The banality of evil reconsidered: SS mid-level managers of extermination through work

Central European History

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 253-294

  Allen, Michael Thad ^a  

^a GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 67649742563     PISSN: 00089389     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0008938900014047     Document Type: Article

References (152)

1. For a thorough revfew of the literature see Hans-Ulrich Ludewig, "Zwangsarbeit im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Forschungsstand und Ergebnisse regionaler und Iokaler Fallstudien," Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 31 (1991): 558-78.
2. The standard work is Falk Pingel, Häftlinge unlet SS-Hettschaft: Widetstand, Selbstbehauptung und Vetnichtung im Konzenttationslager (Hamburg, 1978).
3. Among many excellent case studies see Klaus-Jörg Siegfried, Das Leben äet Zwangsarbeitet im Volkswagenwerk 1939-45 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988);
4. Rainer Fröbe, et al., eds., Konzenttationslaget in Hannover: KZ-Atbeit und Rüstungsindustrie in der Spätphase des Zweiten Weltktiegs (Hildesheim, 1985), 1-43; 131-276.
5. For an excellent, short overview see Ulrich Herbert, "Arbeit und Vernichtung: Ökonomisches Interesse und Primat der 'Weltanschauung' im Nationalsozialismus," in 1st det Nationalsozialismus Geschichte? Zu Historisietung und Historiketstreit, ed. Dan Diner (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 198-236.
6. Current historical treatments of the SS largely overlook the WVHA and the ideals proclaimed by its officers. Robert Gellately's extensive review essay discusses primarily the SD of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, "Situating the 'SS-State' in a Social-Historical Context: Recent Histories of the SS, the Police, and the Courts in the Third Reich," Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): 338-65.
7. Several historians have begun to provide historical treatments of the WVHA. See for instance, Walter Naasner, Neue Machtzentren in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1942-45: Die Wirtschaftsorganisation der SS, das Amt des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitseinsatz und das Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition/Reichsministerium für Rüstungs- und Kriegsproduktion im nationalsozialistiscken Herrschaftssystem (Boppard am Rhein, 1994);
8. Hermann Kaienburg, "Vernichtung dutch Arbeit," Der Fall Neuengamme: Die Wirtschaftsbestrebungen der SS und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Existenzbedingungen der KZ-Gefangenen (Bonn, 1990);
9. Miroslav Karny, "SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs Hauptamt: Verwalter der KZ-Häftlingsarbeitskräfte und Zentrale des SS-Wirtschaftskonzerns, " in Deutsche Wirtschaft: Zwangsarbeit von KZ-Häftlingen für Industrie und Behörden, ed. Ludwig Eiber and Jan Reemtsma (Hamburg, 1991), 153-67.
10. Wolfgang Sofsky, Die Ordnung des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt am Main, 1993), 21 and 296-314.
11. Quoted in Christopher Browning, "The Decision Concerning the Final Solution," in idem, Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (New York, 1985), 10-11.
12. Hans Mommsen, "Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die 'Endlösung der Judenfrage' im Dritten Reich" in idem, Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991), 213-14.
13. Both citations from Sofsky, Ordnung des Terrors, 33.
14. NO-542, Walter Salpeter, undated, from between April 39 and June 39, "Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W)." (PS, NO, NI, and NG documents were collected for the war-crimes trials against leading Nazis after the war. They are deposited in many different locations and the National Archives has microfilmed them. I will use the PS, NO, NI, and NG numbers to facilitate location in different archives.)
15. Dieter Rebentisch, "Hitlers Reichskanzlei zwischen Politik undVerwaltung, "in Verwaltung contra Menschenführung im Staat Hitlers: Studien zum politisch administrativen System, ed. idem (Göttingen, 1986), 65-99;
16. and Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Verfassungsentwicklung und Verwallungspolitik 1939-45 (Stuttgart, 1989);
17. Hans Mommsen, Beamtenium im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1966). Rebentisch's chief concern is that National Socialists so hypocritically claimed to create a simplified, unitary bureaucracy but ended up creating a ballooning, unwieldy one instead. Yet he deals relatively stingily with those authorities which actually proved themselves to be very competent - like Albert Speer's or Fritz Todt's armaments ministry and Fritz Sauckel's plenipotentiary for the Reich Labor Action. Nevertheless Rebentisch remains convinced that "because of his total ignorance of administrative-organizational and state-legal affairs, [Speer] frequently presided over considerable confusion of competencies and not without reason the Reichskanzlei considered him one of the greatest destroyers of the Reich's system of administration" (p. 337 and likewise a similar comment about Todt: p. 346). The startling efficacy of Speer's armaments ministry and its organizational innovations (the Ausschüsse and Ringe for example) never warrant mention. Nor does the book mention that Speer and others like him aggressively tried to erect modern administrative hierarchies precisely because they were hostile to the traditional bureaucracy of the German Beamtenium. That Speer was a nuisance to the Reichskanzlei can hardly serve as evidence that Speer was incompetent.
18. This is despite the emphasis that Raul Hilberg placed on "organizational innovations" that made genocide possible. See The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1967).
19. Hilberg's exploration of bureaucracy has also been pursued by Christopher Browning in several important essays, esp. "Bureaucracy and Mass Murder: The German Administrator's Comprehension of the Final Solution," in idem, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge, 1992), 125-44.
20. Peter Hüttenberger, "Nationalsozialistische Polykratie," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 2 (1976): 417-42.
21. Of course, Franz Neumann's, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (Oxford, 1942) prefigured Huttenberger's analysis.
22. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963 [repr. 1977]).
23. Martin Broszat, The Hitter Stale: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich (New York, 1969 [trans. 1981]).
24. Dieter Rebentisch, "Hitlers Reichskanzlei," 65-99.
25. Hüttenberger, "Nationalsozialistische Polykratie," 421-23, citation 421.
26. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, pt. 3 (New York, 1951), 27. Christopher Browning has pointed out to me that the image of bureaucratic "cogs" is not nearly as influential among contemporary scholars as among early interpreters of the Nazi genocide, and he is, of course, correct. Nevertheless, as recent synthetic work by Zygmunt Bauman attests, this image lingers.
27. See for instance, Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithica, 1989), 195. Bauman's judgments about the Holocaust are strikingly similar to Arendt's own. He decries the amorality of modern bureaucracy and technology.
28. C. Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (Oxford, 1951), xv, xvii,
29. and the chapter "The Morale of the Cheerful Robots," 233-35.
30. Arendt, Eichmann, 26 and 49 respectively.
31. Mommsen, "Die Realisierung," 213-14.
32. Compare Albert Speer, Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Master-plan for SS Supremecy (London, 1981).
33. Walter Naasner's, Neue Machtzentren offers a narrowly conceived study of the WVHA Arbeitseinsatz, the Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz (Fritz Sauckel), and the Ministerium Speer precisely because he has employed a polycratic model of institutional history. Although based on extensive primary research, the book explores very little secondary literature nor does it account for the social makeup of the SS. In one case Naasner labels an energetic man of 36 a "grey eminence" of the WVHA (pp. 238-39 and ff.).
34. In another case, Naasner expresses surprise that the holding company (Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe) founded by the SS possessed little capital (pp. 421-29). Yet holding companies serve exactly this function: they act as central organs for the audit of profit and loss among subsidiaries but avoid carrying capital liabilities as much as possible. Instead of viewing the institutions at the center of his book as corporations and state bureaucracies with substantive functions, Naasner unfortunately views them merely as political bodies vying for power. Too often the SS's main goal appears as "institutionelle Verselbstständigung" (p. 402). The book seldom goes on to address what use the SS had in mind for its institutional independence. The content of daily operations and the motivational drives of perpetrators only appears in one detached chapter that is not integrated into the body of the book.
35. Reinhart Koselleck, Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1191 bis 1848 (Stuttgart, 1967).
36. When WVHA officers are mentioned at all in postwar histories, too often they are presented as stupid (see Albert Speer, Infiltration [New York, 1981], 15
37. Enno Georg discusses the WVHA's "aspirations toward monopoly" (Monopolbestrebungen) but no ideological motivations in Die wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen der SS (Stuttgart, 1963), esp. 142.
38. Robert Koehl's treatment is quite typical: "These men can neither be described as ideologically motivated nor as misfits of the depression ..."; rather they were efficient businessmen who sought only to profit personally from concentratiohcamp labor (The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS (Madison, 1983), 170). Thus existing scholarship offers meager evidence to dissuade the reader from viewing the SS's labor lords as "cogs in the machine" of genocide.
39. Contrary to most of what is claimed about the SS, private industry, and the armaments ministry originally came to Himmler and asked for his help. This is treated extensively in Michael Allen, "Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS: the Business Administration Main Office (Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt) ," (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995), 307-82. Up until March of 1942, Himmler and Pohl had been busy with plans for their own labor-action that had nothing to do with weapons production: namely the production of building materials and the furnishing of construction brigades for the SS Friedensbauprogram.
40. See Pohl and Kammler to RFSS, 10 February 1942, "Aufstellung von SS-Baubrigaden für die Durchführung von Bauaufgaben des RFSS in Kriege und Frieden," Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK) NS 19/2065 and the entire NS 19/2065 file.
41. The impetus for this reorganization was not, as many have suggested, spurred by the mobilization for total war. Nor did Himmler order the formation of the WVHA to head off a brewing power struggle between Speer's war ministry, Fritz Sauckle's, General-bevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz, and the SS as some suggest. Lastly, Himmler was not interested in establishing the SS as an independent armaments producer. Cf. Naasner, Neue Machtzentren;
42. Herbert, "Arbeit und Vernichtung," esp. 218-19;
43. Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rüstung im Krieg (Berlin, 1968), 97-103;
44. and Karl Heinz Roth, "'Generalplan Ost' - 'Gesamtplan Ost': Forschungsstand, Quellenprobleme, neue Ergebnisse," in Der "Generalplan Ost": Hauptlinien der nationalsozialisthchen Plantings- und Vernichtungspolitik, ed. Mechtild Rössler et al., (Berlin, 1993), 25-95.
45. All of these authors have conducted exhaustive research into primary documents, and the probing analysis of Herbert and Janssen is rarely matched. Nevertheless, here the overemphasis lent to polycratic power struggles has diverted even these farsighted scholars from underlying issues of deep ideological importance to the SS, not to mention the initial eagerness for collaboration on the part of Speer's ministry and Himmler's labor lords. The WVHA's incorporation of the IKL, for instance, seems to have come in response to an initiative by Walter Schieber, one of Speer's closest deputies. The transition to total war is treated extensively in Michael Allen, "Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS: the Business Administration Main Office," 307-50.
46. Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (New York, 1961).
47. From Eicke's personal file; in Tom Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen: Zur Geschichte der KZ-Kommandanten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1992 [orig. 1988]), 145.
48. Michael Allen, "Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS," 62-88. See also the forthcoming dissertation of Karin Orth, at the Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg on KZ personnel, who points out that there was great continuity among the internal Lagerführer who exercised the most control over daily prison life (separate from the Standortärzte and Verwaltungsführer, who formed a very discrete, continuous group). I thank Karin Orth here for our many profitable conversations.
49. Kaienburg, "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" 90-112, 423-28.
50. Walter Salpeter, 1939, NO-542, "Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W) in the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the RFSS."
51. The best treatment of this period 1 have found is Paul Jaskot, "The Architectural Policy of the SS, 1936-45" (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1993), chap. II.
52. Staatssckretär des RJM-Berlin, Dr.Jur. Roland Freisler, "Arbeitseinsatz im Strafvollzug" (Title Article for 13 September 1940), Deutsche Justiz 102 (1940): 1021-25.
53. This is exactly the function of labor identified by Goffman, Asylums, 141 and ff.
54. Its practice is described clearly by Hans-Günter Richardi, Schule der Gewalt: Das Konzentrationslager Dachau 1933-34 (Munich. 1983), 83-87, 150-54
55. and Klaus Drobisch and Günther Wieland, System der NS-Konzentrationslager 1933-39 (Berlin, 1993), 76-81.
56. Pingel, Häftlinge unter SS-Herrschaft, 37;
57. Johannes Tuchel, Konzentrationslager: Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der "Inspektion der Konzentrationslager" 1934-38 (Berlin, 1991), 153-56.
58. Compare Richardi, Schule der Gewalt, 88.
59. These were the orders of Eicke's direct predecessor, Hilmar Wäckerle, PS-1216, Dr.Wintersberger to Staatsanwaltschaft bei dem Landgericht München II; Staatsministerium der Justiz, 29 May 1933 (one month before Eicke),"Sonderbestimmungen (Lagerordnung) - Dienstvorschriften. Vermerkung über Todesfälle-Besprechung."
60. Theodor Eicke, 1 October 1933,"Disziplinar- u. Strafordnung für das Gefangenenlager" and "Dienstvorschriften für die Begleitpersonen und Gefangenenbewachung," Bundesarchiv Potsdam (hereafter BAP), Microfilm Collection PL5: Roll 42053. These films lack frame numbers.
61. Walter Bartel, et al., ed., Buchenwald Mahnung und Verpflichtung (Berlin, 1960), 222.
62. Drobisch and Wieland, Das System, 435. My friend Paul Jaskot points out that some of the most brutal forms of physical labor took place in SS stone quarries, where prisoners could be worked to death and high output could be safeguarded simultaneously using laborintensive means of production.
63. See Jaskot, "The Architectural Policy of the SS," esp. 125.
64. Kaienburg, "Vernichlung durch Arbeit," 200-1.This interview, conducted by Kaienburg, did not include dates of the prisoner's incarceration. Judging from the work, however, this was probably sometime between 1940-1942.
65. Testimony of Fritz Schmidt, KL Häftling im Aussenlager Zwieberge in Bartel et al., Buchenwald Mahnung, 269.
66. Compare Frederick Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management (New York, 1911), 57-62.
67. Theodor Eicke, 1 October 1933,"Disziplinar-u. Strafordnung für das Gefangenenlager" and "Dienstvorschriften für die Begleitpersonen und Gefangenenbewachung," DAP, PL5: 42053.
68. Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 127.
69. Pingel, Häftlinge, 37-39.
70. Every concentration camp was supposed to have an administrative and a technical office. The administrative officers took charge of payroll and supplies for camp guards. Labor management lay far from their concerns, unless they employed a few prisoners in their own service. Ibid, Dr. Wintersberger, 29 May 1933, "Sonderbestimmung" and Eicke, 1 October 1933, "Dienstvorschriften" and "Lagerordnungen." unsigned, undated, "Lagerordnung für die Konzentrationslager," with chart, BAP, PL5: 42053. Dated by Höss from 1936.
71. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 192-202;
72. Kaienburg, "Vernichtung dutch Arbeit," 56-63.
73. PS-1469, Oswald Pohl to Himmler, 30 September 1943, "Todesfälle in den KL."
74. See the tables of mortality statistics in Miroslav Karny, " Vernichtung durch Arbeit: Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagem," in Sozialpolitik und Judenvemichtung: Gibt es eine Ökonomie der Endlösung? ed. Götz Aly, et al. (Berlin, 1987), 140-45, esp. tables 140-41.
75. See Gunnar Boehnert, "The Third Reich and the Problem of 'Social Revolution': German Officers and the SS," in Germany in the Age of Total War. ed. Volker Berghahn, et al. (London,1981), 203-17, esp. 206.
76. Herbert Ziegler, Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy: The SS Leadership 1925-39 (Princeton, 1989), 93-148. As yet we have no rigorous social analysis of the IKL personnel, who were different from the Waffen-SS Totenkopf divisions that Boehnert and Ziegler analyze. However Karin Orth is doing extremely interesting work on exactly this problem.
77. Most officers under Pohl had received systematic training in modern administration. In fact, almost 80 percent received some kind of occupational training and over 40 percent of these held higher academic degrees, most typically in economics, business law, or - in the future construction corps organized by Pohl - in civil engineering. I have counted the Abitur as elite education, sufficient to prepare one for a business career. I did not count Volksschulen and apprenticeships as modern occupational training. Expanding educational institutions between the wars provided valuable modern occupational training which was, however, not considered elite, for example, the Fächschulen, Technikum, technische Lehranstalten, Handelsschulen, or military training programs. I am indebted to Kees Gispen who helped me to clarify some of these categories. Scanning some of the SS managers' dissertation titles should leave little doubt about their acquaintance with modern management: Hanns Bobermin, "Die Rationalisierung des kaufmännischen Büros im Industriellen Grossbetrieb und ihre Wirkungen auf Angestellte," (Wirtschaftswissenschaft diss., University of Rostock, 1930).
78. Walter Salpeter, "Verbotene und unsittliche Geschäfte im Steuerrecht," (Jura, diss.. University of Halle-Wittenberg, 1933).
79. Max Horn, "Zum Bewertungsproblem in der Jahresbilanz der Unternehmung," (Leipzig, 1935).
80. Leo Volk, Die Übertragung des Anwartschaftsrechts aus bedingter Übereignung (Winningen an der Mosel, 1936).
81. Hans Kammler, "Zur Bewertung von Geländeerschliessungen für die großtädtische Siedlung," (Engineering diss., Hanover, 1931).
82. Compare, Ziegler, Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy, table 104, 113-17, 147.
83. After Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 145.
84. Cited after Boehnert, "The Third Reich and the Problem of 'Social Revolution'" 203.
85. Oswald Pohl to Hans Baier, 10 June 1937, "Nachwuchs für SS-Verwaltungsführer," BDC SS Personal-Akten Hans Baier.
86. See for instance Oswald Pohl, 8 September 1942, "Befehl Nr. 31," US National Archives Microfilm Record Group T-967, Records of the SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt, Roll 36, Frame 856-57 (hereafter cited T-967/Roll #: Frame #). R-129, Order of Oswald Pohl to Amt D, Lagerkommandanten, Werkleiter, Amt W, 30 April 1942, T-967/36: 994-5.
87. For more detail: Allen, "Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS," 62-85.
88. NO-542, Salpeter, "Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W)." Salpeter was one of the greatest advocates of "modern" prison labor within the SS companies.
89. For similar problems of coordination: Werkleiter Walther to Geschäftsleitung DESt, 1 September 1941, "Abstellung von Bewachungsmannschaften," T-976/25: 400-850.
90. Mummenthey, 27 November 1940 and 20 December 1940, and "Monatsbericht," T-976/26: 1-516.
91. NO-3698, Georg Loemer to RFSS, 14 September 1940, "Branch offices of the Main Office Budget and Buildings for prisoner allocation." BDC Wilhelm Burböck, letter from Leckebusch to Chef of Amt I, VuWHA shows that as early as 6 January 1940 plans were already underway to create a liaison for labor operations to the IKL. These had most likely been initiated at the end of 1939.
92. NO-2315, Pohl, 5 Septemer 1941, "Häftlingseinsatz."
93. NO-718, Burböck to all Schutzhaftlagerführer "E," 28 November 1941, "Assignment of internees' detachments; Regulation IKL." PS-3677, Burböck, 7 November 1941, "Allgemeine Dienstanweisung für die Schutzhaftlagerführer 'E."
94. Robert Koehl, The Black Corps, 143. Burböck had excellent connections to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who took charge of some 7,200 SS men during the Anschluss to seize public buildings in various cities throughout Austria, and Kaltenbrunner acted as auxilliary police chief.
95. NO-1712, Wilhelm Burböck to Dienststelkn des HAHB, 27 November 1940, "Neuer Organisationsplan für die Hauptabteilung 1/5." PS-3677, Burböck, 7 November 1941.
96. NO-2126, affidavit of Phillipp Grimm.
97. Tom Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 175-85;
98. see also Eugen Kogon, the former prisoner of Buchenwald, Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager (Munich, 1971).
99. Quote: NO-3657, letter from Grimm to administration of Buchenwald, 24 October 1940.
100. See also NO-2126, Affidavit of Phillipp Grimm. NO-2120;
101. NO-2105, Phillipp Grimm to Staf. Koch, Kommandant Buchenwald, 28 October 1940 and 13 December 1940, "Transfer of Prisoners."
102. NO-2120.
103. Affidavits of Gerhard Maurer and Karl Sommer, BAP, PL5: 42063. BDC Personalakte Gerhard Maurer. BDC Personalakte Maurer and undated, "Lebenslauf" (from after the war), BAP, PL5: 42063. Dr Wilhelm Schneider, 6 September 1939, "Urkunderolle," NS3/435.
104. BDC SS Personalakte Maurer. NO-1202, Affidavit Hans Moser. NI-1065, Affidavit Karl Sommer and Affidavit Gerhard Maurer in Defense Document Books of Karl Sommer. Paul Zapke, 1 August 1952, "In der Reichsschutzsache Gerhard Maurer," BAP, PL5: 42064. Pohl often rubber-stamped Maurer's initiatives. E.g., his order to extend work to 11 hours a day with Office D2 in the letterhead: NO-1290, Oswald Pohl, 22 January 1943, "Working Time of the Prisoners."
105. Maurer to all KL Kommandantur, 24 June 1942, "Hä ftlingseinsatztagung," BAP, PL5: 42055.
106. Kommandantur Flossenbürg, Obsff. Baumgärtner to all KL's, 10 November 1944, "Rundschreiben von Abteilung Hollerith im Arbeitseinsatz," KT-OVS Litomerice Lovosice 27, Folder 2 and "Aufstellung der Haftlinge-Metallarbeiter aus dem Transport v. 6 January 1945" and "Ingenieurs und Techniker," 6 October 1944, KT-OVS Litomerice Lovosice 27, Folder 3, Státní ústrední archiv, Prague.
107. Maurer to all Kommandanten, 24 June 1942, "Hä ftlingseinsatzführertagung"
108. and Maurer to all Kommandanten and Arbeitseinsatzf., 22 August 1942, BAP, PL5: 42055.
109. Cf. with Wilhelm Burböck's managerial tools: NO-718, Burböck to all Schutzhaftlager "E," 28 November 1941, "Assignment of internees' detachments; regulation 1KL dated 14 October 1941 Par. E."
110. Richard Glücks to Lagerkommandanten, 20 February 1942, "Arbeitseinsatz," BDC SS Hängeordner: 1825. Glücks to all KL's, 12 February 1942, "Herabminderung der Häftlingszahl für Lagerbetriebe," BAP, PL5: 42056
111. E.g., Erhard Milch to Maurer, 13 April 1943, T-175/80: 600582.
112. In particular cases, Speer also sought out the direct intervention of Maurer. See Speer, 8 June 1944, "Generalkomraissar für die Sofortmassnahmen," T-175/70: 87633-6.
113. Other industries also sought his cooperation: Letter Maurer to Hohberg, 5 April 1843 "18-Fertigung bei den Reichswerken Hermann Goering in Druette bei Braunschweig" and Pohl to Paul Pleiger "Vertrag mit den HGW in Druette b/Braunschweig" 5 June 1943, BAP, PL5: 42064.
114. See Maurer to all Kommandanten, 24 June 1942 and 22 August 1942.
115. Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Heredity (Cambridge, 1985);
116. Sheila Weiss, Race Hygiene and National Efficiency: Wilhelm Schallmayer and the Origins of German Eugenics (Berkeley, 1987);
117. Mark Adams, ed., The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (Oxford, 1989);
118. on Nazi eugenics Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, 1989);
119. Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross, Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore, 1994);
120. Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide from Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill, 1995).
121. Detlev Peukert, "The Genesis of the 'Final Solution' from the Spirit of Science," in Reevaluating the Third Reich, ed. Thomas Childers, et al. (New York, 1993), 241.
122. Hans Mirbeth to Schutzhafdager Au III, 1 October 1944, "Bericht über das Kommando Golleschau," Panstwowe Muzeum w Oswiecimiu: D-AuIII/Golleschau, Band 3.
123. Karl Mummenthey, 27 November 1940, "Monatsbericht," NS3/1346.
124. NO-1285, Oswald Pohl to RFSS, 16 March 1943, "SV.-Häftlinge. "
125. For discrepancies in KL statistics, see Miroslav Karay, "Vemichtung durch Arbeit'. Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern," esp. 140-45.
126. Tadeusz Paczula, "Organisation und Verwaltung des ersten Häftlingskrankenbaus in Auschwitz," in Die Auschwitz-Hefte, ed. Jochen August, (Weinheim, 1987), 159-71. KL Doctors' statistics often lumped marginal cases in with the sick. Their records on the absolute numbers of healthy workers tended to be more reliable because of this bias. Note that preserving labor capacity should be sharply distinguished from preserving life. Preserving the labor capacity of the camps actually went hand in hand with the destruction of life.
127. NI-10815, Glücks to all KL Lagerärzte, 26 December 1942, "Ärztliche Tätigkeit in den KL."
128. See Michael Allen, "The Puzzle of Nazi Modernism, Modern Technology and Ideological Consensus in an SS Factory at Auschwitz," Technology and Culture 37 (1996): 527-71.
129. Christopher Browning, "Vernichtung und Arbeit: Zur Fraktionierung der planenden deutschen Intelligenz im besetzten Polen," in "Vernichtungspolitik": Eine Debatte über den Zusammenhang von Sozialpolitik und Genozid im nationalsozialislischen Deutschland, ed. Wolfgang Schneider, (Hamburg, 1991), 37-52.
130. See Jean-Claude Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz: Die Technik des Massenmordes (Munich, 1993), 38-50.
131. Furthermore, if a prisoner was declared arbeitsunfähig, the firms who ordered his daily labor from the Amtsgruppe D did not have to pay. This secured the cooperation of private firms in eliminating sick or injured prisoners from the "Arbeitsfähigen." Compare Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors (New York, 1986), 174.
132. Oswald Pohl to Amt D, Lagerkommandanten, Werkleiter, Amt W, 30 April 1942, T-967/36: 994-95.
133. Affidavits of Gerhard Maurer, BAP, PLS: 42063. Affidavit of Friedrich Köberlein, Defense Document Books Georg Lörner. These affidavits are confirmed by Pohl and Glücks, regulations booklet of 15 May 1943, "Dienstvorschrift für die Gewahrung von Vergünstigungen an Häftlinge (Prämie-Vorschrift) gültig ab 15 May 1943, "BAP, PL5: 42056. Maurer, 27 July 1943, "Lagerordnung für Häftlinge," BAP, PLS: 42053 with his memo to Kommandanten 27 July 1943 "Bewachung der Häftlinge," BAP, PL5: 42053.
134. NO-3104, affidavit of Wolfgang Adolf Egon Sanner. Similar means of resistance to Maurer's statistical supervision have been recorded by Karny, "Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern, " 143-45 The Gestapo, which controlled the Politische Abteilung of the camps, hid incoming populations from the WVHA by cynically filling out "discharge papers" for them before they sent them to be gassed. The Gestapo thus used its administrative authority over incarceration, which was imbedded in the managerial structure of the camps, to find a way around the Amtsgruppe D's production mandate. Entering prisoners in the categories of "discharge" had the administrative function of keeping them out of the Amtsgruppe D's card files and statistics tables. Such prisoners were therefore invisible to Maurer's managerial supervision.
135. See the armaments minister's letter of praise: Albert Speer to Kammler, 17 December 1943, BDC SS Personalakten Hans Kammler. Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York, 1995), 260-65.
136. See Boehnert, "The Third Reich and the Problem of 'Social Revolution.'"
137. Dr. Ing. Edgar Hotz and Dr. Ing. Hans Kammler, Grundlagen der Kostenrechnung und Organisation eines Baubetriebs für den Wohnungs- und Siedlungsbau in Stadt und Land (Berlin, 1934), 1.
138. Kammler to Höss, 18 June 1941, "KL Auschwitz Baumassnahmen 2. und 3. Kriegswirtschaftsjahr," US Holocaust Memorial Museum Microfilms Collection RG-11.001M.03 filmed at the OSOBIY Archive in Moscow, Fond 502: roll 19. Hereafter cited: RG-11.001M: Roll # with the original Moscow call numbers in parenthesis. The date here is important. In the summer of 1941, the Third Reich was yet to convert to a total war economy. Not the pressures of war, but rather the ideological motivation to get moving on the Friedmsbauprogramm of the New Order and Kammler's effective technological control lent him the authority to overcome the intransigence of the IKL.
139. Quote: Kammler, 17 November, "Organisation der SS Baudienststellen."
140. Cf. "Dienstanweisungen für den Leiter einer Bauinspektion"; "Dienstanweisung für den Leiter einer ZBL"; and "Dienstanweisung für den Leiter der Bauleitung," all in Kammler and Pohl to all Amtschefs, 17 November, "Organisation der SS Baudienststellen," RG-11.001M.03: 19 (502-1-12).
141. ZBL Auschwitz to All BL, 2 August 1944, "Geschäftsbetrieb bei den ZBL mit den angegliederten Bauleitungen und Abteilungen," RG-11.001M.03: 24 (502-1-84).
142. Kammler evaluation 16 April 1944, BDC SS Personalakte Robert Riedl.
143. Kammler to Rüstungskontor GmbH, 2 October 1943, " Vorstandsmitglied SS," BAK R121/405 and Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 38. Testimony of Josef Ackermann, prisoner/ medical assistant at Dora-Buchenwald, Protokoll: 952-56.
144. On the close relationship between Office C-Construction and Office D2 see Lenzer to BI, ZBL, 20 May 1942 and Chef Amt II, Stbaf. Heidelberg to Neubauleitung Flossenbürg, 4 July 1940, BAK NS4/31.
145. Kammler to Kommandanten des KL Auschwitz, 9 June 1942, "Bauvorhaben im 3. Kriegsjahr," RG-11.001M.03: 19 (502-1-9).
146. Lenzer to BI, ZBL, Amtsgruppe C, Amtsgruppe D, 17 June 1942, "Anforderung und Berechnung von Häftlingen für die Bauleitungen," RG-11.001M.03: 18 (502-1-3).
147. For example: Kammler to ZBL Auschwitz, 7 September 1943, RG-11.001M.03: 24 (502-1-83).
148. Compare also Edith Raim, Die Dachauer KZ-Aussenkommandos Kaufering und Mühldorf: Rüstungsbauten und Zwangsarbeit im letzten Kriegsjahr 1944/1945 (Landsberg am Lech, 1992), 220-39. The blunt words of Kammler himself illustrate his methods, Jägerstabbesprechung, 2 May 1944, BA MA RL3/6, "It always depends upon this: that the people [prisoners] have noticed that they are not being held firmly enough in grip. I have let 30 people hang in a Special Treatment. Since they have been hung, things are going in relative order again. It is the old joke: if the people notice that they will not be immediately and firmly seized as before, they try to get away with everything."
149. For examples of innovation see Colonel W. R. J. Cook, et al., Underground Factories in Central Germany, CIOS File No. XXXII-17 (Deutsches Museum Archives), 12-13, 34-40, 144-50; including interview with a Polish prisoner who worked in the excavation, 84.
150. Miroslav Karny, '"Vernichtung durch Arbeit' in Leitmeritz: Die SS-Führungsstäbe in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft," 1999 4 (1993): 52-53.
151. Vogel to Hans Baier, 7 April 1944, NO-405. This letter also contained demand for privileges and special administrative measures to preserve skilled workers.
152. The Phenomenon of bureaucratic dynamism at the local level has recently been explored by Christopher Browning, "Bureaucracy and Mass Murder" and Götz Aly, Endiösung: Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1995).