Rudolf Hoess - Commandant of Auschwitz

I had hardly begun to serve my sentence before I overheard a prisoner in a neighboring cell tell another about a robbery he had committed at a forester’s house. He had first made sure that the forester was sitting happily in the inn and had then, with an ax, killed first the servant girl and then the man’s wife, who was far advanced in pregnancy. The forester’s four small children began to cry and he seized each of them in turn and dashed their heads against the wall to stop their “hollering.” The filthy, insolent language that he used when recounting the details of this appalling crime made me long to fly at his throat. I could not sleep all that night. Later I was to hear far more terrible stories, but nothing w,as ever again to disturb me as much as what I heard on that day. The man who told this story was a murderer who had been condemned to death many times, but had always been reprieved. Even while I was serving my sentence, he broke out of the dormitory one evening, attacked with a length of iron a guard who was barring his way, and escaped over the prison wall. He was * arrested by the police after he had knocked down an innocent pedestrian in order to steal his clothes, and he then furiously attacked his captors, who immediately shot him dead.

The Brandenburg prison also held the cream of Berlin’s professional criminals. They ranged from international pickpockets to well-known safebreakers, gangsters, cardsharps, skilled confidence men, and men convicted of all kinds of disgusting sexual offenses.

The place was a regular school for criminals. The younger ones, the learners, were enthusiastically initiated into the secrets of their craft, although their instructors kept their personal tricks of the trade a close secret. The old convicts naturally saw to it that they were well paid for their services. Payment was often made in tobacco, which was the most usual form of prison currency. Smoking was strictly forbidden, but every smoker managed to procure tobacco for himself by going fifty-fifty with the junior guards. The provision of services of a sexual nature was also a customary form of payment. Sometimes, too, binding agreements were made for a share in a criminal undertaking planned to take place after release from prison. Many sensational crimes owed their origin to schemes hatched while their perpetrators were serving prison sentences. Homosexuality was widespread. The younger, good-looking prisoners were greatly in demand and were the cause of much bitter rivalry and intrigue. The more crafty of these made a good business out of their popularity.

In my opinion, based on years of experience and observation, the widespread homosexuality found in these prisons is rarely congenital, or in the nature of a disease, but is rather the result of strong sexual desires which cannot be satisfied in any other way. It arises primarily from a search for a stimulating or exciting activity that promises to give the men something out of life, in surroundings where absolutely no form of moral restraint applies.

Among this mass of criminals, who had become so from inclination or propensity, there were to be found a great many who had been driven to swindling and thieving through misery and want during the bad postwar years and the inflation period: men whose character was not sufficiently strong to enable them to withstand the temptation of getting rich quick by illegal means: men who by some unlucky chance had been dragged into a whirlpool of crime. Many of these struggled honorably and bravely to break away from the asocial influence of this criminal atmosphere, so that they might start a decent life once more, after they had served their sentences.

Many, however, were too weak to fight against this interminable, asocial pressure and the incessant terrorization, and they were soon condemned to a lifetime of crime.

In this respect, the prison cell became a confessional box. When I was in Leipzig jail being interrogated before my trial, I heard many window conversations: conversations in which men and women expressed their deeper anxieties and sought consolation from one another; conversations in which accomplices bitterly complained of betrayal, and in which the public prosecutor’s office would have shown great interest, since they threw light on many an unsolved crime.

I used to be amazed at the free and easy way in which prisoners would give utterance through the window to their darkest and best-kept secrets. Was this urge to confide born of the misery of solitary confinement or did it spring from the universal need of all human beings to talk to one another? While we were awaiting trial, these window conversations were extremely brief and were constantly threatened by the permanent watch which the guards kept on the cells. In the prison where we served our sentences, however, the guards only bothered about them if the voices became too loud. There were three types of prisoner in solitary confinement in the Brandenburg prison: 1. Political prisoners found guilty of a “crime of conviction”; these young first offenders were treated with consideration. 2. Violent criminals and troublemakers, who had become intolerable in the large, communal cells. 3. Prisoners who had made themselves disliked because of their refusal to acquiesce in the terrorism practiced by their fellow criminals, or stool pigeons who had betrayed their friends in some way and now feared revenge. For these it was a kind of protective custody.

Evening after evening I would listen to their conversations. I thus obtained a deep insight into the psyche of these condemned men.

Later, during the final year of my imprisonment, when my job as chief clerk in the general store brought me into daily, personal contact with them, I got to know them even more intimately and I found my previous knowledge of them abundantly confirmed.

The real, professional criminal who has become so either by choice or by reason of his inherent nature, has cut himself off from the society of his fellow citizens. He combats that society by means of his criminal activities. He no longer wants to lead an honest life, for he has become wedded to his life of crime and has made it his profession.

Comradeship for him is based solely on expediency, though he also can slip into a sort of bondage relationship, similar to that between a prostitute and her pimp, which endures however badly he may treat her. Moral concepts such as sincerity and honesty are as laughable to him as is the notion of private property. He regards his conviction and sentence as a bit of commercial bad luck, a business loss, a hitch, nothing more. He attempts to make his prison sentence as tolerable and even as pleasant as possible. He knows the insides of many prisons, their peculiarities and the influence wielded by their officials, and he makes every effort to be transferred to the one he prefers. He is no longer capable of any generous feelings. Every effort, by education or kindness, to lead him back into the right path, is rebuffed. Now and again, for tactical reasons, he will play the part of the repentant sinner in order to have part of his sentence remitted. He is generally rough and common, and it affords him great satisfaction to trample upon everything that others regard as sacred.

One incident will serve as an illustration. During the years 1926 and 1927 humane and progressive methods of punishment were introduced into the prison. Among other innovations a concert was held each Sunday morning in the prison church, in which some of Berlin’s foremost performers took part. At one of these a famous Berlin singer sang Gounod’s Ave Maria with a virtuosity and a tenderness such as I have seldom heard. Most of the prisoners were enraptured by this performance, and even the most callous may well have been stirred by the music. But not all. Hardly had the last notes died away, when I heard one old convict say to his neighbor: “What wouldn’t I do to get my hands on those sparklers, mate!” Such was the effect of a deeply moving performance on criminals. Asocial, in the true meaning of the word.