue - this spirit of the mechanical Höss demonstrates in its extreme manifestation. He is a man for whom mass murder is only justice. He must accept the inevitable and do his duty without thinking about the consequences, but he is also overwhelmed by "criminal torts" and winces in disgust when discussing sexual anomalies. Here the writer Hoess does not differ at all from the commandant Hoess. Hoess's "spiritual life", which he often talks about in his autobiography, only replaces reality. At the same time, it is an "aesthetic" rest from inhuman craft. But his "spirituality" has no connection with the outside world. This is the sentimentality of an introvert playing a role for himself. The content of Hoess's soul is revealed by his story about how, after the massacre in the gas chambers, he sought solace from the horse in the stall. It reveals itself in a seemingly innocent story about gullible gypsy children in Auschwitz who were his "beloved prisoners." Höss's soul is exposed when he makes ethnographic sketches or when he finishes with unsurpassed tactlessness the description of his experiences after the first experience with the massacre in the gas chambers: unaware of their doom. This picture of life and departure from it still stands vividly before my eyes” (p. 153/54). The irony of his heartfelt outpourings does not reach Hoess, he simply does not catch their obscenity. All his descriptions of mass suffocations are made as if by an outside observer. Höss saves himself from confessing to the murder, which was committed almost daily under his direction in a thousand different forms. But the murders were accompanied by heartbreaking scenes, and Goess takes credit for his impressionability. The coexistence of insensitivity to mass murder and the eloquent description of them shows in Hess the self-confidence of a literally schizophrenic consciousness. Characteristic, among others, is the place (p. 104) where Hoess describes the gullibility of gypsy children towards doctors who gave them lethal injections: “Really, there is nothing harder than being forced to do this in cold blood, without compassion and pity.” Göss's characteristic egocentrism makes it possible to turn the murder of defenseless children into a murderer's tragedy. The same vileness is illustrated by the moralizing self-confidence of Höss in his story about the participation of Jewish Sonderkommandos in the destruction of brothers in race and faith (p. 126). He, who implicitly carried out all orders for the murders, and as the commandant also responsible for the cynical practice of involving Jews in the dirtiest part of this "work", undertakes to judge the doomed people who tried to beg for a reprieve.

As an extreme form, the Höss case clearly states that situation of general perversion of feelings and moral concepts, that splitting of public consciousness, which in National Socialist Germany allowed countless people to serve the regime of Hitler and Himmler even when its criminal character could no longer be ignored. . Höss's autobiography makes it clear why it was the people of his spiritual and moral constitution who became Hitler's followers. Their sense of "honest" was virtually destroyed. The doublethink, no longer realized, which had become their nature, turned them into their own propagandists, made them always right and deprived them of guilt. Already the words that Hoss chose for his notes confirm this. He calls “wrong” what was criminal, he calls the mass terror at Dachau a “punishment” that should be firmly carried out, and is immediately surprised at the “spread of slanderous fabrications” abroad, which did not stop “even when thousands of Jews thanks to them were shot » (page 109). Such embarrassing paradoxes become apparent when Hoess mentions "Kristallnacht" and writes how fires "broke" everywhere in the synagogues. Such formulations, which Höss often makes naively and without a direct apologetic intention, are generally symptomatic of the duality of his biography, which has preserved almost in its entirety the Nazi consciousness and its characteristic lexicon.

Hoess' notes contain surprisingly candid revelations, but they do not in any way indicate repentance. Although their writer claims that he recognized the extermination of the Jews as a crime, dozens of autobiographical fragments prove that there is nothing behind this recognition. On the whole, the apathetic efficiency of his autobiography excludes, in principle, genuine depression. Hoess, so to speak, formally admits the accusations against him. However, Hoess retains his conviction (which only intensifies towards the end of the notes) in the tragedy of his fate, and in the last sentences he grumbles at the world, which demands his death and sees him as the killer of millions, although he still had a "heart" and was "not bad" . Nevertheless, Hoss's fate is deprived of tragedy by his own notes: they testify that, being the commandant of Auschwitz, he was not particularly indignant at his occupation, and even more so did not rebel against him. For example, he writes that the recall from Auschwitz in November 1943 was a "painful parting" for him, that he "merged too much with Auschwitz" (p. 130 et seq.). Therefore, in assessing the experiences described by Hoess in his autobiography, one should remain vigilant. Much in them, including the description of the author's childhood, is obvious narcissism, many events in them are corrected in the description - perhaps not consciously. For example, Hoess reports how, as a child, he suppressed all outbursts of tenderness from his sisters (p. 26), how he listened with "burning enthusiasm" to the fascinating stories of missionaries - his father's friends, how he loved loneliness in the forest, "was never kind a boy or even an exemplary child, "but willingly" mischievous "and took part in all children's games - all this ideally corresponds to the templates of the Hitler Youth. Höss also retouched the description of his relationships with women - for example, he is silent about intimate relations with a Jewish woman, which he maintained while being the commandant of Auschwitz, and for which he almost appeared before an SS court 16 . However, in this case, Höss simply exposes his image of a petty-bourgeois hypocrite, capable of anything to get out of a dirty situation. The description of the volunteer corps and the murder is sustained in the same spirit, where the true events are also embellished and adjusted to the image of the selfless Hoess.

The righteous pathos that permeates the notes of Hoess, and which can confuse an uncritical reader, does not have a solid foundation.

At the same time, the indisputable facts from Hoess's autobiography make it quite informative. They illustrate something more than a single life. Even its purely external moments are very characteristic of the biographies of a whole group of Germans from the generation of Hoess. From the participation of a young volunteer in the First World War - to service in the volunteer corps and in the formations of the post-war period, or, later, the transition from the movement of rural settlements "Artamanen" to the SS - there are not so many accidents of personal life, here the tendency is documented development of the era. And although Hoess considers himself an individualist, a loner, it is all the more symptomatic that he went this way. Indicative in this regard is also the recognition of Hoess that he always felt good among his colleagues. Hess clearly does not understand that a certain kind of self-absorbed individualism is precisely a mass disease, that his "inner life", his immersion in love for animals, described in his autobiography, is nothing more than a withdrawal from communication with people, compensation for the impossibility of a person to establish connection with another person. It is quite obvious that the absolutization of male friendship also performs a compensatory function in the case of Goess. Corporate partnership, even taking into account its positive aspects, is still not based on the personal properties of individuals. It is created by the situation of the group itself, the very belonging to it, which clearly and indifferently makes each participant a “comrade”, despite his individual characteristics. Such a partnership is authoritarian, it is not based on a combination of personal qualities and their mutual complementation, but, on the contrary, it is a forced friendship, "friendship regardless of faces." Höss fled from the family and the world of civilians with the inherent responsibility of the individual to individuals in this world - and belonging to any community of men, whether it be a military unit, volunteer corps or SS, became for him a form of existence. And here, too, something more than personal fate makes itself felt. Höss can only live in a world of "duty" and hierarchical relations. Here is his field of activity, here he is well oriented and is suitable. And the difference between a front-line unit, a volunteer corps, a prison, and, finally, an SS “order” turns out to be only a formal difference here. Höss is just as efficient as a soldier in the trenches of the Palestinian Front, and as a prisoner in the Brandenburg prison, and later as a block führer and commandant of a concentration camp. He is always a trouble-free executive body of some kind of power.

The same properties also explain the corrosive efficiency of Hoess's notes made in the Krakow remand prison. He evaluates the opportunity to write in his autobiography as a task and work that brings him joy and alleviates the severity of his imprisonment (p. 63). And this mood is quite clearly reflected in the content and style of autobiographical notes - they are an example of forced labor performed to the conscience. Trying to increase the value of his work, Hoess shares with particular zeal what he considers the main treasures of his experience - the results of many years of reflection on prison and camp psychology, on the mentality of guards and prisoners. Without feeling at the same time how badly such teachings on the part of the commandant of Auschwitz look, Hoess now and again interrupts his biography with similar “professional” judgments, sustained in the same routine style of a social worker, which distinguished countless reports from punitive units that entered the Main Office almost daily. imperial security department. Perhaps the most interesting thing about these arguments is the circumstance to which they are subject. They deal almost exclusively with one issue - technology for better treatment of prisoners. Hoess's notes in this sense constitute a kind of guide on the subject of "Management of Prisoners in Prisons and Camps", and in this capacity they could rightly be submitted to the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps.

Here we would like to end a critical and by no means complete review of Höss's autobiography. We did not set ourselves the task of anticipating, let alone fixing, its interpretation. Nevertheless, an attempt at a critical analysis seemed necessary to us. It is demanded by the multi-layered evil that exposes itself in this document; among other things, the shameless efficiency and outrageous manner of historical witnessing inherent in the notes of Hess seem to us no less significant than the reports made by the author about terrifyingly clear facts. Be that as it may, in the life path of Hoess, all the nightmare and, at the same time, the terrifying reality of 12 years of National Socialism are most clearly represented. The semi-educated Höss, with his vague ideals, his rude arrogance and naive faith in authority, a man who, thanks to moral stupidity and official zeal, became an obedient tool of a criminal, but who did not dare to realize that the performance of duty was a crime - this is not a special psychological case, despite for individual symptoms. This is a manifestation of the general clinical picture of the far-reaching madness of the time of Hitler.

Foreword and commentary by Martin Brozat, 1958, Deutsche Verlags‑Anstalt, Stuttgart

For the first time I came across the mention of the name of this person in the book "The Nuremberg Interviews". There he was given some 28 pages out of 600, but I remembered him. Of all the Nazi criminals, he was the ONLY one who admitted his guilt (eventually he was hung up). But it was not this that was striking, but the way with which alienation and terrible simplicity he spoke about the horrors that took place in Auschwitz. Like a schoolboy retelling another chapter from a textbook.

In the book, Höss shows himself as a non-conflict person who does not have such a feeling as hatred. He loves animals, especially horses, to which he sometimes went after especially difficult everyday life in a concentration camp. Their beauty and grace he tirelessly admired on the pages of his book. In general, he is a person who respects and loves work very much. This theme occupies one of the central places in the book:

Especially cynical in this situation is the inscription that he asked to be erected over the gates of Auschwitz - "Work makes you free."

Also interesting is that part of his autobiography where he is appointed commandant and given the task to create a transit camp as soon as possible so that "transport" can already be sent. Here he, like an ordinary worker, talks about the difficulties and bureaucracy that he had to face along the way:

A lot of time is devoted to describing and condemning the prisoners (Poles, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians and others) who ended up in this death camp against their will:

Detailed and eerie stories about the work of the camp leave a heavy impression. Reading is recommended, but take it only when you are mentally prepared for what you will find there.

Commandant of Auschwitz Höss Rudolf Franz Ferdinand

8. Commandant of Auschwitz (1940-1943)

As soon as it was necessary to urgently create Auschwitz, the inspection did not have to look for a commandant for a long time. Loritz could have let me go in order to get a Schutzhaftlagerführer who would suit him better - it turned out to be Suhren, the last commandant of Ravensbrück, who was Loritz's adjutant in the general SS.

So I became the commandant of the newly created Auschwitz quarantine camp. It turned out to be quite far away, in Poland. There, the objectionable Hoess could let his labor enthusiasm run wild - such was the opinion of Glücks, the inspector of concentration camps. Under this sign, I accepted my new task. I myself did not expect to become commandant so quickly, especially since several more old Schutzhaftlagerführers had long been waiting for the vacant commandant positions. And the task was not easy.

I had to create in the shortest possible time a transit camp for 10,000 prisoners from the existing, although built up with well-preserved buildings, but completely neglected and infested with insects. In terms of hygiene, almost everything was missing. In Oranienburg they told me on the way that I could not count on much help, that I should help myself as far as possible. What was lacking was precisely what had been lacking everywhere in the Reich for years.

It was much easier to build a new camp than to urgently create, as ordered at the beginning, something usable from an unsuitable conglomeration of buildings and barracks. I had not yet reached Auschwitz, and the SIPO and SD inspector in Breslau was asking when the first transports could be received. From the very beginning, it became clear to me that something useful could come out of Auschwitz only thanks to the tireless hard work of everyone - from the commandant to the last prisoner. But in order to be able to harness everyone to work, I had to do away with the established traditions of the concentration camps. Demanding the highest tension from subordinates, I had to set an example in this.

When they woke up an ordinary SS man, I got up too. Before his service began, I passed by and left later. Rarely did a night in Auschwitz go by without someone calling me to report an emergency. If I wanted to get good results from the prisoners, I had to - in contrast to the norms that prevailed in concentration camps - it was better to treat them. I proceeded from the fact that I could accommodate and feed them better than in the old camps. Everything that didn't seem good enough to me, I wanted to change here. By this, I also understood the involvement of prisoners in willingly performed, creative work. Under these conditions, I could also demand exceptional results from the prisoners. I considered these factors firmly and definitely.

However, already in the first months, one might even say, in the first weeks, I was bitterly convinced that all good intentions and plans were shattered by the narrow-mindedness and stubbornness of most of my subordinates. By all means available to me, I tried to explain to my employees my intentions and my view of things, to show them that this is the only way to successfully complete the tasks set.

Wasted labor! In the “old men”, the many years of training with Eike, Koch, Loritsa sat so deeply, so ingrained in the flesh and blood, that even the most diligent simply were not capable of anything, except for what they had gotten used to in concentration camps for years. Beginners quickly learned from the "old people" - unfortunately, not the best. All attempts to get at least a few sensible commanders and non-commissioned officers from the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps for Auschwitz were unsuccessful. Glucks just didn't want it.

It was the same with the "functional prisoners". Raportführer Palich was to obtain from the RSHA for Auschwitz 30 suitable criminal and political prisoners of all professions. He selected in Sachsenhausen the 30 best, in his opinion, candidates - prisoners of all professions. In my opinion, hardly a dozen of them were suitable. Palic selected prisoners according to their ideas, the way he was used to, and how it was accepted. His abilities and did not allow him to act differently.

Thus, from the very beginning, an erroneous scheme lay in the arrangement of the camp. From the very beginning, norms prevailed, which subsequently grew into monstrous results. And all of them might not have come, and even would not have come, if the Schutzhaftlagerführer and the reporter had adhered to my point of view and conscientiously carried out my orders. But they did not want to and could not do this - because of narrow-mindedness, stubbornness, malice and, last but not least, for their own comfort. These creatures suited them - according to their abilities, according to their inclinations.

The true master of every concentration camp is the Schutzhaftlagerführer. Perhaps the personality of the commandant leaves an imprint on the life of prisoners, which becomes more or less obvious. Of course, the commandant is a guiding, decision-making force. Ultimately, he is responsible for everything. But the true manager of the lives of prisoners, the internal routine, is the Schutzhaftlagerführer or the Reportführer, if he is more intelligent and strong-willed. Of course, the commandant manages the lives of prisoners in the way he thinks is right. But how this control will be ultimately used depends on the leadership of the Schutzhaftlager. The Commandant relies entirely on the good will and common sense of his Schutzhaftlagerführer. It happens that the commandant himself performs his functions when he does not trust him or does not consider him capable of performing these functions. Only in this way can he ensure the execution of his instructions and orders in the sense that was originally communicated to him. Even a regimental commander finds it difficult to bring his own understanding of his orders to the final executors when it comes to things that go beyond the everyday. How much more difficult is it for the commandant to convey to the prisoner an order that has serious consequences, to achieve its strict execution! The leadership of the prisoners does not allow in most cases to control this. Ethical and disciplinary considerations would never allow a commandant to question a prisoner about SS personnel - unless it is about solving a crime. But even then, in almost all cases without exception, the prisoner does not know anything, or gives evasive answers, because he is afraid of reprisals.

These things I studied quite well at Dachau and Sachsenhausen, as Blockfuhrer, Reportfuhrer and Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer. I know perfectly well how to get around the unpleasant orders of the camp leadership and even sabotage them so that the leadership this did not notice.

In Auschwitz, it became clear to me that this was the case here. Radical changes were possible only after the immediate replacement of the camp leadership. But to achieve this from the Inspectorate of concentration camps would be impossible. And it was impossible to follow the literal execution of the orders given by me. To do this, I would have to postpone the solution of the main task - to create an active camp as soon as possible - and become a Schutzhaftlagerführer myself. It was at this time, during the creation of the camp, that I should have been there constantly - given the way of thinking of the Schutzhaftlagerführers. And it was then that the mediocrity of the leadership standing over me forced me to a long absence. In order to start and maintain camp production at all, I had to negotiate with economic authorities, with the landrat, with the head of the district administration. And since my chief of staff was a complete fool, I had to work for him, earning a livelihood for the guards and prisoners. And if it only concerned bread, meat, potatoes! I had to get even the straw. Since I could not count on the help of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, I had to turn around myself. I had to beg for fuel for cars. For boilers for the camp kitchen, I went to Zakopane and Rabka, for bunks and straw mattresses - to the Sudetes. And since my head of construction work was not able to get even the most necessary materials, I also had to deal with their search and procurement. In Berlin, they were still arguing about the departmental ownership of the expanded areas of Auschwitz - according to the contract, the entire object belonged to the Wehrmacht and was transferred to the jurisdiction of the SS only for the duration of the war. In the meantime, the RSHA, the Krakow Security Police Command, the Sipo and SD Inspectorate in Breslau were constantly asking when larger contingents of prisoners could be taken in. And I still didn’t know where I could get at least 100 meters of barbed wire. The sapper depot at Gleiwitz was piled high with barbed wire. But I could not get anything from there, because for this I first had to get a warrant from the headquarters of the engineering troops in Berlin. This did not bother the concentration camp inspectorate. Therefore, I was forced to simply steal the barbed wire that I needed so much. Wherever I found the remains of field fortifications, they were dismantled, and the bunkers were dismantled for the extraction of reinforcing iron. Wherever there were materials for the camp facilities, which were sorely needed for me, I ordered them to be taken away, without caring about their ownership.

I had to help myself.

At the same time, the resettlement of the first zone in the vicinity of the camp ended. The queue reached the second zone.

I had to take care of the use of the vacated agricultural land. In November 1940, the first RFSS report was made on the execution of the order to expand the camp areas.

When I was busy rebuilding and building in the camp, did I think that my first assignment would be just the beginning - the beginning of a chain of ever new assignments, new plans? From the very beginning, I gave myself to the tasks and instructions I received without a trace, one might even say, I was obsessed with them. All the difficulties on my way only pushed me to even greater zeal. I didn't want to give up. My ambition has nothing to do with it. I didn't see anything but work. The fact that, with an abundance of all kinds of work, I had little time for prisoners is more than understandable. I had to completely hand over the prisoners to such in all respects unpleasant people as Fritsch, Mayer, Seidler, Palich - although I realized that they did not organize life in the camp according to my model. I could devote myself completely and completely to only one task: either to engage in only prisoners, or to continue the restructuring and construction of the camp by all available means. Both tasks required the entire personality, without a trace. It was impossible to break. My task was and remains the construction of the camp. During the year, a variety of problems arose, but the main task, the solution of which I devoted myself entirely to, remained the same. She captured all my thoughts and aspirations. She subdued everything else. Only on the basis of it, I could lead.

From this point of view, I considered everything else. Glücks has often told me that my biggest mistake is doing everything myself instead of getting people to work. One should also take into account the mistakes that they made due to their own negligence. This also has to be taken into account. Not everything can happen the way we want it to. My protests against the fact that in Auschwitz I have the worst commanders and non-commissioned officers who force me to do all the most important things myself, not only because of their inability, but even more because of their negligence and malice, he did not take into account. According to his ideas, the commandant, sitting in his duty room, had to manage the camp by the mere force of orders and by telephone. Like, it would be enough for the commandant to accidentally pass through the camp!

Oh, holy simplicity!

Such an idea could only be formed because Glucks had never worked in the camp. Therefore, he could not understand my needs. Such a lack of understanding on the part of the authorities drove me almost to despair.

I gave my work all my possibilities, all my will, I went into it with my head - and this seemed like a game, the fulfillment of my own whims. After the visit of the RFSS in March 1941 and the receipt of new large tasks (but not help in the most necessary), my last hope for better, more reliable employees disappeared. I had to be content with those that were, continuing to fight with them. I could make my allies only a few really good, responsible workers - but, unfortunately, not in the most responsible positions. I had to load them and even overload them with work, which, as it became clear to me later, turned out to be no lesser evil. Because of this complete hopelessness, I became completely different in Auschwitz. Previously, in my immediate environment, especially in my comrades, I saw only good things - until I was convinced of the opposite. My gullibility has often played tricks on me. Only in Auschwitz, where the so-called collaborators betrayed me at every step and brought me daily disappointment, did I change. I became distrustful, everywhere I saw deceit, everywhere I saw only the worst. In every innovation, I also looked for the worst first of all. I have offended and alienated many wonderful, honest people. Trust is gone. The comradeship, which had previously been sacred to me, began to seem to me a farce - after all, old friends also disappointed me. Any friendly meetings began to disgust me. I missed each of these meetings, I was glad, having good reasons for my absence. Of course, my comrades blamed me for such behavior. Even Glücks often drew my attention to the fact that Auschwitz did not maintain comradely relations between the commandant and his assistants. I just wasn't capable of them anymore. Too often I had to be disappointed in people. More and more I retreated into myself. I became lonely and impregnable, noticeably hardened. My family, especially my wife, suffered greatly because of this - I was unbearable. I didn't see anything but my work. It took everything human out of me. My wife tried to break me out of this dungeon. She tried to "open" me by inviting acquaintances from afar, arranged friendly meetings for the same purpose, although her such social life interested me as little as it did me.

For a while, I pulled myself out of my "individualism." But new disappointments quickly returned me behind the glass wall. Even outsiders regretted my behavior. But I no longer wanted anything else - disappointments made me a misanthrope in a certain sense. It often happened that suddenly I became silent, even aloof, and preferred to walk alone, because suddenly I lost all desire to see anyone. By an effort of will, I pulled myself together, tried to overcome bouts of bad mood with the help of alcohol, and then again became talkative, cheerful, even cheeky.

In fact, alcohol brought me into joyful agreement with the whole world. In this mood, I did not offend a single person. In such a situation, I was lured into a lot of concessions that I would not have made in a sober state. However, I never drank alone, nor did I have any desire to.

I have also never been drunk, and even more so I did not fall into alcoholic excesses. When I had enough, I just quietly disappeared. Negligence in the service due to the protracted enjoyment of alcohol was not in principle. I could be delayed in returning home, but I always came to work on time and always full of energy. I always demanded the same behavior from my subordinates. Because no sin of the authorities demoralizes subordinates in the same way as taking any dose of alcohol at the beginning of the working day. However, here I did not meet the understanding of subordinates. Only my appearance forced them to sobriety - they stopped drinking, dirtyly mocking the "old man's whims." Wanting to do the job correctly, I had to become a motor that tirelessly strives for work, which should drive everyone on and on to work - it doesn’t matter if it’s an SS man or a prisoner. I struggled not only with the difficulties of wartime and attempts to shirk work, but also - daily, even hourly - with the indifference, negligence, disunity of my employees. Active resistance was broken, it was possible to fight against it. But against silent sabotage I was powerless - passive resistance was elusive, although it was present everywhere. But I had to drive the discontented, if there was nothing else left, by force of compulsion.

If before the war concentration camps were an end in themselves, then thanks to the will of the RFSS during the war they became a means to an end. First of all, they were supposed to serve the war itself, the creation of weapons. As far as possible, every prisoner should be made a worker in the creation of weapons. Each commandant had to completely subordinate the camp to the achievement of this goal. According to the will of the RFSS, Auschwitz should have been made a powerful center for the employment of prisoners in the work for the production of weapons. His statements during his visit in March 1941 were quite transparent in this sense. The camp for 100,000 prisoners, the rebuilding of the old camp for 30,000 prisoners, the need for 10,000 prisoners to produce a buna - everything spoke of this quite clearly. However, by this time, quantities appeared that became completely new in the history of concentration camps.

The camp with 10,000 prisoners was then considered unusually large.

The categoricalness with which the RFSS demanded the extremely rapid construction of the camp, its deliberate refusal to take into account the already existing, hardly removable shortcomings, then I was already alerted. The way he rejected the arguments of the Gauleiter and the head of the district administration spoke of something completely unusual. I got used to a lot, communicating with members of the SS and with the RFSS. But that categorical and that the intransigence with which the RFSS demanded the speedy execution of its just issued order was new to him as well. Even Glücks noticed it. And I alone was appointed responsible for the execution of this order. From nothing to create - and even instantly, according to the then concepts - something completely new, with my something workers, without hardly worth mentioning help from above, with bitter experience already accumulated! And what about the available labor force? What happened in the meantime to the Schutzhaft camp? The management of the Schutzhaft camp made every effort to preserve Eike's traditions in the treatment of prisoners. "Improved methods" brought by Fritsch from Dachau, Palich from Sachsenhausen, and Mayer from Buchenwald were also planted here. My constant reminders that Eike's views were long outdated by the change in the concentration camps themselves were ignored. It was impossible to banish Aike's lessons from their limited brains - Aike's instructions suited them much better. And all my orders and orders, which contradicted their consciousness, were simply “withdrawn from circulation”. It's not me, but they led the camp. They brought up functional prisoners - from lagerelteste to the last blockschreiber. They brought up camp blockfuhrers and taught them how to treat prisoners. However, I have already said and written about this enough. Against here such passive resistance I was powerless. All this can be understandable and reliable only for someone who himself served in the Schutzhaftlager for years.

I have already mentioned in passing what influence the camp asset has on its fellow campers. In a concentration camp it is especially strong. In the immeasurably huge masses of prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, this influence was a decisive factor. It would seem that a common fate, common suffering should lead to an indestructible brotherhood, to solidarity as solid as a rock. Deep delusion! Nowhere is naked egoism manifested so sharply and constantly as in prison. And the more severe the life there, the stronger the egoism. Such is the instinct of self-preservation.

Even natures, in ordinary life kind and ready to help, behind bars are able to ruthlessly tyrannize their comrades in misfortune, if this can make their own life easier. But how much more cruel are people, selfish from the beginning, cold, sometimes with criminal inclinations, in those cases when there is the possibility of even the slightest advantage. Prisoners who have not yet been stunned by the cruelty of camp life, in general, suffer from the mental impact much more than from the harshest physical impact. Even the lowest arbitrariness, the worst treatment on the part of the guards does not affect their psyche as much as the behavior of fellow camps. In itself, the helpless observation of how such members of the camp activists torture fellow camp members shakes the psyche of the prisoners. Woe to that prisoner who rises up against this, intercedes for the tortured! The terror of internal violence is too strong for anyone to dare to do so. And why the camp asset, functional prisoners turn So with your companions in misfortune? Because they want to seem like efficient guys, they want to present themselves in a favorable light to their like-minded people - guards and warders. Because they can thereby receive benefits that make their own existence easier. But this is always achieved at the expense of fellow campers. And the opportunity to behave in this way, to act in this way, is given to them by the guard, the warden, who either indifferently observes their behavior and does not stop their activities for reasons of his own comfort, or even approves of their actions out of low motives, and sometimes out of satanic gloating even encourages prisoners to mutual bullying. But even among the most active camp there are low creatures, obsessed with rudeness, meanness and criminal inclinations, who torture their fellow campers mentally and physically, who sometimes hound them to death, and who do it out of pure sadism. Even my present conclusion, my small horizon, has provided and will continue to provide sufficient occasions for seeing the above on a smaller scale and repeating all that has been said above. Nowhere is "Adam" more fully revealed than in the conclusion. There, everything feigned falls off him, everything borrowed, everything that is not characteristic of him. The length of his imprisonment forces him to give up all kinds of imitations, to stop playing hide and seek. A person turns out to be naked, the way he is: good or bad.

How did living together in prison affect certain categories of prisoners?

Reichsdeutsche All colors had no problems. Almost all of them, with a few exceptions, occupied "high" positions and, thanks to this, had everything for their physical needs. If they couldn't get something legally, they "got it".

Subjects capable of "getting everything" were in every group of responsible functionaries of Auschwitz, regardless of their color and nationality. The key to success was only the mind, courage and shamelessness. There has never been a shortage of convenient cases. After the beginning of the Jewish actions, there was practically nothing left that they could not get. And responsible functionaries also had the necessary freedom of movement.

The main contingent until the beginning of 1942 were Polish prisoners . They all knew that they would have to remain in KL at least until the end of the war. The majority believed that Germany would lose the war, and after Stalingrad, perhaps everyone. After all, thanks to enemy reports, they all had a correct idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "true position" of Germany. Listening to enemy messages was not difficult, there were enough radios in Auschwitz. You could listen to the radio even in my house. There were many opportunities through contact with civilian workers, and also through those SS men who facilitated extensive illegal correspondence. That is, there were plenty of news sources. In addition, news was brought by newcomers to the camp. Since, according to enemy propaganda, the defeat of the Axis states was only a matter of time, it would seem that in this sense the Polish prisoners had no cause for concern. The question was different: who will be lucky enough to survive the conclusion? It was precisely this kind of uncertainty that aggravated the position of the Poles. All of them experienced fear of accidental misfortunes that could happen on any day and with everyone: everyone could die from a contagious disease, which the weakened body was no longer able to resist. Everyone could be unexpectedly shot or hanged as a hostage. Anyone could suddenly be suspected of belonging to the Resistance movement and sentenced to death by the verdict of a court-martial. Could liquidate in the order of repression. They could, having set up an accident, kill ill-wishers at work. The prisoner could die from ill-treatment. Or from a similar accident that had hung over him for a long time. The agonizing question is: can he physically survive with increasingly poor food, in increasingly dilapidated housing, with a progressive general decline in hygienic conditions, doing a job that becomes more and more unbearable due to weather conditions? To this we must add constant anxiety for relatives and friends. Where are they now? Were they subjected to the same imprisonment or deportation to work? Are they alive at all? Many thought of an escape that would save them from such torment. It was not difficult to do this; there were many opportunities for escape in Auschwitz. The necessary conditions could be created. It was easy to fool the guards. With courage and a little luck, it could be done. When everything is at stake, one must also count on the outcome, which can end in death. But thoughts of escape were opposed by possible repressions, arrests of family members, and the liquidation of ten or more inmates. Many prisoners cared little about repression, they decided to escape against all odds. If they managed to get behind the chain of guard posts, then they were already helped by the local civilian population. The rest was no longer a problem. The possibility of failure did not stop them. Their slogan was: anyway, one way or another to disappear. Comrades in misfortune, fellow campers, had to march past the corpse of the one who was shot while trying to escape and see how the escape might end. This spectacle made many give up their intention to flee. This scared many. But the stubborn ones still decided to escape, and if they were lucky, they were among those 90 percent who managed to escape. What could be happening inside the prisoners who were marching next to the dead? I could read in their faces: horror before such fate, compassion for the unfortunate and revenge, retribution, for which the time will come. I saw the same faces during executions by hanging in front of the line of prisoners. Unless the fear of the same fate showed up on their faces more strongly.

Here I must also talk about the court-martial and the liquidation of the hostages, since all this concerned exclusively Polish prisoners. Usually the hostages were in the camp for a long time. Neither the prisoners nor the camp authorities knew that they were hostages. Suddenly, a telegram arrived with an order from the head of the zipo and SD or RFSS: the following prisoners should be shot or hanged as hostages. The execution should have been reported within a few hours. Those mentioned were brought from their workplaces or summoned and taken into custody. The prisoners, who had been in prison for a long time, already knew about everything, or at least guessed. Those taken into custody were announced about the execution. Initially, in 1940/1941 they were shot by the unit's executive team. At a later time, they were hanged or individually killed by a shot in the back of the head from a small-caliber gun; bedridden patients were eliminated by lethal injections. The Katowice Court-Martial usually arrived at Auschwitz every four to six weeks and sat in a chamber-type building. Most of the defendants who had already been imprisoned or brought shortly before were brought to the chairman and interrogated through an interpreter, or listened to their confessions. The prisoners I saw at the same time behaved freely, openly and confidently. Some women were especially courageous. In most cases, the death sentence was imposed, which was immediately executed. The defendants, like the hostages, went to their deaths with dignity. They were sure that they were dying for the Fatherland. I often saw fanaticism in their eyes, which reminded me of the Bible Students and their deaths. However, criminals sentenced by a court-martial - robbers, bandits, etc. - did not die like that. Either stupidly, stunned by the verdict, or with groans, with a howl, with a plea for mercy. And here the same pictures, the same phenomena as in Sachsenhausen: the ideological ones died bravely and with dignity, the asocial ones died stupidly or resisting.

Although the general conditions of detention in Auschwitz were indeed more than unfavorable, not a single political prisoner was willingly leaving for another camp. As soon as they became aware of the impending transfer, they went to great lengths to avoid it. In 1943, when the order came to transfer all Poles to the camps of the Reich, I was shocked by the number of requests from enterprises to leave them in Auschwitz as irreplaceable workers. Nobody wanted to leave Poland. They had to be replaced by force, according to the percentage. I have never heard of at least one Polish prisoner himself asking to be transferred to another camp. I could not understand the reason for such attachment to Auschwitz. Among the Polish prisoners there were three large political groups, whose adherents were fiercely at odds with their opponents. The strongest of them were national-chauvinists. They quarreled among themselves over positions of influence. As soon as one of them occupied an important place in the camp, he dragged the adherents of his group with him and cruelly ousted the adherents of the other group from his sphere of influence. This happened often and was not without insidious intrigues. I even allow myself to say that many cases of death due to diseases of typhus, typhus, etc. should be attributed to this struggle for power. I often heard from doctors that it was in the hospital that fights for dominance were constantly going on. The same applies to employment. After all, the hospital and the area of ​​labor were the most important places for the distribution of power in the life of prisoners. Whoever stayed there, he reigned. The reign was, and not so meager. There it was already possible to gather your friends from important positions, and remove or even eliminate unfriendly prisoners. All this was possible in Auschwitz.

Such political battles for power were played out in Auschwitz not only among Polish prisoners. Such political rivalry existed in all camps among all nationalities. Even among the Red Spaniards at Mauthausen there were two hostile groups.

And even in the pre-trial detention center, and then in prison, I once witnessed how the right and the left intrigued against each other.

In KL, these skirmishes for supremacy were diligently encouraged and fomented in order to prevent all prisoners from uniting. One of the main roles in this was played not only by political, but also by color antagonism. It would hardly have been possible to firmly manage the camp, to restrain thousands of prisoners, if their confrontation had not been used in this.

Divide et impera! - this is the most important rule not only in high politics, but also in the life of KL, and it cannot be neglected.

The next major contingent was Russian prisoners of war who were to build the KGL [= Kriegsgefangenenlager] Birkenau. They came from the Wehrmacht-controlled Lamsdorf 0/S POW camp completely exhausted. They came there on foot. On the way, they were not provided with food, during stops they were simply taken to the surrounding fields and there they "ate" like cattle, everything that could be eaten. Probably, about 200,000 Russians were to be kept in the Lamsdorf camp. prisoners of war. There they mostly huddled in dugouts that they built themselves. Food for them was completely inadequate and also irregular. They cooked their own food in the pits. Most of them “devoured” their food - I can’t call it the word “ate” - completely raw. The Wehrmacht was not ready for the masses of prisoners of war in 1941. The prisoner-of-war apparatus was too immobile to orientate itself quickly enough.

However, after the collapse in May 1945, the situation with German prisoners of war was no different. The allies were not ready for their mass influx. They simply herded them into suitable areas of the terrain, wrapped them lightly with barbed wire, and then left them to themselves. The same thing happened to them as to the Russians.

With these barely able-bodied prisoners, I now had to build KGL Birkenau. According to the order of the RFSS, only especially strong, fully able-bodied Russian prisoners of war were to be involved in this. The convoy officers accompanying them said they were the best they had at Lamsdorf. They would gladly have worked, but from exhaustion they were not capable of anything. I also know for sure that when they were still stationed in the Stalag, we gave them additional food. But without success. Their emaciated bodies could no longer absorb anything. Their bodies couldn't function. They died like flies from general asthenia, or from the slightest diseases that the body could no longer resist. I saw how they died in masses, trying to swallow beets, potatoes. For a while I took about 5,000 Russians to the place where trains with rutabagas were unloaded. There was no longer any space along the railroad track; there were mountains of rutabaga. But there was nothing to be done about her. The Russians were simply not physically capable of this. They indifferently and senselessly trampled about there or huddled in some secluded places to eat the food they found, vomit it out of themselves or die quietly. It became quite bad during the thaw in the winter of 41/42. They endured the cold better than dampness, the inability to dry out, and even in the unfinished, somehow standing stone barracks of Birkenau. As a result, death rates have steadily risen. Even those prisoners who previously retained some capacity for resistance were becoming fewer every day. The extra food didn't help either. As soon as they ate something, they vomited, they could no longer get enough.

I once witnessed how a column of several hundred Russians, which was being led along the road between Auschwitz and Birkenau, suddenly crossed from the road to a potato field lying near it, and they all did it at once, so that the convoy was taken by surprise, and partially crushed fled, and no one knew what to do in this situation. Fortunately, at this time I just drove up to restore order. The Russians rummaged through the piles and it was impossible to drag them away. Some died right there on the spot, with potatoes in their hands and in their mouths. They did not pay attention to each other, the instinct of self-preservation suppressed everything human in them. In Birkenau, cases of cannibalism were not uncommon. I myself found one Russian lying between heaps of bricks. His stomach was torn open with a blunt object and his liver was missing. They killed each other for food. One day I was riding and suddenly saw how one Russian hit another on the head with a brick in order to take away bread from him, which he was chewing, squatting behind a pile of stone. When I arrived at this place through the entrance - after all, I was galloping along the wire fence outside the camp - the one who was sitting behind a pile of stone was already lying with a broken skull and was dead. It was no longer possible to identify the criminal in the mass of Russians scurrying around right there. During the laying out of the first construction site, when trenches were being dug, the corpses of Russians killed by others were found many times, partially eaten and hidden in different cracks. Thus, the mysterious disappearance of many Russians became clear to us. From the windows of my apartment, I saw how one Russian carried his bowler hat behind the commandant's office and at the same time assiduously scraped it out. Suddenly, another one jumped out from around the corner and attacked him. He knocked the bowler hat out of his hands, pushed it onto a live wire, and disappeared. The sentry on the tower also saw this, but did not have time to shoot at the runner. I immediately called the officer on duty, ordered the electricity to be turned off, and I also went to the camp to find the criminal. The one who fell on the wire was dead. Couldn't find another one.

They were no longer people. They have become animals prowling in search of food. Of the more than 10,000 Russian prisoners of war brought in as the main labor force for the construction of the Birkenau POW camp, by the summer of 42, only a few hundred remained alive. This remainder consisted of selected specimens. They worked great and were used as a flying work crew wherever something needed to be built quickly. But I never got rid of the impression that these survivors survived at the expense of their fellow campers, because they were fierce, unscrupulous, had "strong skins."

It seems that in the summer of 1942 this remnant managed to make a mass escape. Most of them were shot dead, but many managed to escape. The reason for this escape, according to those caught, was the fear of gassing when they were announced to be transferred to a new, newly built sector. They decided that by announcing the transfer, they really want to deceive them. But gassing these Russians was never intended. Of course, they knew about the liquidation of Russian political officers and commissars. And they feared that the same fate awaited them. So there was a mass psychosis and such it had consequences.

The next major contingent was gypsies. Already long before the war, as part of actions against asocial elements, Roma were also transferred to KL. One of the departments in the Criminal Police Service was engaged only in the supervision of the Roma. In the Roma camp there were also non-Roma vagrants imprisoned as work evaders or anti-social elements. Subsequently, the gypsy camps were revised from a biological point of view. The RFSS wanted both main gypsy clans to be preserved without fail - the names of these genera are unknown to me.

In his opinion, they were descendants of the Indo-Germanic proto-people in a straight line and quite well preserved their appearance and their customs. All of them should have been preserved for research purposes, rewritten and taken under protection as a historical monument. Later they were to be collected from all over Europe and taken to the place allotted for them.

In 1937/1938, all nomadic gypsies were gathered in the so-called residential camps in large cities in order to better control them.

In 1942, an order was issued according to which all gypsies, as well as half-breed gypsies, in the Reich were to be arrested and taken to Auschwitz, regardless of age and gender. The only exceptions were the recognized pure gypsies of both main clans. They were to be settled in the Odenburg district near the Neusiedler See lake. Those brought to Auschwitz were to remain in the family camp for the duration of the war. However, the instructions regarding those arrested were not given with sufficient precision. Different police departments interpreted them differently, and as a result, it came to the arrest of persons who in no case could be included in the circle of internees. Many front-line soldiers, who were wounded many times, who came on vacation and had high awards, were arrested because their fathers or mothers, or grandfathers, etc. were gypsies or half-breed gypsies. Among them was even an old party member whose gypsy grandfather had settled in Leipzig. He himself had a big business there and was a participant in the World War who distinguished himself many times over. Among them was one student, the head of the Union of German Girls in Berlin. And there are many similar cases. I reported this to the Criminal Police Service. After that, the gypsy camp was subjected to revision. Many were released, but this almost did not affect the entire mass. How many gypsies or half-breeds were in Auschwitz, I can no longer say. I only know that they completely occupied the sector designed for 10,000. However, in Birkenau, the general conditions were completely different from those that should have been in a family camp. For this, all the conditions were absent there - despite the fact that these gypsies should have been kept until the war was over. For example, it was impossible to properly feed the children there, although, referring to the order of the RFSS, I was cunning and received food for small children from the food services. But this soon came to an end, as the Ministry of Food began to turn down all applications for baby food for KL.

In July 1942, the RFSS made an inspection. I showed him the gypsy camp in every detail. He examined everything in detail, saw residential barracks packed to overflowing, insufficient hygienic conditions, overcrowded hospital barracks, saw contagious patients, saw the childhood contagious noma, which always frightened me. These emaciated children's bodies with huge through holes on their cheeks, this slow decay alive reminded me of leprosy patients, of lepers, whom I first saw in Palestine.

He learned of the mortality figures, which were comparatively low compared to the entire camp. However, infant mortality was unusually high. I do not think that many of the newborns survived the first weeks. He carefully examined everything and ordered us to destroy them after they, like the Jews, were selected for work. I drew his attention to the fact that these faces still do not quite correspond to those for which Auschwitz is intended. He then ordered that the State Criminal Police Office undertake a selection as soon as possible. This went on for two years. The able-bodied Roma were transferred to another camp. By August 1944 there were about 4,000 gypsies left to go to the gas chambers.

Until the last moment, they did not know what awaited them. Only when they went barrack-by-barrage to crematorium I did everything become clear to them. Getting them into the cells was not easy. I myself did not see this, but Schwarzhuber told me that no action to exterminate the Jews was so difficult, and he experienced it especially hard, because he knew almost every one of them and treated them well. After all, they were trusting like children. Despite the abhorrent conditions of detention, most of the Gypsies, as I have often seen, did not suffer much mentally from imprisonment, except for the fact that they were aware that they were denied the satisfaction of their wanderlust. Cramped quarters, poor hygienic conditions, partly also insufficient food - they are used to all this in their former primitive life. They also did not treat diseases and high mortality tragically. With all their being they remained children, impulsive in their thoughts and actions. They willingly played, even during work, which they did not take seriously. Even the worst they did not take to heart. They were optimists. I have never seen a gypsy with a gloomy look filled with hatred. As soon as they entered their camp, they immediately left the barracks, played their instruments, made the children dance, performed their usual tricks. There was a huge kindergarten where children could have fun and play all kinds of games. When they spoke to the gypsies, they answered carelessly and trustingly, expressed all their wishes. It always seemed to me that the gypsies simply did not realize that they were in prison. They were fiercely at odds with each other. This enmity was created by the large number of their clans and families, as well as by their own hot, warlike blood. But the relatives were closely united and very strongly attached to each other. When it came to the selection of able-bodied and parting, which broke up families, there were many touching scenes, there were many sufferings and tears. But when they were told that in time they would all come together again, they more or less calmed down. For some time we kept able-bodied gypsies in the Stalag Auschwitz; they did their best to look at their relatives at least from afar. Often, according to the results of the roll call, we had to look for young gypsies - yearning for their relatives, with the help of deceit and cunning, they made their way to her in the gypsy camp. Already in Oranienburg, when I was in the KL Inspectorate, the gypsies, who knew me from Auschwitz, spoke to me and asked about members of their clans. Including those who have long been suffocated with gas. I always found it difficult to give them evasive answers - just because of their great gullibility. Although I had a lot of trouble with them in Auschwitz, they were still my favorite prisoners - if I can even put it that way. They were not able to do one job for a long time. They happily "gypsies" everywhere. They were most willing to work in the transport team, because they could go everywhere with it, amuse their curiosity, and also be able to steal. This passion for theft and vagrancy was innate and ineradicable in them. Their morality was completely different. Theft in their eyes was absolutely not evil. It was incomprehensible to them that there should be a punishment for this.

All this I am talking about the majority of those arrested, about the really wandering, always restless wandering gypsies, as well as about the mestizos who became gypsies, but not about the settled ones who lived in cities. They have already taken a lot from civilization, and, unfortunately, not the best.

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From the Sacrifice of Abraham to Auschwitz Zeev Barsella, writer, linguist, literary critic - In the essays of Joseph Brodsky, the word “alienation” is used more than once, meaning an indispensable condition for the existence of a true poet. How important was it in life?

Barbara Cherish is the daughter of an SS officer, and this has been a heavy burden on her conscience all her life.

From early childhood, she knew that her father Arthur Liebehenschel was involved in something terrible, which the family preferred never to touch.

Only later, when she was an adult, did Barbara learn that during World War II he had been commandant of one of the three Auschwitz camps for five months.

She revealed a terrible family secret after the crisis in her life - a divorce from her husband and the death of her sister. These events prompted her to start digging into the past and piece by piece to restore a complete picture of her father's history.

The result of her investigation is a book in which she tries to reconcile her love for the father she never knew with the pain that brings her awareness of his crimes, for which he was sentenced to death in Poland after the war.

I have mixed feelings because he was a complex person. And this good man really tried to do everything he could to help the prisoners Barbara Cherish

“Growing up in my family, I was never allowed to talk about the past. When I was little, I heard isolated things about my mysterious father, about Auschwitz. But I never thought about it because I was too young. But I knew what it was something very bad,” says Barbara.

“There was, of course, a sense of guilt that I think we all have. We live with that guilt…because we are the children of criminals,” she adds.

Barbara was born in 1943, and at the age of six she was given to a foster family. Her new family emigrated to the United States in 1956, where she remained to live.

At the beginning of the meeting with me in a cafe in San Diego, Barbara apologized in advance, saying that "sometimes she can't contain her feelings." And indeed later she could hardly hold back her tears.

Compassion

The details of her father's life that she unearthed caused her a lot of pain. He was one of the commandants of Auschwitz, and before that he left his wife and children for another woman. After the war, her mother was seriously ill and in 1966 committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital.

According to Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the research department at the Auschwitz Museum, Liebehenschel was not directly responsible for the gas chambers at the second camp, Birkenau, but he was responsible for sending the prisoners of his camp to their deaths.

Image caption The infamous gate to the first Auschwitz camp

Despite this, Barbara maintains a filial devotion to her father. It was to him that she dedicated her book The Auschwitz Kommandant, in which she claims that Liebehenschel was a complex person, capable of mercy towards prisoners and suffering from guilt for being involved in the murder of women and children.

One of the Germans who worked in Auschwitz, testifying at the Liebehenschel trial, said that he once even went to Berlin in an attempt to prevent 500 prisoners from being sent to the gas chambers.

Several former death camp inmates also testified in his defense. According to them, he improved conditions in the camp to some extent. In announcing the verdict of capital punishment, the court acknowledged that its allegations of attempts to "introduce fair treatment of prisoners and eliminate hardships" were true.

In her book, Barbara quotes ex-prisoners who say that he ordered the release of prisoners who were kept in basements for months, canceled beatings for minor offenses, and put an end to the network of informers among prisoners.

According to Piotr Setkevich, Liebehenschel "was not a villain, like many high-ranking SS officers."

"There is evidence from a former prisoner who said that when Liebehenschel found out that some of the prisoners' shoes were leaking, he ordered that they be provided with new ones," says the historian.

"Perhaps he was a humanist. But in those days the SS used the labor of prisoners and it is possible that he just wanted them to work better. But I have never heard such stories about [Liebehenschel's predecessor as head of the camp, Rubolf] Hesse, for example" , he added

suffering

Another unexpected feature of Liebehenschel's character was the choice of his second wife, Annalize. From the point of view of the SS, she was too close to the Jews.

If not for this, he would never have got into service in Auschwitz.

He didn't want to go to Auschwitz. He was sent there as punishment Barbara Cherish

As she delved into the documents, she felt more and more sorry for her father.

"It hurt me a lot because he really didn't want to be there at all. He didn't want to go to Auschwitz. He was sent there as a punishment," she says.

Barbara found Annalize and she told her what this punishment meant to Liebehenschel.

According to her, when a new batch of prisoners was brought in, he returned home upset, exclaiming "oh no, women and children." He was tormented by headaches, he went for long walks, stood in the shower for a long time, according to his daughter, in order to "wash away the evil, which, of course, was impossible."

But can all this change the opinion of Liebehenschel?

From Piotr Setkevich's point of view, "before a final conclusion can be drawn, all the testimonies" about Liebehenschel's track record must be carefully analyzed. However, no matter what improvements and indulgences he introduced in comparison with other, the worst, leaders of Auschwitz, in the end "the difference here is small."

Liebehenschel participated in the genocide and during his tenure as head of the camp, many innocent people were sent to their deaths.

Former Auschwitz prisoner Franz Danimann told Barbara that her father's death sentence was "probably fair from a historical and legal point of view", but "he should have been granted amnesty" due to his "various and positive initiatives that made life easier for many prisoners."

No excuse

However, in addition to those prisoners who characterized Liebehenschel on the good side, there are others, and Barbara also cites their opinion in her book.

Former prisoner of the camp Vladislav Feikel said that during the time of Liebehenschel "there were no positive changes in the attitude towards prisoners in terms of food and medicine. Sanitary conditions remained poor."

He says that Liebehenschel asked to be informed about sick and weak prisoners, so that they would be considered first of all when deciding on the issue of release from the camp. But he adds that he "does not know of a single case in which any prisoner who was reported to him was released."

Image caption Liebehenschel claimed he was trying to ease the conditions for the prisoners

Barbara emphasizes that she is not trying to excuse her father's actions and that she is appalled at what the Nazis were doing. Its goal is to paint a "three-dimensional" picture of the past, which is done very rarely in relation to Nazi criminals, among whom were both bad people and good ones.

She admits that her father did not always tell the truth during interrogations, and does not believe his claims that he knew nothing about the gas chambers before arriving at Auschwitz.

She emphasizes that he was devoted to Hitler and voluntarily joined the SS. But at the same time, she also sees that he is "entangled in the [Nazi] web."

"The question torments me ... and I will never know the answer to it ... did he know at the very beginning what a terrible organization he was in," she says.

Barbara expresses an opinion that probably only Liebehenschel's relatives can agree with: "I have mixed feelings because he was a difficult person. And this good person really tried to do everything he could to help the prisoners."

Guilt

The book has not lightened the burden she carries on her shoulders.

After the interview, Barbara went to the wedding of friends. She emailed me two days later saying that she sat next to two Jewish couples at the event.

She writes that she "quietly asked her companion not to mention the book." She was horrified at the mere thought of denouncing this topic.

"After all these years, it's still very hard for me to tell - especially to Jews - that I'm my father's daughter," she points out.

"I don't know if my family and I will ever get rid of the guilt that we experience as the children of my father, an SS officer and commander of Auschwitz," she added.

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