Rudolf Hoess - Commandant of Auschwitz

The Kok-Saghyz (natural rubber) plantation, which he visited next, was of far greater interest to him.

Himmler always found it more interesting and more pleasant to hear positives rather than negatives. The SS officer counted himself lucky and enviable who had only positives to report, or who was skillful enough to represent negatives as positives!

In the evening on the first day of the inspection a dinner was given which was attended by the visitors and by all the officers of the Auschwitz command.

Before dinner, Himmler had everyone introduced to him. If a man interested him, he would talk with him about his family and work. During dinner he questioned me about different officers whom he had noticed.

I seized the opportunity to tell him about the troubles I had with my staff and how many of the officers were completely unfit to serve in a concentration camp or to command troops. I begged him to give me some replacements and to increase the strength of the guards.

“You will be amazed,” he replied, “at the impossible officer material with which you will have to be satisfied in the end! I need every officer, junior officer, and man who is capable of serving in the front line. For the same reasons it is impossible to increase the strength of the guard. You will have to think up some technical ways of economizing in guards. You must use some more dogs for this purpose. I will get my expert in dog handling to call on you in a few days and explain the new method of using dogs as a substitute for guards. The numbers of escapes from Auschwitz is unusually high, and is unprecedented in a concentration camp. I approve of every means, I repeat every means, being used to prevent these escapes. This escape disease, which has become rampant in Auschwitz, must be eradicated!”

After this dinner party the Gauleiter invited the Reichsführer SS, Schmauser, Kammler, Caesar, and myself to his house near Kattowitz. Himmler was to” stay there overnight, since he had some important matters concerning population registers and resettlement to discuss with the Gauleiter on the following morning.

Himmler expressed a wish that my wife, too, should come to the Gauleiter’s house.

Although during the day Himmler was occasionally very ill-humored and angry and even downright unfriendly, yet this evening, and among this small company, he was a changed person.

He was in the best of spirits, took a leading part in the conversation and was extremely amiable, especially toward the ladies, the Gauleiter’s wife and my own wife. He talked on every possible subject which came up in the conversation. He discussed the education of children and new buildings and books and pictures. He spoke about his experiences with the front-line divisions of the SS, and about his visits to the front with the Führer.

He deliberately avoided saying one word about day-to-day events or about service matters, and ignored the attempts of the Gauleiter to get him to do so.

It was fairly late before the guests departed. Very little was drunk during the evening. Himmler, who scarcely ever touched alcohol, drank a few glasses of red wine, and smoked, which was also something he did not usually do. Everyone was under the spell of his good humor and lively conversation. I had never known him like that before.

On the second day I called for him and Schmauser at the Gauleiter’s house, and the inspection was continued. He inspected the base camp, the kitchens, the women’s camp (which then included the first row of the block from the headquarters building up to block 11), the workshops, the stables, Canada and DAW, the butcher’s shop and the bakery, the lumberyard, and the troops’ supply depot. He inspected everything with care, observed the prisoners closely and made precise inquiries concerning the different types of confinement and the numbers involved.

He refused to be guided, but on that morning requested to be shown first one thing and then another. In the women’s camp he saw the cramped quarters, the insufficient latrine accommodation, and the; deficient water supply, and he got the administrative officer to show him the stocks of clothing. Everywhere he saw the deficiencies. He had every detail of the rationing system and the extra allowances for the heavy workers explained to hirn.

In the women’s camp he attended the whipping of a female criminal (a prostitue, who was continually breaking in and stealing whatever she could lay her hands on) in order to observe its effect. Before any woman was whipped, permission had to be obtained from Himmler personally. Some women were produced to him, who had been imprisoned for insignificant offenses, and he set them free. He talked with some female Jehovah’s Witnesses and discussed with them their fanatical beliefs.

After the inspection, he held a final conference in my office and, in Schmauser’s presence, addressed me, more or less, in the following words:

“I have now made a thorough inspection of Auschwitz. I have seen everything and I have seen enough of the deficiencies and difficulties and I have heard enough of them from you. I can, however, do nothing to alter them. You will have to manage as best you can. We are now in the middle of a war and we must learn to think in terms of war. The actions, which I have ordered the security police to carry out, will not be stopped under any circumstances, least of all because of the lack of accommodation and so on, which I have been shown. Eichmann’s program will continue to be carried out and will be intensified month by month. You must see to it that swift progress is made with the building of Birkenau. The gypsies are to be destroyed. The Jews who are unfit for work are to be destroyed with the same ruthlessness. Soon the labor camps at the armaments factories will absorb the first large contingents of able-bodied Jews, and that will give you some breathing space again. Armaments factories will also be built in Auschwitz camp, so prepare yourselves for that. Kammler will give you far-reaching support in matters connected with their construction.

“The agricultural experiments will be intensively pursued, for the results are urgently required.

“I have seen your work and the results you have achieved, and I am satisfied and thank you for your services. I promote you to Obersturmbannführer!”

So ended Himmler’s great inspection of Auschwitz. He saw everything and knew what the ultimate results would be. Was his remark, “Even I cannot help,” intentional?

After the conference in my office, I took him around my house and showed him my furniture, in which he took a great interest, and he spent some time in animated conversation with my wife and children.

I drove him to the airport where he bade me a brief farewell and flew back to Berlin….

On May 3, 1945, I met Himmler for the last time. What remained of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps had been ordered to follow Himmler to Flensburg. Glücks, Maurer, and I duly reported to him there. He had just come from a conference with the surviving members of the government. He was hale and hearty, and in the best of humor. He greeted me and at once gave the following orders: “Glücks and Hoess are to disguise themselves as noncommissioned officers of the army and make their way across the green frontier to Denmark as stragglers, and hide themselves in the army. Maurer and what is left of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps are to disappear into the army in the same way. All further matters will be dealt with by Standartenführer Hintz, the police president of Flensburg.” He shook each of us by the hand. We were dismissed!

He had with him at the time Professor Gebhardt and Schellenberg of the Reich Security Head Office. Like Gebhardt, Glücks said that Himmler intended to go into hiding in Sweden.