I have been
reading a section of the “autobiography” of Rudolph Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz from its earliest days as a “protective
custody,” i.e., concentration camp for Polish intellectuals. He remained at
Auschwitz until November, 1943 when he was posted to Oranienburg, Germany to
head the administration of all of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1944,
however, he returned to Auschwitz to oversee the murder of the Hungarian Jews,
a project that lasted about four months, tasking the facilities that he had
developed at Auschwitz to their utmost. Hoess wrote his memories of his time at
Auschwitz after he had been found guilty as a war criminal and sentenced to
death. His testimony is of value because it has provided considerable detail
about the development and day-to-day functioning of the camp over the several
years of its existence. It is also an apologia aimed at explaining some of his own inner processes as he co-operated
and took initiative in creating and administering probably the greatest centre
for murder in the history of the world.
Hoess does
not attempt to deny the things he was accused of. On the contrary, he outlines
in detail the stages by which his camp became ever more efficient in its “extermination”
activities. None of this is written with bravado, however. The tone is rather
confiding – this is what you want to know, so I am sharing it with you. It is
also liberally laced with complaints about the people with whom he was forced
to work, people who, for example, insisted on placing criminals as Kapos over
the prisoners, rather than “politicals,” who would have been less violent, more
co-operative with the other prisoners and so might have set a better, more
positive tone in the camp, facilitating the work that he needed to extract from
his inmates. He whines about the amount of work with which he was constantly
burdened just to build and put into operation the facilities demanded by his
ultimate boss, Heinrich Himmler. Hoess contends that these demands, and I have
no doubt they were considerable, prevented him from having a closer daily
overview of the condition of the prisoners and the ways that they were abused
by his subordinates.
Overall the
tone of his writing is that of a good guy who was placed in a difficult
position, who did the best he could under the circumstances to live up to the
expectations of his superiors, and who recognizes that people got hurt because
he wasn’t able to pay more attention to the details of the situation. All this
is quite remarkable when placed beside the reality that the project on which
Hoess was expending all of his energy was to create and operate a smoothly
running machine to murder innocent men, women, and children. This begs the
question: how can Hoess hold these seemingly contradictory realities within himself?
Is he lying or is he mad? Or, are their other ways of looking at the inner machinations
of people like Hoess, people who acted in concert with the ideology and demands
of National Socialism as interpreted to them by Hitler and his closest
associates like Himmler.
Hoess does
not deny that he had doubts and discomforts about the mass killings and that he
found it painful and distressing when forced by his position at Auschwitz to
witness these events. In fact he writes about it in some detail: “I had to
appear cold and indifferent to events that must have wrung the heart of anyone
possessed of human feelings. I might not even look away when afraid lest my
natural emotions got the upper hand. I had to watch coldly, while the mothers
with laughing or crying children went into the gas chambers....I had to see
everything. I had to watch hour after hour, by day and by night, the removal
and the burning of the bodies, the extraction of the teeth, the cutting of the
hair, the whole grisly, interminable business. I had to stand for hours on end
in the ghastly stench, while the mass graves were being opened and the bodies
dragged out and burned. I had to look through the peep-hole of the gas chambers
and watch the process of death itself, because the doctors wanted me to see it.
I had to do all of this because I was the one to whom everyone looked, because
I had to show them all that I did not merely issue the orders and make the
regulations, but was also prepared to be present at whatever task I had
assigned to my subordinates.
Hoess
modeled for his subordinates an inner resolve and clarity of purpose in order
to assist them in remaining steadfast in the duties given to them, duties which
contradicted for all but the few truly psychopathic personalities among them,
the tenets of early socialization and/or religion: Thou shall not kill. Hoess in
turn was confirmed in his duties and in the over-riding of his discomfort and
doubts by the surety that he felt in his own superiors. He writes of meetings
with Adolph Eichmann to plan the development of Auschwitz 2: Birkenau as the
main center for the mass murder of the Jews: “I had many detailed discussions
with Eichmann concerning all matters connected with the ‘final solution of the
Jewish problem,’ but without ever disclosing my inner anxieties. I tried in
every way to discover Eichmann’s innermost and real convictions about this ‘solution.’
Yes, every way. Yet even when we were quite alone together and the drink was
flowing freely, so that he was in his most expansive mood, he showed that he
was completely obsessed with the idea of destroying every single Jew that he
could lay his hands on. Without pity and in cold blood we must complete this
extermination as rapidly as possible. Any compromise, even the slightest would
have to be paid for bitterly at a later date. In the face of such grim
determination I was forced to bury all my human considerations as deeply as
possible.”
In depositions
given at his trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann himself spoke of his discomfort and
doubts about the plans for mass murder of the Jews that were planned from mid-1941.
At the Wannsee meeting on January 20, 1942, however, he took comfort from the
absolute clarity and determination shown by his own superiors, Himmler and
Heydrich, as well as the acceptance and co-operation of other heads of departments
for the planned “Final Solution.” From that day forward, Eichmann stated, he
put his own doubts behind him and remained steadfast in his duty. Who was he,
he asked himself, to question the decisions of his superiors and of his leader,
Hitler.
The men who
facilitated the murder of millions during WWII were not in the main
psychopathic. By this I mean that they were not individuals who for complex
reasons were incapable of identifying with the pain and distress of others. There
were, of course, psychopaths among them, as there are in any population, but
the aggregate numbers of such individuals is never great. The leaders in the
Nazi organization had come through a long process of “toughening” from their
early days of rallying around Hitler in the 1920s and during the long journey to
political victory and control of the German state before and during the war.
Individuals less capable of repressing their compassionate responses had long
since been winnowed out of the ranks. But as the stakes continued to rise, even
these “tough guys,” for example Hoss and Eichmann, were inwardly confronted
with “discomfort” with respect to their contributions to genocide. Unable to
discuss their doubts with either superiors (from whom they would fear reprisals:
loss of position, and possible arrest), with peers (any of whom might report
them), or with their subordinates when their duty was intrinsically ordered to
holding these people firmly to the party line, each ultimately found
justifications for silencing their own consciences.
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