KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (78 page)

In addition to satellite camps for war production, the SS established satellites for repairing war damage. Since 1940, selected prisoners (from KL and prisons) had had to defuse unexploded Allied bombs, on Hitler’s orders; numerous men were blown
to pieces in front of their terrified comrades. As the air raids intensified, the German authorities drafted many more prisoners. Following a tour of devastated German cities in late summer 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered the urgent dispatch of mobile prisoner squads to clear up the debris. By mid-October, the WVHA had designated three thousand inmates from Neuengamme, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald.
In close cooperation with Speer’s office and other Nazi agencies, these prisoners were stationed in barrack camps and converted buildings in several major German cities. They were forced to clear rubble, gather bricks, wood, food, and roof tiles, build air raid shelters, bury the dead, and rescue survivors. This work was exhausting and dangerous, but the SS and municipal authorities regarded it
as a great success, paving the way for the expansion of these so-called SS Building Brigades, which formed some of the largest satellite camps in early 1943.
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Although KL labor changed during 1942–43, this was still an experimental phase. It would be wrong to think that almost all prisoners now worked flat-out for the war industry or cleared bomb damage. These pioneering projects were just
that, pioneering, and they were not yet representative of the KL system as a whole. By summer 1943, no more than an estimated thirty thousand of two hundred thousand prisoners worked in satellite camps; the vast majority of prisoners remained inside main camps and at the disposal of the SS.
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There was a simple reason for the slow pace of change: the German arms industry was still in no hurry
to draw on KL labor. Industry managers saw numerous pitfalls of working with the SS. High levels of security and myriad rules could disrupt production; prisoners, widely regarded as dangerous enemies, might engage in sabotage and incite the rest of the workforce; or they might be too exhausted to work properly. As one leading industrialist put it in October 1942, after Speer suggested the redeployment
of prisoners from the Mauthausen quarry: “I already looked at them myself; they are no use to me in coal mining.” In general, therefore, German industry still preferred other sources of labor power, such as foreign workers. Only after these sources began to dry up did it become more proactive, resulting in a scramble for KL prisoners from autumn 1943.
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Even though the full impact of the new
direction of concentration camp labor was not felt until later, the earlier developments were significant nonetheless. The groundbreaking cooperation with leading firms like IG Farben, Heinkel, BMW, AFA, and VW provided the blueprint for future agreements between SS and industry. So what did this emerging blueprint look like? The allocation of KL prisoners would be handled centrally by the WVHA,
one of the main innovations made by Pohl in spring 1942, following a discussion with Himmler.
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Typically, companies submitted their requests for forced workers via the local commandants or via the offices of Speer, Sauckel, or Göring (some companies also contacted the WVHA directly). Gerhard Maurer and his men in Office Group D II, who would often meet managers of the interested firms, assessed
all applications, and then presented their recommendations to Pohl, who made the final decision. If Pohl gave permission to proceed, local camp officials would work out the contractual details with company representatives. Once the WVHA had approved the contract and all preparations were complete, the prisoner deployment would begin.
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When it came to the establishment of new satellite camps,
there was a clear division of labor between SS and firms. In addition to the prisoners, and their basic clothing and food, the SS provided the personnel (Guard Troops and Commandant Staff) to oversee sentry duties, prisoner transports, punishment, and medical care. The companies, in turn, were in charge of technical supervision during work, and paid for the construction and maintenance of the compound,
which had to conform to strict SS standards.
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Firms also paid daily rates for prisoner labor, revised in October 1942. In Germany, the daily price for each qualified male prisoner now stood at six Reichsmark, and four Reichsmark for an unskilled one. In occupied eastern Europe, including Auschwitz, the daily rate was reduced to four and three Reichsmark respectively, presumably because less
output was expected from the even more ravaged prisoners. There was no such distinction between skilled and unskilled labor in the case of female prisoners, who were regarded as less able workers; instead, there was a flat rate similar to the one for unskilled men.
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Contrary to the claims of some historians, the SS benefited from most payments only in a roundabout way. Since the prisoners were
regarded as the property of the state, most of the income from their labor—perhaps around two hundred million Reichsmark in 1943, rising to around four to five hundred million the following year—officially went into the coffers of the Reich (though this helped to finance the state-sponsored KL system).
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If there was little immediate financial gain for the Camp SS, why did it lease inmates to
the war industry? For a start, the SS remained subject to outside influence, and as the demand for labor grew, so did the pressure (above all from Speer) to surrender prisoners for war production. But the SS also expected advantages from its collaboration with industry. In addition to tangible benefits, such as the preferential allocation of weapons for SS troops, Himmler, who never quite abandoned
his dream of an SS arms complex, hoped that working with industry would enhance the expertise of his own managers. And then there was power and prestige. With labor becoming an increasingly precious resource, the SS could present the KL as vital cogs in the Nazi war economy; the larger the SS army of forced workers, the greater its potential influence.
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This was one reason, no doubt, behind
the strenuous efforts by Pohl and his WVHA managers in 1942–43 to extend the overall number of prisoners in the concentration camps, as well as their output.

SLAVE LABOR

Is it right to call SS prisoners “slaves”? The term is commonplace in many accounts of the concentration camps, but some scholars have questioned its use. Slaveholders, these critics suggest, had an innate interest in their
bondsmen’s survival, since they represented economic value; prisoners, by contrast, were worthless to the SS, who deliberately drove them to their graves. However, this argument is not fully convincing. After all, the SS always assigned some value to its prisoners. Even at the height of their destructiveness, when some prisoner groups were singled out for annihilation, the camps never aimed at the
systematic destruction of
all
their inmates. More generally, there are different definitions of slavery. If used broadly—to describe a system of domination based on force and terror, which aimed at economic gain through the unrestrained subjugation of social outcasts—then the term captures the fate of many KL prisoners in the Second World War, especially during its latter stages.
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This is what
many prisoners themselves thought when trying to make sense of their suffering. In February 1943, the Dachau inmate Edgar Kupfer described the SS use of inmates for the war effort as “modern slave rental.”
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This verdict chimed with the views of the perpetrators. In March 1942, Himmler himself told Pohl that the SS should feed its KL prisoners cheaply and simply, like “slaves in Egypt.”
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The
term seemed so apt to Himmler that he repeated it on further occasions. Just a few months later, he spoke to SS generals about “work slaves” in the camps, who were building the new Germany “without consideration for any losses.”
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Himmler expected extraordinary results from his slaves, insisting that their output should equal or exceed that of ordinary German workers. “Herein lies the largest
reservoir of manpower,” he lectured Pohl.
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One early SS initiative to increase productivity aimed at the reduction of inmates working in maintenance (in KL kitchens, laundries, barracks, and elsewhere). To free more prisoners for other jobs, Richard Glücks announced in early 1942, no more than ten percent of those judged fit for work should be deployed in this way (in early 1944, the target
figure was reduced to six percent). However, even if commandants had been willing to implement these orders fully—which they were not—it would have done little to satisfy the economic ambitions of their superiors, who pursued many more measures in 1942–43 to create a more industrious KL slave labor force.
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Privileges and Productivity

Most prisoners had known only one main reason for working—fear.
Since forced labor was primarily about punishment, not productivity, the Camp SS had not seen any real reason to rewarding diligent prisoners: Why offer carrots if one could use sticks, whips, and boots? As economic imperatives became more pressing, however, SS leaders decided to break with convention and allow incentives. They could build on some precedents; since 1940–41, for example, a
few prisoners in SS quarries had received bonuses.
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Heinrich Himmler was sympathetic to such initiatives. As he told Pohl in March 1942, rewards for hard-working men would guarantee “an enormous increase in the labor performance.” Above all, he regarded monetary and carnal bribes as surefire bets: prisoners would step up if promised money and sex.
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In fact, Himmler had advocated sexual incentives
for prisoners before, in October 1941, when he ordered the establishment of a brothel in Mauthausen; the “special building” (
Sonderbau
) opened in June 1942, the first inside any KL.
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The Camp SS initially remained reluctant to reward prisoners. Attitudes only started to change in spring 1943, and the impetus came once more from Himmler. Following an inspection of the troubled Wilhelm Gustloff
rifle factory in Buchenwald on February 26, 1943, he ordered Pohl to introduce a “performance system” for the KL as an “incentive” for harder work. Himmler pointed to the Nazis’ greatest rival, the Soviet Union, and its use of food and financial rewards in driving its people to “the most incredible feats.” In his own camps, Himmler envisaged a graded system, with benefits rising from cigarettes
and small payments to the greatest reward of all: a visit for male prisoners, once or twice a week, to a camp brothel. In Himmler’s mind, it was still sex—not food, drink, or clothes—that the prisoners craved most of all.
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Pohl acted straightaway. Within weeks, he agreed to a set of prisoner privileges, valid from May 15, 1943, which would guide the Camp SS in the future (with some later amendments).
The aim, Pohl explained, was the urgent increase in prisoner output. Taking his cue from Himmler, he outlined the conditions for earning tobacco and money. He also fleshed out the procedure for entrance to camp brothels, a special prize for “star performers” who had made “truly outstanding efforts.” Other bonuses included additional letters to relatives, extra rations, and the privilege
of wearing longer hair. Typically, the SS drafted these regulations with men in mind; female prisoners, by contrast, were still banned from smoking, at least in Ravensbrück, and their only way into camp brothels was as forced sex workers.
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Camp SS managers no doubt regarded the new privileges as a major concession. In reality, they were far from revolutionary. Token payments for forced labor
had long been common in Nazi Germany, even in state prisons.
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What is more, vast numbers of KL prisoners never received any rewards. Too weak and exhausted to qualify, they were often even worse off than before, as the SS diverted some of the meager rations to “diligent” prisoners.
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And some of these inmates were left empty-handed, too, after local Camp SS officers delayed the introduction
of the rewards system; elsewhere greedy guards and Kapos simply pocketed the bonuses themselves.
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Even prisoners who received rewards—an estimated fifteen percent in a camp like Monowitz—were often disappointed.
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The WVHA had swiftly ruled out the possibility of paying money, since it could easily be used for bribes (from 1942–43, inmates were forbidden to carry cash and to draw on money
sent by relatives). Instead, the WVHA introduced vouchers, whose monetary value was only redeemable inside the camps. Kapos stood to gain the most; typically, labor supervisors could earn the equivalent of four Reichsmark per week (in vouchers), three or four times more than ordinary workers in the KL. Not only were the authorities often miserly in handing out vouchers, there was little to purchase
in KL canteens. True, some prisoners bought cigarettes for barter, and others enjoyed the alcohol-free malt beer. But food was of poor quality and in short supply, as were other essentials.
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Nicholas Rosenberg, a Hungarian Jew in the Auschwitz satellite camp Bobrek, who worked as a mechanic in a Siemens-Schuckert factory, spoke for many when he described the vouchers as fairly pointless. The
camp canteen was rarely open, and when it was, it “generally sold nothing but toothbrushes and toothpaste.” Hardly surprising, then, that the vouchers never became the main currency on the concentration camps’ black markets.
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The vouchers also served as admission tickets to the KL brothels, at the equivalent cost of two (later one) Reichsmark per visit. The creation of these brothels caused
both excitement and outrage among prisoners, and some red faces among the SS. Even Heinrich Himmler, their chief advocate, was rather sheepish, admitting that the whole affair was “not particularly edifying.” Oswald Pohl felt the same and ordered the brothels to be built on the far edge of the compounds; in Sachsenhausen, the new brothel was located right above the morgue.
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Although the SS strictly
regimented brothel visits—male prisoners had to ask in writing for permission and undergo prior health checks—some witnesses later claimed that the establishments had enjoyed great popularity. According to Tadeusz Borowski, large crowds gathered in the Auschwitz main camp: “For every Juliet there are at least a thousand Romeos.”
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In reality, only a tiny fraction of the prisoner population ever
set foot inside the brothels. The Buchenwald brothel, for example, recorded no more than fifty-three daily visitors on average during October 1943. Some prisoner groups were barred altogether, on racial or political grounds; although each KL had different rules, Jews and Russian POWs were not admitted anywhere. In fact, the very idea of visiting the brothels never crossed the minds of most prisoners,
who only thought about survival. As for the small elite of better-fed prisoners, who still had sexual desires and the means (vouchers) to satisfy them, some refused on principle to frequent the brothels. Old friends and comrades argued bitterly over such boycotts, and in Dachau, the first men to enter were mocked and jostled by hostile prisoners waiting outside. In the end, most regular users
came from among the senior Kapos, who used their visits as demonstrations of their privileged status and virility.
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