MAUTHAUSEN PART 5

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATIONS - STERILISATION - CASTRATION - AND THE SICK
Sterilisation was one of the means by which the Führer was determined to cleanse his Master Race of the inferior, the deformed and the sex perverted. As part of this plan gypsies, Poles and any remaining Jews were to be sterilised. Yet by Nazi Standards, extreme measures were carried out to excess. Those who were unfortunate enough to have contracted tuberculoses in early life, even though they were fully recovered, would be subjected to the drastic treatment of castration. Shortly after such operation, the castrated prisoners were returned to the full rigours of camp life and work, with disastrous consequences. Their plight naturally attracted the attention of the SS, who dealt well aimed kicks to the abdomen.[ Germany was not alone , Sterilisation was conducted in other countries as well, including the USA: The United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilisation programs for the purpose of eugenics. Eugenics, the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilisation, based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.
Eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany. The heads of the program were avid believers in eugenics and frequently argued for their program. It was shut down due to ethical problems. The principal targets of the American program were the mentally retarded and the mentally ill, but also targeted under many state laws were the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed. According to the activist Angela Davis, Native Americans, as well as African-American women were sterilised against their will in many states, often without their knowledge while they were in a hospital for other reasons (e.g. childbirth). Other Native American activists such as Dr. Pinkerman concluded some 25,000 Native American women were forcibly sterilised against their will. Fortunately, these cases, as common mathematics would prove, were grossly over exaggerated. Some sterilisations took place in prisons and other penal institutions, targeting criminality, but they were in the relative minority. In the end, over 65,000 individuals were sterilised in 33 states under state compulsory sterilisation programs in the United States.sic] Proposal of Morgenthau for Germans after WW II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buUAJc-6-AI- The Morgenthau Plan (AKA The Jewish plan to rid the world of Germans.)
During a well publicised medical forum in 1942 in the USA, an American doctor expressed the view that in his opinion all Germans should be sterilised after the war. [PS 2176, testimony of Pofessor Busek, j.A.D. 3rd US Army, sic] It was too wild a statement to be taken seriously, except those who were guilty of such actions themselves. The statement was reported in Germany and conferences were hurriedly held by the SS Medical Authorities, presumable in Oranienburg. They were sufficiently frightened to issue vast supplies of hormone tablets and hormone fluids for the injection of those previously sterilised. Many of those were in Mauthausen. Now they were given hormone treatment and were watched over vigilantly to see if they react normally. Of course there was no hope of rehabilitation for those who had been castrated, but for those who had been sterilised the use of the brothel was encouraged. As a rule only Germans or those with particularly lucrative jobs in the camp had been able to make use of the brothel up till now. They would apply to the clerk of their Block in advance, and at roll-call after the day's work they would be summoned by the order: "Bordell Besucher antreten" (Applicants for a brothel visit fall in)When the hormone experiments began all such visits came to a temporary halt.
The women of the brothel were not keen in taking part in the experiments. Their previous clients, SS and Kapos, usually brought with them small luxuries and titbits obtained through the camp black market, whereas the poor wretches under test brought nothing. The SS found great amusement in watching the miseries of these men, who were harassed to perform in public under the eyes of the doctors and themselves.

Heinrich Himmler inspecting the camp brothel in Mauthausen/Gusen

Eventually the tests were stopped and any of the guinea pigs who were still alive were returned to the quarries. Hormone supplies continued to arrive at the camp for some time after the tests had ceased and SS Dr. Richter hit upon an unusual way of profiting from them. He sold hormone tablets to criminal prisoners who were under the illusion that their enjoyment would be heightened when they visited the brothel. This may have been so initially, but in the long run there must have been many and grave side effects. The brothel also served another purpose. It acted as an efficient intelligence service in reporting to the SS the general climate of passions in the camp. Through it they soon got to hear of any nucleus of organised resistance, and it helped them to keep an ear to the ground concerning the camp's black market and any other matters of general interest. Kapos who had access to the brothel were usually on passable terms with the SS. It was not uncommon, however, for the thieves to fight among themselves or to brawl over one particular women. The women of the brothel were seldom seen by the ordinary inmates of the camp. They took their exercise behind block I, where the brothel was situated.
A wide range of medical experiments was conducted on prisoners in Mauthausen and it's sub-camps, Gusen in particular. The experiments were supervised by the camp doctors, who attended the executions and shootings. The camp doctors were Dr Krebsbach (nicknamed 'Spritzbach', (which meant needle expert), Dr Richter, Dr Ramsauer, Dr Gross and Dr Wolters (formerly of Dacchau where he selected Roman Catholic Clerics and Poles on whom to experimented. Their experiments included the trying out of new vaccine medicines and new techniques of forcible feeding. They also conducted their arbitrary operations on sick, injured and the healthy. The dissection chamber, which was connected with the crematorium by a corridor, is very small. Its walls and floors are made entirely of stone, and its only window is high and small. The sloping dissection-table is also made of stone. At its higher end is a bowel-shaped indentation into which the blood would flow to pass down the narrow channel running the length of the table and so into a respectable at the lower end. This table was also used for the extraction of gold fillings from the dead man's teeth, or to remove the skin for the gruesome lampshade-making hobby of certain SS men. The bodies of the prisoners with increasing tattoo marks were skinned, sent to the pathology laboratory in Gusen I, processed and made into satchels, lampshades, book covers and gloves. This was the particular interest of Dr Richter, Seidler the commandant of Gusen, and Chmielewski, the chief chemist at Gusen. The infirmary at Mauthausen , which should have given help to the sick and broken, brought about instead the final extinction of life and hope Their world was one where time and life had no place.

The Dissecting Table

In the quarry there was a field ambulance to which sick or injured prisoners could report during working hours. However bad the illness or injury, the SS guard always considered that the prisoner was using it as an excuse for evading work and ill-treated him accordingly. Medical treatment at this ambulance took two different forms. An aspirin was described for pains above the waist, a purgative for those below. Injuries were paper-bandaged. Injections were liberally applied. On returning from work to the camp, prisoners could apply to their block leader for permission to report sick. Sickness affected the block's labour allocation, and the block clerk in charge of sick reports therefore had to accompany the prisoner to the dispensary or infirmary. Loth to do this, he would tell patients to come back the following day. As a result they often collapsed at their work or were beaten to death for failing to work hard enough. If an operation was needed, the clerk had to get permission from headquarters. The authorisation usually arrived long after the sick man had died. [PS 2176 Prof. Busek, JAD, 3rd US Army, sic] SS and Kapos clubbed any who did not look ill enough. So long as one could bear the pain, or survive one's injuries unaided, it was better to keep away from the infirmary. For, in seeking admittance, one automatically subjected oneself to the indiscriminate, dangerous and sudden 'selections' by the SS doctors. There were also the distinct possibility of catching an even worse disease from other infirmary inmates.
Three or four men occupied a single bunk in the infirmary. The stench was indescribable. Phlegmons occurred frequently, as a result of malnutrition. The suppurating wounds from both phlegmons and erysipelas would leave huge crater-like holes in the legs of the sufferers. Tubercular patients coughed up their contagious. The scrofulous, the delirious, the dysentery patients who fouled all around and beneath them, the constantly coughing men dying of pneumonia, all these shared the same bunks. Those who groaned too loudly were beaten by the Kapos. Those who were too weak to go to the lavatory were dragged out of bed and hosed down with cold water. For some time the infirmaries were staffed by male nurses, known as Pfleger. Some of them were German criminals whose brutality was legendary. Three of the most infamous prisoners murdered their patients in order to claim their rations. It was one of the German male nurses who invented a simple form of general anaesthetic, a sharp crack over the head with a wooden clog. Very sick prisoners who were unfortunate enough to be admitted when Dr Krebsbach was on duty were dealt with summarily. He saw to it himself by applying a lethal injection to the heart.

Mauthausen - A half-dead prisoner found lying in his own filth"

SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) H. Vetter, formerly a doctor in the experimental department of IG Farben at Ludswigsburg, regarded human beings merely as guinea pigs. He divided his time between Mauthausen and Gusen, but spent more of it at the latter. Another SS Hauptsturmführer, Dr Sigbert Ramsauer, was known as a drug addict. He was the last doctor at Mauthausen and at the sub-sub-camp of Loibl-Pass, and experimented a great deal in conjunction with Vetter. During the winter of 1941-42 he spent a whole night killing approximately 250 Russians with injections of benzine. Inasmuch as he had been a patient at the insane asylum of Giessen, it is surprising that he was ever accepted, especially at this fairly early stage into the SS elite, and that he reached the rank he did. Waaitsky, the pharmacist at Mauthausen, was an ardent admirer of Dr. Krebsbach. He often suggested different substances to be used when killing prisoners by injection method. Both man had access, as to a lesser extent did all the others mentioned, to all the drugs and pharmaceutical products which came into the camp. The supplies might have been enough for a reasonable number of sick prisoners, but the number was never reasonable, nor were the maladies from which they suffered. The amount available for them was decreased still further because doctors and pharmacists appropriated a proportion of them for their own use and for sale on the black market.

"Mauthausen - filth & human waste strewn around the sleeping area (picture was most likely taken after "liberation")

The systematic liquidation of intellectuals in the prisoner's ranks meant that the doctors and nurses amongst them had to keep very quiet about their skills. It was only later that prisoner doctors were permitted to give their sick comrades what comfort they could. The first recorded prisoner doctor was Dr Pagen from Block 20, who worked from the beginning of 1942 until May 1942. In October of that year Professor Podlaka from Brünn, at first room orderly, was also allowed to tend prisoners. Dr Krebsbach was eventually transferred to Riga-Kaiserwald, where he put to death thousands of Jews by his chosen method. There he joined Sauer, the original Commandant of Mauthausen, who had also been transferred. Both, as previously mentioned were hanged at Landsberg for their crimes after the war.
Although Mauthausen possessed modern X-ray equipment which successfully detected tuberculoses in all its stages, it was never used constructively for medical action. If the X-ray showed a positive result, the patient would be put to death without further ado. The dental equipment was again extremely modern, but it was not applied well. The dental surgery was available to prisoners twice a week, but permission had to be obtained before they could attend. In an emergency they could go to the dispensary, where the tooth or teeth would be extracted with the minimal of formality. The dental surgery was, however, open at all times to the SS. Not surprisingly, they often found that a prisoner dentist was more careful than a local one.

                                                    
                                                              hanged inmate
Of all the camps Mauthausen had the smallest incidence of typhus (1.5%). Bergen-Belsen had the highest (86.6%), while Auschwitz came between the two with (37.5%). However, the reason for Mauthausen's remarkable figure was not due to the care and attention exercised by the camp command, but to the fact that, at the slightest sign of typhus in a Block, all inmates, both the sick and the fit, would be killed immediately. [Prof. Charles Richet and Dr Antonin Mans, Pathologie de la deportation (Monaco 1958, page 104, sic] Conditions were particular bad in Block 7, to which prisoners were sent because of general physical feebleness, or allgemeine Körperschwäche. Originally intended for 200 prisoners, the Block usually housed 400 and 500, of four or five nationalities. There were three tiers of bunks on which the shaven-headed prisoners lay in disorder, their arms and legs in all directions. many of their legs and feet blown up like balloons from oedema. As in the infirmary, the smell was appalling. The putrefying smell of phlegmons and gangrenes, the rancid smell of scabies, the suffocating smell of those who were covered in excreta from dysentery and diarrhoea, the smell of the tubercular, already in a state of decomposition, all these smells permeated the barracks and seeped into the skin and clothing of inmates.
KILLING THE HANDICAPPED AND DEFORMED
On the 14th July 1933, [only months of Hitler taking power, sic] the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Posterity was promulgated on the direct orders of the Führer for the express purpose of eradicating the incurably deformed. It was divided into three main categories:
1. Euthanasia for incurable invalids
2.Direct elimination by 'special treatment
of undesirable national elements and
undesirable invalids
3. Experimental work preliminary to mass sterilisation
It appears however, that Hitler realised that such measure would meet with open opposition from the church and other influential bodies in time of peace. Thus in 1935, he told Dr Wagner that 'in the event of war he would take up and deal with this question of euthanasia'. He thought that the programme could be put through more smoothly in wartime, when opposition would not be so strong. As early as July 1939, professors, psychiatrists and other experts were for the first time formerly briefed at the Chancellery in Berlin. They were told by the then head of SS, Victor Brack, that all insane persons in Germany were to be liquidated under plans which would be carried out by euthanasia. After the Polish campaign, Hitler told Phillip Bouler, head of the chancellery, that he 'now intended to bring about a definite solution to the problem of euthanasia. At the end of October 1939, Hitler signed a decree with the effect retrospective to 1st September 1939. Thus it was that the official euthanasia establishments were set up. These were Hadamar in Hessen, Harthein near Linz, Grafeneck in Württemberg, Brandenburg on the river Havel and Sonnestein near Pirma.

Plan of Hartheim

Hartheim came within the orbit of Mauthausen and the following concerns this installation only, although the castle Hartheim was not a sub-camp of Mauthausen and was never administered by it, it was closely linked by the movements of prisoners between the two camps and by its gas chambers. It was the only prison in use during the Second World war from which there were no survivors. A committee of psychiatrists, known as the Chief Surveyors, toured the institutions and sanatoriums to select patients for euthanasia. Relatives had no say in the matter and were not even informed of the patients removal. Adults and children from the age of three were eligible for the elimination on grounds of idiocy or malformation of the body, so were the old and senile. Long questionnaires had to be filled in to ascertain whether the subject was German, Jewish mixed Jewish or Negroid origin. Those who were selected for further investigation were taken first to observation stations, then transferred by bus, usually in groups of about seventy, to the euthanasia establishments. They would arrive in the morning and by nightfall all would have been dealt with. The following example of the letters which were sent to relatives of the dead. It is identical with those sent from Hartheim.

Grafeneck Munzingen National Convalescent Home, 6th August 1940
Frau B.... Sch....Z....
My dear Frau Sch....
We are sincerely sorry to tell you that your daughter F...Sch...who had to be transferred to this Institution in accordance with measures taken by the National Defence Commissioner, died suddenly and unexpectedly here, of a tumour of the brain, on 5th August 1940. The life of the deceased had been a torment to her on account of her severe mental trouble. You should therefore feel that her death was a happy release. As this institution is threatened by epidemic at present time, the police have ordered immediate cremation of the body. We would ask you to let us know to what cemetery we may arrange for the police to send the urn containing the mortal remains of the deceased... Any enquiries should be addressed to this institution in writing, visits being for the present forbidden as part of the police precaution against infection...
(Sgd) Dr. Koller [This was a complete lie, but was common practice during the Third Reich when dealing with Party Officials, you never knew what was factual and what was fabrication only to obtain their objective and it was usually written 'im Sinne des Führers"(in the spirit of the Führer, sic]
In 1941, Himmler sent out a secret order to the concentration camps stating that the mentally afflicted Jews were to to be included in the euthanasia programme 14f13 which was the official symbol used by Himmler's Inspector of Concentration Camps, otherwise Group (Service) D of the SS Headquarters for Economic Administration in Berlin. A letter from the Inspector illustrates the activity of the 'medical committee':
To the concentration camp commandant at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenburg. Gross-Rosen, Neuengamme and Niederhagen.
As the camp commandants at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Auschwitz have already been informed in communication on the subject, medical commissioners will shortly visit the above named camps for the purpose of examining prisoners. A specimen of the form to be completed at this stage is enclosed. All available papers and medical documents are to be held ready for inspection by the committee on demand.
On conclusion of the examinations a report is to be forwarded to the Inspector of Concentration Camps in which the number of prisoners subjected to the special 14f13 treatment will be stated. The exact date of the arrival of the committee will be communicated in due course.
sgd. per pro Liebehenschel
SS Obersturmführer

Map of German Concentration Camps

This letter dated 10th December 1941, showed that Hitler's original plan for mercy killing had been overridden because of its ambiguity and because it was abused. Henceforth the order would cover any person whose elimination was required. In 1941 when Hitler abandoned his euthanasia plan for adults, [Göring had a handicapped sister, whom he sincerely loved, due to be gassed, he told Hitler in no uncertain terms to stop the euthanasia programme, sic] some gas chambers in euthanasia institutions were dismantled and re-erected in eastern cities such as Lublin (Majdanek), where the overwhelming majority of victims were Polish Jews. However, the killing of deformed and idiot children continued until the end. This decision of the Führer did not affect Hartheim, where the extermination of civilians from selected clinics continued unabated. [In following narrative I will in the main comment on activities on Hartheim only, sic]


CONTINUED UNDER PART 6

MAUTHAUSEN PART 4

METHOD OF TORTURE AND DEATH 2/2
In Mauthausen, as in all camps geared to mass extermination, mechanical refinements such as gas car were introduced. In the spring of 1942 the main office of the RSHA (concentration camp) in Belin began to supply mobile gas vans for extermination to the Einsatzgruppen operational in Russia. [Allen Bullock, Hitler: A Stud yin Tyranny, London 1954, page 643, sic] These Einsatzgruppen followed in the wake of the Wehrmacht in their advance and exterminated hundreds of thousands of civilians either by mass shootings or in the gas vans. These vehicles are described by Charles Wighton in his book on Eichmann:
'Vans were therefore constructed on the standard Wehrmacht military chassis. But the exhaust fumes were piped into the hermetically sealed interior of the vans instead of into the open air". One German officer complained that this method caused the victims to die of suffocation, instead of 'making them doze off'. Consequently, when doors were opened to remove the bodies, it was found that the dead were covered not only with excrement and blood, but their eyes protruded from their heads and their bodies had suffered grotesque positions.
Despite attempts to camouflage the function of the vans, both the Wehrmacht and the Russian troops in operational areas recognised them only too easily. Eichmann witnessed the deaths of Jews in such vans when he was on an operational inspection of the Eastern Front. Mauthausen's particular gas car was something of a speciality. It is best described by Datner as 'a mobile gas chamber installed on a lorry which ran between Mauthausen and Gusen. It is quite likely that Cammandant Ziereis, through his many contacts with other concentration camps, brought this innovation into the camp. He may well have directed the building of it and designed small refinements. It is known that between eight and nine o'clock one morning in the middle of March 1943, Ziereis and his deputy Bachmayer visited the camp locksmith's workshop. He gave orders that a closed police van should be made completely airtight, and that a space of 18 by 25 cm should be cut in the air-protected opening on the door through which a bottle of poison gas could be thrown in. Below the opening was an iron plate against which the gas bottle broke. Presumably Ziereis had heard of the Geman officers complaints concerning asphyxiation. It is thought that later modifications were made so that both methods of killing might be used.
A Czech prisoner working in the central SS garage kept a record of the number of times the gas-car left the camp. On each journey the car held thirty prisoners. It was driven thirty-two times by SS-Unterscharführer Hartl and fifteen times more by others. This does not include those occasions when the van was driven by Ziereis.
A good deal of subterfuge was used to conceal from the prisoners the true purpose of their 'ride'. Those who were very sick were persuaded that they were being sent to a sanatorium to be cured, others perhaps more gullible than most, thought they were volunteering for a transfer. They soon found out how they had been tricked. It is unlikely that the names of those who were killed during 'transport sanatoria' were entered in the death books. It is more probable that, in the case of the sick who were sent to 'Dachau Sanatoria', each name was erased from the register and that the name of a newly-arrived prisoner replaced it. It was common knowledge among long-term prisoners that there was a two-way traffic in death cars between Mauthausen and Gusen and that the dead were cremated at the respective arrival points. When this particular type of killing was at its height, Gusen was administratively independent of Mauthausen. It is understandable,, therefore, that there was a good deal of confusion, both deliberate and otherwise, over death certificates and records in the death register. That some pretence was made towards orderly book-keeping is shown by the following entry:
81160 Globasch Gawril, born 1889 at Kwati
died sanatorium 16.12.44.
It is well known long before the outbreak of war the Nazis had no qualms about using gas for exterminating Jews, mental patients and others, in their estimation, undesirables. Eichmann told Höß, the Commandant of Auschwitz:
'The system of killing with showers of carbon monoxide while bathing... as with mental patients in the Reich, would require too many buildings and it is questionable whether there was a sufficient supply of gas available'. Eichmann was referring here to mental patients who were killed under the Euthanasia Order 14f13, an order which came into operation well before the war. His visit to Auschwitz came about because of a top secret conversation between Höß and Himmler immediately after the opening of hostilities with the USSR in the summer of 1941. In the autumn of the same year Dr. Enno Lolling, chief of the sanitation offices of Amt D III informed Dachau's senior medical officer, Dr. Muthig, that the object of the visiting doctor's committee 'was to select for euthanasia, prisoners incapable of work and send them to Mauthausen for gassing'. [A. Mitscherling, Death Doctors (London, 1962, page 280, sic] It is probable therefore that the Mauthausen gas chamber was planned, built and in use even before the June attack on Russia. The gas chambers of the massive camp at Auschwitz were already in existence, as were a number of others. One concludes from this that criminal plans for genocide were made with full knowledge of the impending attack. In December, 1941, after the committee of doctors had visited Dachau, several prisoners were despatched under the euthanasia programme and duly gassed in the chamber of Mauthausen. A second convoy of several hundred was sent in January 1942.

the Gas Chamber at Mauthausen

The Mauthausen gas chamber formed part of a complex of gruesome buildings. The others were the execution cellar (Genickschusskeller), the morgue, which was always full of bodies awaiting cremation, and a dissection chamber. The gas chamber could hold about 120 victims. It was nowhere near as large as the chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which could take up to 2000. It's size bore very little relation to the huge number of deaths in the camp. It generally came into use when large transports arrived from elsewhere. Most of the regular camp inmates were killed by shooting, hanging, beating, starvation or disease, rather than by gassing. Medical Experiments in injections of various fluids into the veins and heart also accounted for a good many deaths. If the Mauthausen gas chamber could not take such large convoys, those of Hartheim were brought into use. It is believed that Hartheim was kept only for euthanasia victims. The overflow from Mauthausen may possible have come into this category, but it is probable only half the truth. It is always realised that the gas chambers of Hartheim and Mauthausen were the scenes of cold-blooded murder of thousands of prisoner-of-war, in flat contradiction of international agreements covering the treatment of such prisoners. And the number of civilians, men, women and children, who went to their deaths there cannot be calculated.
The gas chamber at Mauthausen was filled with carbon monoxide, which was pumped down from the gas van when required. Zyklon B was, of course, also used. The results need no explanation. The frantic struggles of the victims when they realised their fate can only be imagined. Even today, deep, despairing marks can be seen on the painted surface above the tiles which cover the lower half of the walls. Even the tiles are deeply marked, some low down at the height of a child. When the chamber was filled to capacity there was no room for a body to fall down. At first sight the chamber resembled a shower room. This may have deceived the people who entered it straight from a transport. It could hardly have taken in those who had already seen the real showers.

The Judas Opening

There was no window. Shielded lights were placed high in the ceiling, close to the 'shower' pipes. The pipes were equelly spaced in series of three across the room and were provided with twelve jets. The heavy metal door was equipped with a Judas opening for observers. Such observers included Baldur von Schirach (Gauleiter of Vienna) [Schirach had an American mother and did not speak German until he attended primary school at the age of six, he was originally Hitler Youth Leader and most popular with the young generation, he looked like a typical American college student in my days. sic], Eigruber (Gauleiter of Linz), Himmler, Kaltenbrunner and many others. The camp doctors also took particular delight in making use of the Judas opening. In order to entertain such high-ranking officers, special mass executions in the gas chamber were timed to coincide with their visit. This advertisement of skill and of identification with the National Socialist spirit did not confine itself to the gas chamber. The pre-selected prisoners, especially Russian 'politruks and commissars', was also part of the programme. Witnesses estimate that between 1942 and 1945 approximately 10,000 prisoners were killed either in gas vans or in the gas chamber at Mauthausen. When all the evidence is appraised, this total may be very near the mark. It is a total which would include regular inmates of the camp, victims of the euthanasia programme, overflows from other camps and prisoners sent to Hartheim from Mauthausen and outside transports.


continued under Part 5

MAUTHAUSEN PART 3

METHOD OF TORTURE AND DEATH 1/2

By letting the prisoner block leader and Kapos do their dirty work for them the Germans successfully demoralised the inmates in the camp. It was their deliberate policy. [It was in fact applied to all concentration camps, sic]. For those who did not harden their hearts or turn a blind eye to the terrible atrocities that were perpetuated daily, death was merely around the corner. A compassionate man could hardly believe or stomach their inhuman acts, yet he had to do so if he was to survive. And the will to survive was always strong despite terror on work commandos, the raging hunger of near starvation, and the fear of an injury which often ended in being shot. Every man dreaded the prospect of falling sick because he knew that the infirmary's chief concern was not the care of patients. Everyman was afraid to speak and afraid to get up in the morning. He was afraid to go to bed also, lest he should catch an infection from his sleeping companions. Suppurating wounds, the dreaded erysipelas, phlegmon, dysentery, pneumonia and even typhus were all risks. He feared and mistrusted his fellow prisoners, who might steal from his treasured crust of bread or hoarded cigarette. A general fear of both his companion and his overlords made the the demoralising complete.
The method of torture were manifold. One was the swinging torture in which the victim was tied by the hands and feet and suspended between two beams. He was then swung from side to side as the Kapo and the SS delivered their blows. Another favourite method with the SS was to tie the victim's hands behind his back with the thumb against against thumb and then suspend him by these tied hands some eighteen inches above the ground. This caused extreme pain and a shock to the system which, in the case of those with heart conditions, sometimes resulted in death.
There were endless beatings with sand-loaded rubber truncheons about eighteen inches long. Eventually they induced in the prisoner a stet of permanent swaying - akin to a sailor on a moving deck - often resulted in various kinds of brain damage. Further anguish was caused when Deputy Commandant Georg Bachmayer set his hounds to savage victims of these various form of torture.
Anyone who stepped out of line during roll-call, or who failed to take off his cap as an SS man passed by, or who was not quick enough to get out of the block when summoned, might be the victim of the so-called manacle torture. An SS man who had a hatred for prisoners of a particular nationality, or suspected a man of hidden political leanings, would order the manacle torture if he so wished. A prisoner could be manacled to the iron ring for any reason, or for no reason.

The ring at the Wailing Wall

The iron ring, with chains, was placed just inside the main entrance of the camp. It was an extremely unhealthy situation for the victim because he received kicks and blows with everything that came to hand - including revolver butts - from all the passing SS men. There was also, of course, the dogs. During the time he was at the gate the prisoner received no food, no water, no covering, no respite. He died where he was manacled, from thirst, starvation, or from exposure in temperature which at times dropped to minus 30 degree Celsius. One well known episode epitomises the iron ring torture:
'A Russian prisoner was sent to the tower, that is to the chain in the wall by the main entrance. There he stays, with hands tied up above his head. Rapportführer Riegler arrives at dusk. He beats the unfortunate fellow, thrusts him to the ground, bores out his eyes with his cane, crushes his ribs with the blows from his heels, pierces his throat with the cane till the iron tip protrudes from the back of his neck. The cries of the prisoner, who is still alive, are stifled by the surging blood. Riegler then puts an end to his misery with a revolver shot and orders the body to be taken to the crematorium'. [Mauthausen by l'Amicale de Mauthausen, Paris, no date of publication, Riegler SS-Unterscharführer-Rapportführer, was sentenced to death and executed 27. May 1947.sic]

                                            
                                              Shooting victim Mauthausen inmate

Between Blocks 1 and 2 was the "wooden horse". The prisoner was bent over it at roughly hip level, with his arms tied to each side of the structure. At the bottom were two holes through which his feet were tied. He was then lashed by prisoner functionaries, or, as a refinement, by a known friend of his. The lashes were administered with a heavy whip known as a Pizzle, with a circumference of about 7 cm. It was neither rigid nor bendable, but springy. The prisoners seldom endured such punishment without losing consciousness. When this occurred the blows were stopped and the prisoner was revived with water. After he had regained consciousness the flogging continued, with the prisoner himself calling in German the number of lashes inflicted.
German prisoners were treated rather differently from the rest, regardless of the crimes for which they had been imprisoned. Only a German was allowed to punish a German prisoner, and this was by no means peculiar to particular SS men in Mauthausen. It was laid down by Oswald Pohl, the chie economics administrator, who in 1942 sent to Mauthausen a notice (DI, 14C3/L/OT) that specified who was to beat whom. [Document in the Archives Dept. Of the Ministry of Anciens Combtants et Victimes de Guerre, Paris, sic]

An inmate at Mauthausen hangs himself

In the history of Mauthausen the names recur of Kapo murderers whose bestialities placed them beyond the pale so far as their compatriots were concerned. There is evidence to show that they aroused even in the SS a feeling of repugnance. At various times Block 15 and Block 5 were half infirmary and half Jewish. They both came under the rule of a German gypsy known as Negro, who had a pathological hatred of Jews. His allocation to these blocks was deliberate, and his reign was ruthless and efficient in the extreme. Deaths among the inmates occurred with unfailing regularity in order that room could be made for new arrivals. One of the Jews to survive Negro's regime is the English SOE Agent, Captain Edward Zeff. While waiting to be allocated to his block, Captain Edward Zeff heard the call for 'the Jews'. He did not answer. One of Negro's typical outbursts followed. His eyes became glazed, veins stood out angrily on his temple, his ginger hair and red face blazed like a torch, as he demanded the 'Engländer'. At this Zeff presented himself, expecting a rain of blows. He answered only to the name of 'Engländer' which, luckily for him, had the right effect. After this, Negro showed a strange respect for Zeff. He [Negro] was a naturally reticently man and certainly had never confided in prisoners before, but he mellowed sufficiently to tell Zeff that he had been a sailor once and was now serving a life sentence for murder.1
His homicidal tendencies showed themselves terrifyingly on one still and frosty evening. After having made his Jews lift rocks in the quarry all day without food or water, Negro suddenly set upon them with a hatchet. The piercing shrieks of terror could be heard all over the camp. The inmates were accustomed to horror, but this struck deep into their souls. Some of the Jews were too weak to crawl away from his flailing hatchet, as he hit out again and again. He is known to have killed as many as six men one time when this madness came over him.
It was also Negro's habit to tell the remaining prisoners in his block how many days they had to live, that is to say until the expected arrival of the new consignment from another camp.When they heard the news, many hanged themselves during the night from the beams of the roof. Some went berserk and ran towards the main gate, where they were immediately shot dead by the tower guards. Others ran, hand in hand, straight into the high tension electric fencing behind Block 5. Others jumped over the precipice into the quarry. Survivors from the camp tell of two well known and much liked brothers, French Jews, who spent the lunch break saying good-bye to all their friends, and when they jumped over the precipice, they took with them two SS-men who were standing by as observers.

Dead prisoners corpse clings to electrified Barb wire

In the evening, when the prisoners were weakened from work, Negro would place a Jew on a stool in the centre of the barrack room. With his head in his hands, the Jew would be beaten with a corn flail which whipped the skin off his body like peeling paint off the wall. [I think that would have been a rye/wheat flail, as corn was rarely planted in Austria, sic] The blows were given with such force that deep dents were made in the wooden floor. Twenty years after the war these dents could still be seen in Block 5.
The sunken cheeks and generally emaciated appearance of the Negro's Jews created an illusion of increased height, In their feebleness they could only speak in whispers, which added to the ghost-like impression.
Another Kapo, Zaremba, who was of German-Austrian origin, was a well known sadist. he would attack any prisoner who happened to be near him, but he had a particular preference for knocking very weak prisoners down the 186 steps of the quarry and then beating them to death.
A block leader called Unek was a professional criminal from Vienna. He was in charge of Block 12, which contained Spaniards and French from Prisoner-of-war camps. Previously he had been on 'night shift jobs', which was another name for the liquidation of prisoners by injecting into the heart. Later on Unek was transferred to Block 7 which held Polish prisoners, with whom he seems to have felt some affinity. They appear to have escaped the worst of his excesses, despite the fact that wherever Unek was there was an immediate rise in deaths. He was dubbed the 'Polish King', for he took special care of all Poles in the camp, and no one dared to take advantage of his Polish Muselmänner. [This was a term used for prisoners in the second stage of starvation, they could not hold down any food at the end. I have seen them in a POW Camp 1945 under Eisenhower, strange behaviour, grunting like animals, their stomachs and intestines penetrated by parasites from foul food which they consumed, finally would crawl into a corner of a tent, sitting for some reason in a foetus position and die sic] Within his own Block he was known for his unpredictable moods. At one moment he would hit out right and left, at the next he would be given the victims a morsel of bread as a sort of expiation. He also organised a foot ball team which he named 'Vienna', and arranged for them to give regular, if macabre, exhibition games on the SS field.

Muselmänner in second stage of starvation, naked at Gusen, after liberation

Unek and Negro both eventually joined the SS. Their 'conduct' had earned them remission of sentence and acceptance into the ranks. Thus they belonged to that SS group which tried to stem the Russian advance early 1945. [Negro was still alive in 1973, Unek was executed after the war, sic]
The daily roll-call was a form of torture in itself, for it was rarely that the Rapportführer was satisfied with the counting at the first try. When they returned from the quarry in the evening, all prisoners, even the sick and the dying, had to gather in the Appellplatz to be counted. This roll-call area, which was far too small for the number of prisoners in the camp. was bounded on either side by a footpath which could be used only by the SS and Kapos. Any prisoner who walked or stumbled on to these paths was summarily shot. Fearing this, the prisoners struggled to keep in the centre. Those who were unlucky enough to be on the outside were in danger of being thrown on to the paths by the swaying and pushing crowd. Taking a single day at random example, there were 11,135 men in that small place on the 1st October 1941. Any infringement of the orders given to the prisoners could mean the death sentence, and this would take place during the roll-call period. The condemned man, accompanied by a violist of the camp band playing 'J'attendrai', was pulled along on a wooden stand. The stool on which he stood was kicked away from under him. He died from strangulation and not from breaking of the neck.

Mauthausen Gallows

Many prisoners fell down with fatigue, and the sick and injured died while waiting for the counting to be completed. On one remembered occasion the roll-call lasted five hours, well into the wintery night. The prisoners naked feet were gradually hidden under the thickly falling snow. Even when they returned to their blocks the prisoners were not always free to rest. Many Kapos enjoyed waking them in the early hours of the morning to perform strenuous physical exercises. This also caused a number of deaths. [These were under normal circumstances accepted standards in Germany as far back in the 1930 during my days in Primary School, the so called "Frühsport" and continued during military service,sic]
As for the political section, the bunker, or a prison within a prison, held it's own form of torture. The tiny, ill-ventilated cells had just enough space in them for a bunk. There was scarcely room for the prisoner to stand up and spent most of his time lying on the bunk. [One must assume that's how Ilse Koch got pregnant in the holding cell at Dachau, when her interrogator Kirschbaum questioned her on the bunk, sic] If he could see anything at all from the high, small window, it would be the barrows of bodies being trundled into the crematorium. He might be subjected to interrogation at any rime of the day or night, and all the refinements of compulsion would be used. The dazzling electric light was on all the time in the cell. In winter there was no heating, while in summer the kitchens provided heating which would be turned on to its fullest extent.

bunker cells hallway

The Bunker with its cells

The dogs provided another sort of torture. They were expertly trained to attack when let off the leash. On an order from their handler they would either savage prisoners at random while they were at work, or attack a single prisoner specifically chosen and cornered by the guard. These hounds were responsible for the most horrible wounding and eventual death of prisoners. There is no evidence that they were ill fed and thus inclined to be savage, nor that cruelty entered into their training. On the contrary, they were fed and treated much better than the inmates. Those prisoners whose job it was to take huge bins of food to the kennels usually managed to appropriate bins of food for themselves, an act which in camp parlance became known as 'organisiert'. The kennels were outside the camp enclosure in the area of the shooting wall and Camp III.The RSHA issued death warrants or orders under various names in order to justify the murders committed in the camps. Why they felt it to be necessary is a continuing puzzle. One of these orders, the Kugel Erlass or bullet decree, was unique to Mauthausen. This 'K Aktion', as it came to be called, was instigated by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who succeeded Heydrich when the latter died of wounds received in Prague in 1942.
It is yet another instance of complicity of the Wehrmacht in Nazi crimes, for the enactment of the order meant the handing over of prisoner-of-war to the security service (SD). [This to the best of my knowledge this applied mainly to Russian political commissars after the 'Führer decree' and POW, who did not have the protection of the IRC, sic] In this way they were deprived of the protection of the International Red Cross and were brought under the rule of the concentration camps, which were outside international law. The original telegram provides proof of the co-operation between the German Supreme Command the Armed Forces and the RSHA. Its official translation was used for the trials of war criminals after the war.
Only the Commandant and the political section in Mauthausen had full details of the transports of special prisoners, that is, their numbers, names of camps from which they were transferred from and so on. The information was not entered in any official register, nor in the 'special death' book. There were many ways of carrying out executions ordered by Berlin. A common method was known as the 'height measuring stand technique'. The condemned man would be taken down the steps besides the bunker to the corridor below, where he then stood against the wall, a height marker was lowered on to his head as if to measure his height. Behind the brick wall was an SS-man with a specially designed rifle, the nozzle of which protruded into a well concealed hole whose exit was in line with the prisoner's neck.

SS officers posing in front of a newly arrived transport of Soviet prisoners of war -Mauthausen"

The hanging of special prisoners took place in the same area. The prisoner descended the steps from the Appellplatz and, once inside, when he reached a certain position, a wire controlled by a guard jerked so that his head fitted instantly into a noose. In the gloom of the staircase this noose was seldom noticed by the prisoner. In some instances where Berlin decided that a certain prisoner already in Mauthausen should be disposed of under the 'K Aktion', he would be killed and his name 'corrected' on the register.
The Wehrmacht have always vehemently denied responsibility for such deaths of their charges by this 'Aktion'. However, there is little room to doubt their complicity when all evidence is taken into account. It would even appear that it was done at the suggestion of Keitel himself. Keitel had already shown himself ready to co-operate with the SD by handing over prisoners-of-war. It is estimated by former prisoners that some 25,000 people were murdered in Mauthausen under the 'Kugel Aktion' (Bullet Action) [Figures from the International Tracing Service, Record branch, Documents Intelligence Section Catalog, 1st Edition (Germany), 1949, p.26, sic] This figure included 1,300 civilians, the annotations on the execution warrant, accompanying them or preceding them, being Stufe Roem III. Neither their names nor their deaths were recorded, and this enormous total will never be shown on any graphs or camp death rates. 'K Aktion' prisoners should not be confused with the special prisoners sent to Mauthausen for immediate execution, although both groups were housed in Block 20 and both met their deaths in similar ways. They were usually gassed, shot in the neck or hanged. The names of special prisoners were kept in a register numbered with Roman numerals, the last entry reading II-5040.
Records of the 'K Aktion' killings and those of the Roman numeral II appear to have been kept separate from the executions listed in the ordinary death register under 'Orders of the Reichsführer SS'. To give two examples from this last register, 144 persons were listed as hanged on the 25th September 1944, and another 144 on the 14th October 1944. It is unlikely, however, that so many were actually hanged on one day, because there were so few gallows. It would have been slow work and the likelihood of serious disturbances among those who were waiting their turn would have been considerable. It would have been feasible to hang no more than about ten prisoners a day. With any larger number, gassing or shooting would have been more probable.


continued under Part 4 2/2

MAUTHAUSEN PART 2

CONDITIONS IN THE QUARRIES MAUTHAUSEN-GUSEN

Mauthausn was not the only concentration camp to provide slave labour for nearby quarries, but is was by far the most notorious for its high rate of human mortality and for its unbelievable harsh conditions. One of the forms of punishing prisoners in Auschwitz was to send then to the quarries of Mauthausen. Buchenwald had its own quarries, nevertheless its prisoners were in mortal fear of being transferred to Mauthausen when they heard of the conditions there. The following is how a Buchenwald inmate describes the notoriety of Mauthausen quarries:
'An old concentration camp graduate is assailed by a curious feeling when citing accidents. In the camp they were scarcely noticed, they happened every day. It took an altogether different category of events to attract real attention, in the quarries for example. In all camps these quarries were veritable death traps. Some of the camps, like Mauthausen, consisted of almost nothing but quarries apart from interior camp details. Work in the quarries is always hard, especially dragging the lorries uphill, if any aspect can be singled out at all. Every night saw its processions of dead and injured, trundled into camp on wheelbarrows and stretchers, often times there were two or three dozen. The mistreatment was indescribable, stoning, beatings, "accidents",deliberate hurlings into the pit, shooting and every imaginable form of torture'. [Kogan,The Theory and Practice of Hell,pp 93,sic]
Mauthausen and its quarries are inseparable. The dreary walk along a rough road and down a steep hill leading from the main entrance of the camp to the quarries gives one some idea of the misery endured by the prisoners as they clambered up, struggling against ice, snow and rain and slipping and failing under the weight of their heavy loads of granite. The road from the quarries to the camp is long and treacherous enough, but the worst part is the ascent of the notorious 186 steps leading from the bottom of the quarries at the beginning of the long walk back.

Plan of the camp at Mauthausen

The atrocities which took place on these steps are beyond description. No account of tortures endured there would be adequate and no photograph of this sinister place would remotely convey an idea of sufferings of the deportees. One is appalled at the steepness of this flight of steps. Today they have been 'improved' for the convenience of visitors, but as you walk down them you sense the atmosphere of evil, as if entering this infamous place you were penetrating a different element. The bottom of the quarry, now covered with vegetation, is strangely silent. The trees and bushes rustle softly, and even the twittering of the birds seems to be subdued.

The Quarry

It is surrounded by steep cliffs of the notorious 'parachutists' wall where, from a height of nearly 200 feet, hundreds of Dutch Jews were hurled to their death. [ Often Prisoners were made to run up and down the stairs till most were dead. Sometimes the remaining ones would be made to jump off the top of the quarry. SS humour coined it “ the parachute jump”. In 1941 a large group of Jews from the Netherlands were given “special treatment”. They were made to slide down the loose stones on the side of the staircase. Many of them died in the effort. The survivors were made to run up and down the steps with 25 kilo stones on their backs. Often the stones fell on feet and legs of those behind. Those who lost the rock were brutally beaten. For two days the SS drove the Jews up and down the steps. On the third day, driven by despair, the remaining Jews joined hands and leaped over the precipice to their death in the quarry below.sic]

the Parachute Jump

In the quarries there is a recent monument commemorating the death, in a way that was spectacular even for the SS, of forty-seven Allied airmen, including some Englishmen, at least three of them worked with the Resistance and had been denounced to the Gestapo. [In 1944 the SS led fourty-seven Dutch, American, and English officers and flyers, barefooted, to the bottom. On their first journey up the 186 steps they forced the men to carry twenty-five kilogram stones on their backs. On each successive journey they increased the weight of the load. If a prisoner fell, he was beaten. All fourty-seven died of the treatment.sic]
The granite needed for building the camp was extracted by means of modern as well as primitive machinery. There were never enough tools to go around. In order to extract and rack up the stones, one prisoner held down a chisel with an iron bar, while two others alternated with hammer blows. For the more fortunate there were pneumatic drills,but they were mainly used for making holes for dynamite charges. The driller started with small drills and changed to longer ones, the longest being ten feet, as the work progressed.
The blasting in the quarry was normally supervised by a civilian, but on many occasions the plunger was in the hands of the SS. Mauthausen survivors remember with great emotion one such occasion, which concerned an Italian Jew with a beautiful voice. He was ordered to stand on top of a mound of rock and sing the 'Ave Maria'. The charge was laid, the wiring was slowly rolled away and connected with the plunger. The outline of the singer was silhouetted against the setting sun. The beauty of this rendering froze the prisoner onlookers with horror and grief. The plunger detonated the charge and the voice stopped abruptly.

Blasting in the quarry

The dividing line between indiscriminate killing and torture, mass murder and authorised executions, are most difficult to define in a camp which was completely given over to the extermination of its inmates. all too often in the quarries men died because they were too weak to lift an extra-heavy load. How would one classify such a death? A newly arrived prisoner who looked strongly built and healthy would attract the attention of the SS as a red rag attracts a bull. They would pick on him to carry impossibly heavy stone slabs, with which he had to run up the 186 steps. When he finally collapsed he would be executed. As they witnessed such things, the other prisoners would wonder when their turn would come. Prisoners in a very poor physical condition also attracted the attention of the SS. The victim knew what to expect, and it is not unlikely that he regarded it as a way out, a release.
There were two SS guards, Trum and Nieermayer, whose names were particularly identified with the quarry. Trum was tall with a long, pale face, while Niedermayer was shorter and fuller in his features. Both were brutal in bearing. Ostensibly good friends, they vied one with the other in nothing up the lager number of deaths. Their regular haunt was the quarry, where they picked off the working prisoners with their pistols. No one dared stop to look or help the shot man, nor even to slow down the work. Trum and Niedermayer were also responsible for pushing prisoners over the precipice, or ordering them into a forbidden area were they knew they would be shot. They invented stories of prisoners attacking them, for which crime the punishment was death. [Both, Trum and Niedermayer were sentenced to death and hanged May 1947, sic]
The rocks so laboriously raised from the bottom of the quarry were loaded into V-shaped wagons on a narrow-gauge moveable railway line. The lengths of rail could be picked up and placed wherever they were most needed, and there was no fixed starting point or terminus.
The heavy loads of stone were hauled by the prisoners to the surface of the quarry into the camp, either in hods, which were strapped across their shoulders by means of strong webbing criss-crossing the chest, and filled from the wagons, or on bare shoulders. Twenty or more prisoners pulled an iron bar attached to the front of each wagon, while six or more pushed from the back. The trucks were cumbersome and unsteady and frequently jerked off the rails. As they did so, they crushed those unlucky enough to be at the sides and behind. To the angry screams of the SS and Kapos, the contents of the truck were reloaded, the truck itself replaced on the rails and the bodies pushed unceremoniously to one side. The journey was resumed

Slave Labour at Mauthausen

In the Mauthausen Krankenlager, the camp for the sick, hungry inmates fight for a slice of bread

There was a midday break for food at the quarry, which lasted for about one hour. It consisted of a thin gruel. Jews and Russians were always given the smallest amounts and were served last.
It was also the Jews' lot to carry and empty the square wooden toilet buckets. [This was at the work site, sic.] These were large enough for two prisoners to prop one another up by sitting on the three-inch edge back to back. The unfortunate Jews carried the full buckets by poles inserted through hooks at the sides and empties them high on the rise towards one of the neighbouring farms, away from the quarry. As they clambered up the steep slope, the carriers at the back were soiled by the slopping over contents. They were not permitted to use the steps. A British Agent, Edward Zeff, was one of these unfortunate men.
During the early days a great deal of quarrying had been done to the right of the quarry steps, but when water flooded the area working was abandoned. It was above this spot that prisoners were flung over, either killed when they hit the rocks or drowned in the water below.
SS and Kapos with their sand-weighted rubber hoses ready, were constantly on the watch for any slackening in the prisoners work. Whether it was in the quarry or in the concentration camp itself, those prisoners who 'stood and stared' or froze in horror at any incident they observed, did not live long. If they were to survive, in their increasingly weakened condition, they must do only as much work as was consistent with not attracting the guards' attention. It was always fatal to look round to see where such watchers were. Thus came into being the watchword of 'gucken', [German for looking or watching,sic] which was passed along from prisoner to prisoner when a guard was approaching. Without showing the slightest sign, each man would put an extra effort into the work in hand until the guard had passed on.
Work went on i the quarry in all weathers, and the results of such harsh conditions were not long in appearing. Prisoners died from starvation, tuberculosis, heart failure, total exhaustion and of injuries received. A French inmate recalls: 'All those who died or were sick and injured in the quarry were brought back to camp in the evening on a cart like an old baggage wagon. These would be sent with the other sick selected from the roll-call, at which time all prisoners became restive, for it took a lot of control to stand by and watch these poor emaciated wrecks murdered or carted away too weak to resist, to the gas chamber. Many of them pleaded "I will be stronger tomorrow".
The leader of the quarry, Obersturmführer Grau, was one of those who made the sufferings of the prisoners his daily duty. He even exhausted himself by beating prisoners. Another was Hans, a Kapo nicknamed the 'assassin', who seemed almost drunk with blood and killed with an iron bar. Zaramba and Spatzenegger were two more. It was Spatzenegger who supervised the removal of the sick and the dead from the rest when the long rows of exhausted prisoners returned to camp. Some had broken bones protruding through their skin, some had their ears torn off, or deep dirty wounds in their flesh, but all had the glazed, unseeing eyes of men who were approaching death. Spatzenegger also chose the sick prisoners who were taken to the shower room, where they were stripped, laid full length on the stone floor in temperatures lower than minus 20 degree Celsius and left. They were found later, black and stiff, sticking to the floor, and efforts to remove them pulled off the skin. [PS 2176 (2) J.A.D. 3rd US Army, sic]

A Mauthausen block leader punishes an inmate

Eighty-seven Dutch Jews arrived in camp and were sent to work in the quarry separated from all the other prisoners. On their very first morning there they encountered Hans and the effeminate SS man known as the Blond Damsel. These two, hazy after drugging themselves by inhaling ether stolen from the infirmary, with pick handles in hand, flailed into this pathetic group, who were digging and hacking into the unyielding mountainside. An eyewitness of their fate continues:
'I would never imagined a scene so terrible. The pick handles beat on the heads, the bones of which, in cracking, resounded like drums. Brains spurted out, blood flowed. The Jews distracted with horror, worked with all their strength, thinking that their zeal would save them from blows...It was useless...The extraordinary thing was that the Jews, terrorised by this appalling murder, did not cry out. Only the injured moaned...Negro himself, who had already assisted in similar scenes was moved, and told us gently not to look, but to work...' [Olga Wormser and Henri Michel, La tragadie de la deportation 1940-1945 page 398. From testimony of Paul Tillard.sic]
By eleven-thirty that morning, forty-seven of the eighty-seven lay dead on the ground, the handiwork of two frenzied people. They were butchered one after the other before the eyes of 1500 fellow prisoners helpless to do anything, and themselves driven to distraction at witnessing this wanton and hideous cruelty.
That afternoon, four more were killed by Hans and the Damsel. They were taken to the cliff top and told to fight, when two dropped on the rocks below, the victors would go free. Two dropped, but the victors were immediately sent to join them. Hans and his companion despatched yet another six from this martyred group, again with pick handles. The thirty survivors, barely able to stand and lift their tools, lived for another day or so only because Hans and the Blond Damsel had no strength left to crush them.[idem., page 400-401. sic]
On his way back to the camp after the day's work, each so-called healthy prisoner had to carry a stone, which was stacked into a pile for use in the building of the camp and its walls. The trick was to find a comparatively light, narrow stone with a wide surface, and show only the surface side to the SS. It often succeeded.

risoners working as Stone-masons preparing granite slabs for building material outside their work barrack at Mauthausen 1942

 In late 1943 building began on the Messerschmidt factory which was to be site in the quarry. In fact there were armament works in every subsidiary camp of Mauthausen.
Lt. Le Chene, who was on the commando for the foundations of this building, recalls: 'I had to collect sacks of cement from the roadway depot, some 500 yards from the camp. At this depot, two prisoners would lift the sack weighing 110 lbs on to my already bent back. In the long trek back to the site, I dared not put the sack down, as I knew I would have insufficient strength to lift it again, being already half my former weight, so, when no SS were around I profited by resting with the sack still on my back against a wall. When rain fell, this wasn't good. The bag split and the cement began to set on me'.
When building was completed, young Spanish boys who had been deported from France in August 1940 were sent to the Messerschmidt factory to make machine pistols. They were given the same camp numbers as their fathers who were already dead. None survived. There was also a work commando known as the Steimetz,(Stone-mason) the chisel work detail, where special pieces of granite were fashioned by hand.
There are a great many photographs in existence which show unmistakably that Himmler and Kaltenbrunner visited the quarry. They were accompanied by Ziereis, Bachmayer, Schulz and Müller, the sinister Gestapo liaison officer. [Bachmayer committed suicide on May 8, 1945 after shooting his wife and two children, sic]

 Commandant Franz Ziereis accompanies Heinrich Himmler on an inspection tour of the Mauthausen concentration camp"

The Austrian people were not ignorant of the crimes which were being perpetrated in their midst. The Sunday Times of 11th January, 1942, stated that 'Vienna is horrified' at the revelation of what happened to 700 Jews in Mauthausen. The Daily Telegraph also reported in detail the massacres of the Dutch Jews. The facts were none too accurately reported. However, neither the publication of such atrocities nor the supposed horror of the Viennese achieved anything, for the men in charge of Mauthausen went on their odious way quite unperturbed.

continued under part 3

Mauthausen Part 1

PROLOGUE
A concentration camp is hard to define, it differs totally from any other aspects of life and human relationship. It is in the words of a witness at the Eichmann trial in 1961, "like another planet". In the Germany of 1938 there were prisons for law-breakers just as in other countries, but the concentration camps were already emitting those poisonous exhalations which were stifling not only the law but man's conscience as well. Just before the plebiscite following the Anschluss in 1938, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and head of the Gestapo, visited Austria. Knowing what was about to happen there, and that the existing concentration camps in Germany, especially Dachau, were full to capacity, he was looking for a site which could be exploited economically and which also would be suitable for certain very special requirements. He wished in fact to build a concentration camp which would be worthy of the Thousand Year Reich, and which would last as long. One of the places he visited was the Wienergraben quarries, owned by the Municipal Authorities of Vienna, which had supplied paving stones for that city.

Mauthausen quarry, Himmler probably looked at

Himmler was impressed by what he saw. The quarries, which could be worked extensively, nestled in the lush, hilly countryside on the north bank of the Danube about 106 miles upstream from Vienna and fourteen miles downstream from Linz. More important, the small village of Mauthausen nearby boasted a railway station. Himmler made his choice.
What exactly had Himmler in mind when he made this trip in 1938, during a period when Germany was proclaiming peace and future stability to the world, was only clear to him alone. It is now known that before he left his headquarters, plans wee being prepared for the organisation of an enormous chain of concentration camps stretching right across Europe. The mechanic's of these mills of destruction can be traced back directly to Himmler. It is often said that he was completely subservient to the Führer and incapable of making independent decisions, far from it. Himmler had his own cherished plans for exploiting the concentration camps, less as a contribution to the war effort than as a means of financing the SS should it ever lose the support of the head of state.

he quarry at Mauthausen during the camps operation"

To centralise the administration of all these SS activities, Himmler created the "Deutsche Erd-und Steinwerke" (DEST) and the "Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke" (DAW), which was placed under his ex-naval friend Oswald Pohl. During the war Pohl's powers were extended to include responsibility for the "Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt" (WVHA). Even Glücks, the head of "Amt D" (concentration camps) was answerable to him.
Although Hitler must ultimately be held responsible for the crimes, he never took any interest in what he considered to be the tiresome business of administration. This he left to his friends, who tried to outdo one another in brutality so as to preserve a united front to the more intelligent up-and-coming young officers. Himmler certainly showed more ability to plan ahead than did most of those who surrounded him, one example being the camps and what happened in them. When the idea was first conceived he may not have foreseen the extent to which excess would become irreversible. But all this was still in the future. Mauthausen had not yet been built. The men and women it was to engulf were still following their everyday occupations all over Europe, unaware of the storm which was about to break.
[As a footnote, that Himmler at the end took poison in British captivity, is hardly credible, he was killed by their Agents, if one just examines the events that evolved, the claim that he had a phial of cyanide secreted in one of his teeth is beyond belief, sic]
THE BEGINNING
On the 8 August 1938 the first 300 prisoners arrived from the Dachau concentration camp, accompanied by about 80 members of the SS, in Mauthausen. They were classified by the SS as "criminal" or "antisocial" German and Austrian male prisoners. During October, Mauthausen was run as a satellite camp of Dachau, and these first prisoners kept until 18 October 1938, their own Dachau registration numbers. By the end of 1938, the SS transferred over 1000 prisoners from the camps of Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Even before the conclusion of the lease agreement with the city of Vienna, the SS took over on 25 May 1938 in the immediate vicinity of Mauthausen from the municipality of Langenstein a Stone-Quarry at Gusen, apart from that in 1938 the adjacent quarry at Kastenhof was also acquired on a long term lease basis. The acquisition of the Mauthausen quarry did not lead to the founding of its concentration camp in 1938, but late in 1939 on the Initiative of the DESt-Operation for the establishment of the Gusen camp which had local quarries in its vicinity. The Gusen concentration camp was opened on 25 May 1940 and administrated in the following years, together with the Mauthausen on a sort of dual system (Doppellager).
In these early days the labour force was provided with modern tools and machinery by the SS construction units of the DEST and DAW. Witnesses say that after the SS had moved in, the civilian quarry company was allowed to remain at Mauthausen. If this was the case, it is likely that some of their equipment would have been used by the prisoners. Conditions were still comparatively easy. The rougher methods of construction were yet to come. A small temporary narrow-gauge railway was installed in order to speed up the extraction of granite, but the prisoners still had to unload the granite at the foot of the stairway in the quarry and carry the individual stones up to the camp site.
The first building to be erected on the flat summit of the hill was the Commandantur, or offices of the camp command. Theses offices included the "politische Abteilung", or the political section, where the Gestapo files on the inmates were kept. The Commandantur lay outside the camp, but overlooked the garage yard and, at the extreme left, of the main entrance to the camp. The hospital for the SS, on the slope outside the camp, was completed early. It was modern in style and very well equipped, with excellent ventilation, complete sterilising units, a laboratory and therapy treatment lamps. Prisoners in need of treatment were admitted to this hospital until the end of 1939. The greatest single effort of those months seems to have been the building of the awesome main entrance with its huge wooden doors flanked by watch towers, and the tall granite wall which separated the camp from the Commandantur buildings and towered over the huge SS garage yards.

Mauthausen inmates labour in the Quarry

Within the camp the prisoner's area was ringed with high tension wiring. During 1939 two prisoners were shot while trying to escape, one was hanged, five electrocuted and one killed in a working accident. These deaths were recorded in a separate book entitled "Unnatural Deaths", which was locked up in the political section. In addition to this there were 434 "natural deaths", which were accounted for to some extent by a typhus epidemic in the the camp. Other deaths were caused by the brutality of the SS. As Mauthausen did not yet possess a crematorium, the bodies were disposed of at a civilian crematorium some miles away in Steyr. The increasingly frequent journeys between Mauthausen and Steyr did not pass unnoticed by the civilian population, who made representations to the Gauleiter, Dr. Gustav Brachmann. The Berlin authorities too were concerned after the war was declared September 1939 to keep the good opinion was one thing, to precipitate an embarrassing clash with Austrian country folk quite another. This forced Theodor Eike to relieve the Commandant of Mauthausen, Sturmbannführer (Major) Sauer and his Adjutant Kramer from their positions and sent them elsewhere. [Sauer was extremely bitter about this measure, until the middle of the war was Sauer (prnounced "sour") again entrusted with functions in concentration camps, although 'promoted' as commander of the KZ Riga-Kaiserwald, he was never the same, and at the start of 1945 transferred to Ravensbrück, Sauer was killed in action on 3 May 1945 in the vicinity of Berlin, sic]
It was Kramer's duty to inform the relatives of a prisoner when death occurred, and provide them with a death certificate. At first it was possible for them to see the body before removing it either for burial or cremation. Even after hostilities this practice was continued for the relatives of German prisoners and to some extent for the few Poles who were admitted between October and December 1939. Kramer would meet the German mourners at the gate, tender his condolence and add that the dead man had been a 'model prisoner', due for release from custody in a day or so for good conduct, but he had unfortunately died of a heart attack, (or pneumonia or some other disease) "despite the expert care of the SS medical staff". When it became apparent , and it soon did, that the prisoner had died from other causes than those specified, Kramer evaded the relatives inquiries by sealing the coffin before inspection. "It was necessary", he said,"to avoid the possibility of infection".
There is no evidence that prisoners lacked adequate food at this time. Supplies were delivered to the camp according to the number of inmates, and the scale of provisions was periodically reviewed. Although tempering with the prisoners rations took place at the camp, the amounts despatched to December 1939 per 100 inmates compared very favourable with those for the years which were to follow.
Nor is there evidence of any plans for a gas chamber during the early stages of the building of Mauthausen. Indeed, before the outbreak of the war it is unlikely that either the camp command or Oranienburg, the Berlin concentration camp headquarters, had any idea of the hideous installations which later on were to complete and perfect the machine of death. Those were to come later. By December 1939 the building of the SS barracks, the Commandantur, garages and prisoners barracks was completed. Work on the remaining parts of the camp continued until the liberation in 1945, at the enormous and terrible cost of the lives of its thousands of inmates. This monstrous, carefully stone fortress, encircled by piercing floodlights, struck coldness and fear into the prisoners as they arrived at the gates.

Heinrich Himmler of SS visiting Mauthausen in 1941. Himmler is talking to Franz Ziereis, camp commandant.

Mauthausen concentration camp from 1938 to 1945 had only two commanders, as compared to other camps, this was a low low staff turnover for commission officers responsible for the administration of KZ-Camps. Sturmbannführer Albert Sauer, who was from the establishment of the camp in Agust 1938 to February 1939 entrusted with this function, but was replaced by Franz Ziereis on 1 April 1939 who remained in this position longer than any other commandant until May 1945. Who was Franz Ziereis?
He was known as "baby face Ziereis" because of his soft features. He was neither tall nor heavy built, but of his general appearance was handsome and much enhanced by his elegant and superbly-kept uniform. Born of a humble family in Munich 1905, he had one brother and two sisters. When little more than eighteen years old, he enrolled in the 19th Bavarian Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr, in which he remained until September 1936. When he left he held the rank of First Lieutenant. He immediately re-entered the service, this time as a training officer in the Waffen SS- the 4th Standarte in Oranienburg- where he was promoted to Haupsturmführer, the grade with which he succeeded Sauer as Commandant of Mauthausen. In 1941 he was promoted to Sturmbannführer (Major), in 1943 to Obersturmbannführer (Lt.-Colonel) and finally in 1944 to Standartenführer (Colonel).
In addition of his officers pay, Ziereis received 300 RM per month from DEST for hiring out prisoners to civilian contractors.
The Meserschmidt factories paid a daily hire of 8 RM per man to Oswald Pohl's SS economic administration. Ziereis's share of this was only 50 Pfennings per man, about which he complained bitterly. He even received his share of the cost of a prisoner's visit to the camp brothel.
What sort of man was Ziereis? He must have possessed some curious power which enabled him to remain for so long in this position of authority, in control of an enterprise worth million of Reichsmarks. Yet he was neither powerful with the "top brass", nor influential with them. Indeed the political section of the camp conducted itself with such independence from Gestapo headquarters that this was a constant source of irritation to him. His history does not show that he possessed any particular driving force, nor an above average intelligence. He was a model husband and a devoted father, a reasonable sober man, with none of the positive or latent homosexual tendencies that were common with men of his position. His vice, if that is how it can be described, lay in his inexhaustible homicidal activities, and in this he excelled.
His deputy was Georg Bachmayer, who was in charge of the Garrison SS, although the nominal chief was one by the name of Zutter. There is an impression that Ziereis was always suspicious of the raucous, heavy-drinking Bachmayer and that he feared he might be overshadowed and eventually replaced by him.

Franz Ziereis, Commandant of Mauthausen, 1939-1945

The top administration of the concentration camps was in the hands of the most ruthless men of the Nazi regime. Under an agreement dating from December 1939, the economic administration came under Oswald Pohl, but depended finally upon Himmler, while discipline was maintained through Gücks, the inspector of Concentration Camps, who was answerable to Heydrich. The Pohl-Himmler empire was run from the Unter den Eichen at Berlin-Lichterfelde, and Glücks-Heydrich Inspectorate from Oranienburg, very close to Sachenhausen.
Heydrich intended the concentration camps to be merely places where undesirables were eliminated and to a very great extent this is what they remained, even after his death in 1942. Himmler, though equally ready to murder their defenceless inmates, saw the opportunity of extracting saleable produce from their toil before they died.
During the period of Ziereis' command at Mauthausen some fifty-seven sub-camps and sub-sub commands were to grow up as offshoots from the main camp. Two of them, Gusen and Ebensee, grew almost to rival Mauthausen itself, while twenty-nine others became quite large. Ziereis also had a loose connection with the castle of Hartheim.
Theodor Eicke, whose power was so great that he was able to form his own army. This was known as the Totenkopfverbände (death head units), whose members became concentration camp guards. [This is not quite correct, part of them became a ferocious fighting unit almost all of them, especially on the eastern front during the war,sic] At the outbreak of the war Eicke moved into action with his Units and the Inspectorate was entrusted to Glücks. A core of these Totenkopfverbände members remained in control at all times in the camps. The SS garrison at Mauthausen consisted of them plus about hundred former army and air force personnel. The SS/Prisoner ratio was never less than 1:10 in Mauthausen and its dependencies. [PS 2176(209), J.A.D. 3rd US Army, sic]
TheSS-prisoner ratio could only be maintained at this level if prisoners functionaries took charge of the internal administration of the camp These were known as Prominenten and were chosen by the SS because of their particular abilities in one direction or another. Those with a knowledge of Slav languages and an ability to translate often obtained positions in the records section of the camp. Prisoner doctors, dentists and lawyers all came into the Prominenten category. The SS tended to respect them and up to a point protect them in order to maintain some semblance of a smooth-running organisation in the camp. They themselves supervised the work of the Prominenten and saw to it that they had no Kapo overseers over them.

"Battered inmate photographed by the SS during the operation of Mauthausen"

Kapo overseers were drawn principally from the criminal class of prisoners. They were often ignorant, crude and base and were selected by the SS for their brutality. Under Commandant Sauer's regime they were tutored in beating the prisoners with long rubberized hoses. They wore black armband of arbitrary power, which gave them a licensed outlet for their frustration and mental disorders. They terrorised the helpless prisoners over whom they were given control. They also had endless opportunities for working a black market, pilfering and receiving bribes. There was no love lost between them and the Prominenten, with whom they should on no account be confused.
The prison functionaries had not only sufficient food to eat in the main camp, but according to Hans Marsalek, there were 20-30 "Prominerte" who never touched a normal prison food. They ate, often in the company of the SS block leaders, especially for them prepared meals, from potato pancakes to roasted hare (gespickter Hasenbraten) at covered tables in separate rooms. The clothing set them apart as well from the other prisoners. The camp clerk Leitzinger had a made ​​to measure prison uniform. Central the prisoner functionaries activities were the emerging barter system, involving the more corrupt SS-men, who conducted trade with the civilian population at the outside. It was a simple method of pilfering valuables out of the Holding Store from prisoner belongings and obtain luxury goods, alcohol and drugs, which Leitzinger enjoyed.




Continued under Part 2