Rudolf Hoess - Commandant of Auschwitz

Globocnik wanted to create a large German settlement in “his territory.” With this in mind, he chose the district around Zamosch. He promised the Reichsführer SS that he would move 50,000 new German settlers there within a year, as a model for the large settlements which it was intended to build later on in the far eastern districts. He wanted to collect the necessary cattle and machines required for this purpose in the shortest possible space of time. But the district he had chosen was then occupied by Polish peasants. He therefore began straight away to evacuate them. He was quite indifferent as to where they were to go, but left that for the UWZ or the Reich Security Head Office or the BDS in Cracow to work out. His main concern was to get the area ready to receive the 50,000 new settlers. According to Höfle’s descriptions this resettlement organized by Globocnik must have been catastrophic. Moreover, the German settlers themselves were by no means satisfied. Their hopes were unfulfilled and they worked themselves to death under the unusual conditions, waiting endlessly for Globocnik to give them assistance.

In the summer of 1943 Globocnik visited Auschwitz on Himmler’s orders to inspect the crematoriums and examine the method of extermination. He was not, however, particularly struck by what he saw. His own installations were far quicker in operation and he began to quote figures to emphasize the daily rate of extermination (for example, I remember he talked of five trains arriving daily at Sobibor) and the enormous amount of property which he had collected. He recklessly exaggerated at every opportunity.

I always had the impression that he believed what he was saying. I knew from Eichmann that, for technical reasons connected with the railroad, only two trains at the most could arrive at Sobibor each day.

After the incorporation of Austria, Globocnik became Gauleiter in Vienna. He caused so much mischief, however, that he soon had to be removed.

He was in reality a good-natured person, and in my opinion his deceptions were due to his pomposity and self-importance. Whether or not he made anything for himself out of the confused muddle of the Reinhardt action in Lublin, I do not know, but I would not put it past him. The officers and men of “his territory” certainly did well out of it. The special SS tribunals were given plenty of work and not a few death sentences were pronounced.

It had become almost a mania with Globocnik to requisition and utilize everything that was within his reach. He wanted to be able to supply the Reichsführer SS with an immense amount of money, and to excel even Pohl by means of “his business undertakings.” He was completely unscrupulous and he never even considered whether “his requisitioning” was right or not. This attitude naturally affected his subordinates, and since hardly any control was exercised over them, many organized their own requisitioning and made a flourishing business out of it, or else they stole whatever they could lay their hands on.

Globocnik’s staff was nothing less than a collection of misfits. But they nevertheless managed to make themselves indispensable and liked by him, which was not very difficult considering his poor knowledge of human nature. When their misdeeds had to be covered up, Globocnik gave them his help, both out of good nature and so that his own intrigues would not come to light.

The Reichsführer SS believed his assurances that everything in his domain was in exemplary order and exceedingly prosperous.

He can be regarded as the actual founder of all the concentration camps, with the exception of Dachau. It was he, too, who gave them their form and shape.

Eicke came from the Rhineland and during the First World War fought on every front and was many times wounded and decorated. When the Rhineland was occupied he took a leading part in the resistance movement against the French. He was sentenced to death in his absence by a French military tribunal and remained in Italy until 1928. When he returned home he went to the NSDAP and became an SS man.

In 1933 the Reichsführer SS took him out of the general SS and made him Colonel and commandant of Dachau, from which post two of his predecessors had already been dismissed for incompetence. He at once set about reorganizing the camp in accordance with his own ideas.

Eicke was an inflexible Nazi of the old type. All his actions sprang from the knowledge that National Socialism had made many sacrifices and had fought a long battle before coming to power, and that this power had now to be used against every enemy of the new state. He regarded the concentration camps in this light.

In his view, the prisoners were sworn enemies of the state, who were to be treated with great severity and destroyed if they showed resistance. He instilled the same attitude of mind into his officers and men. At the beginning of Eicke’s period of service as commandant, the majority of the guards came from the Bavarian country constabulary and they also occupied most of the important posts. To Eicke the police were like a red rag to a bull, especially the country constabulary, who had made life so difficult for the Nazis during their early struggles. In a very short time he replaced all the police (except two, whom he brought into the SS) with SS men and chased the “laponesten,” as they were called in camp slang, out of the camp.

The prisoners were treated harshly and were flogged for the slightest misdemeanor. Floggings were carried out in the presence of the assembled guards (at least two companies of them had to be present) with the intention, as he saw it, of toughening up the men. In particular, the recruits were regularly forced to witness these proceedings.

At that time, the inmates consisted almost exclusively of political prisoners from the Bavarian Communist and Social Democratic parties, and from the Bavarian People’s Party.

Eicke’s instructions from first to last were: behind the wire lurks the enemy, watching everything you do so that he can use your weaknesses for his own advantage. Do not let yourselves be taken in, but show the enemy your teeth. Anyone who displays the slightest sympathy with these enemies of the state must vanish from our ranks. My SS men must be tough and ready for all eventualities and there is no room among us for weaklings.

Eicke did not, however, tolerate independent action by his men against the prisoners. They were to be treated harshly but fairly and they were to be punished only on his orders. He organized the supervision of the protective custody camp and so had it under his control.

Little by little he built up the whole camp and gave it the form which was later used as a model for all the other concentration camps.

He made the guards into a tough body of men, who were correct in the performance of their duties, but who were also quick with their weapons, if an “enemy of the state” should escape.

He punished any lapse on the part of the guard with great severity. Yet his men loved “papa Eicke,” as they called him. In the evenings he sat with them in the canteen or in their barracks. He spoke with them in their own language, and went into all their troubles and worries, and taught them how to become what he wanted, hard, tough fellows, who would shrink at nothing that he ordered them to do.

“Every order is to be carried out, however harsh it may be!” That is what he required and what he preached in all his instructions to his men. And these instructions stayed fast and became part of their flesh and blood. The men who were guards at the time when Eicke was commandant of Dachau were the future commanders of protective custody camps, Rapportführers, and other senior camp officials. They never forgot the instructions that Eicke had given them. The prisoners were enemies of the state, so far as they were concerned, and would always remain so.