Tag Archives: SS

The murder of 10 women in Camp Vught.

Concentration camp Vught, also known as concentration camp Herzogenbusch , was the only purpose built concentration camp in the Netherland. The other 2 major camps, Westerbork and Amersfoort, were already built before the war as a refugee center and army barracks.

The construction of Camp Vught began in May 1942. The camp consisted of 36 living and 23 working barracks. It was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with watchtowers were placed roughly every 160 feet around the perimeter. The SS lived outside the camp. situated outside the camp.

On the night of 15th/ 16th January 1944 , 74 female prisoners were detained in a cell after they protested against the interment of a fellow prisoner. This was done under the authority of camp commander Adam Grünewald

The room with the surface of 9 m² had a poor ventilation system, and because of that ten women died of suffocation during the 14 hours of imprisonment. The news of this crime quickly got outside the camp and was extensively reported by the Dutch illegal press. This caused a problem to the Nazi leadership in the Netherlands, who were trying to limit such violent incidents in the camp in order not to fuel the resistance in the Netherlands.

Electronics company Philips had a factory within the compound of the camp. It employed about 1200 people, who received a better treatment then other prisoners.

Adam Grünewald was subsequently arrested for the “bunker tragedy” and tried by an SS court in February which gave him credit for his years of service and his contention that he “didn’t wish for the death of ten women.” He was convicted for their death but sentenced to only three and a half years imprisonment.

On several sites this is referred to as the “bunker tragedy” . I don’t see it as a tragedy, to me this was cold blooded murder. They only redeeming factor is that only 10 women died.

sources

https://www.britannica.com/place/Vught

https://www.tracesofwar.com/articles/5192/Bunker-tragedy-at-concentration-camp-Vught.htm

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/vught-concentration-camp

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adam-grunewald

http://www.philips-kommando.nl/index_grijs.html#

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/herzogenbusch-main-camp-vught#:~:text=Consequently%2C%2074%20women%20were%20collectively,and%20a%20half%20years’%20imprisonment.

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Playing music for Mengele and the SS.

Gustav Mahler is one of the most famous classical music composers and conductors of all time. Yet, his music was considered as degenerate by the Nazi regime, and was therefore banned in Germany and all the occupies territories. It was not because Mahler was a bad composer but because he was Jewish.

However the Nazis had no issues being musically entertained by Mahler’s niece, Alma Rosé. In fact Alma was selected to play in and conduct the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz.

The orchestra was formed in April 1943 by SS-Oberaufseherin Maria Mandel, supervisor of the women’s camp in Auschwitz, and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Franz Hössler, the women’s camp commandant. The Nazis wanted a propaganda tool for visitors and camp newsreels and a tool to boost camp morale.

Rosé’s arrival at the camp’s railway siding was in bitter contrast to her previous engagements in nearby Krakow, Poland, just a 45-minute drive away. She had appeared there at least twice – as a violinist appearing with her former husband, the Czech violin virtuoso Váša Příhoda, and in 1935 as a conductor of her celebrated women’s orchestra, the elegant Wiener Walzermädeln which she founded and led throughout Europe.

The orchestra had 20 members by June 1943; by 1944 it had 42–47 musicians Its primary role was to play (often for hours on end in all weather conditions) at the gate of the women’s camp when the work gangs left and returned. They might also play during “selection” and in the infirmary.

They would rehearse for up to ten hours a day to play music regarded as helpful in the daily running of the camp. They also held a concert every Sunday for the SS.

For the orchestra’s concerts the women wore blue pleated skirts, white blouses and lavender-coloured kerchief head coverings.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was a cellist in the orchestra and she recalled in her memoirs, and in a documentary called “We want the light” the orchestra being told to play Schumann’s Träumerei for Josef Mengele.

According to one report of a concert in the bath-house, a number of SS women were joking and interrupting the performance in which Alma Rosé was playing a solo. She stopped and angrily said: ‘Like that, I cannot play.’ Silence followed; she then played, and no one disciplined her.

Alma Rosé was even able to convince the Nazis to spare her musicians from selections for the gas chambers. When mandolin player Rachela Zelmanowicz was in the infirmary with typhus,which would be a death sentence for any other prisoner,Josef Mengele was prepared to send her to the gas chambers. “What’s with this one?” he asked during his rounds. “She’s from the orchestra.”

Mengele continued on his way without any further discussion. As a member of Rosé’s orchestra, Zelmanowicz was untouchable even by him. Her life was spared.

Alma Rosé died suddenly on 5 April 1944, possibly from food poisoning, after a birthday celebration for a kapo

On 1 November 1944, the Jewish members of the women’s orchestra were evacuated by cattle car to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where there was neither orchestra nor special privileges.Three members, Charlotte “Lola” Croner, Julie Stroumsa and Else, died there.

sources

https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/death-camps/auschwitz/camp-orchestras/

https://www.facinghistory.org/music-memory-and-resistance-during-holocaust/birkenau-womens-camp-orchestra

https://www.thestrad.com/alma-rose-the-violinist-who-brought-music-to-auschwitz/341.article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074r0r

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Dachau herb garden

Aside from their murderous practices, the SS also had several businesses.

On January 23, 1939 Oswald Pohl .the head of “SS Main Economic and Administrative Office” founded the “German Research Institute for Nutrition and Food Provision Ltd.” The shareholders were the SS concern “German Earth and Stone Works Ltd.” and a member of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Although his name is not found in available sources, it can be assumed that the individual concerned was the SS-Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) Dr. Salpeter whose name was recorded as that of a trusted shareholder at the end of 1939. The major aim of the undertaking was the cultivation and study of medicinal plants and spices. Its management was the responsibility of Hauptsturmfuhrer (Captain) Heinrich Vogel in the Office of Economic Administration of the WVHA. According to the partnership agreement the research institute had the following tasks:

a) Systematic research and cultivation of those medicinal herbs native to Germany in the interest of the national economy
b) Supplying German and foreign markets with German drugs.
c) Production of new drugs and new syntheses based on scientific research.
d) Maintenance of laboratories.
e) Acquisition of plots
f) The organization of all commercial and agricultural transactions arising in connection with the enterprise e.g. poultry and animal farms etc.

The plantation at the Dachau concentration camp was the centerpiece of the whole venture which came to include a wide range of assorted projects. While at the end of 1939 there were in total only three in operation (Dachau, Ravensbruck, Bretsteintal in der Steiermark.) by the end of 1944 the “German Research Institute for Nutrition and Food Provisions Ltd” comprised over twenty agricultural enterprises as well as fish hatcheries and the administration and oversight of properties in the occupied territories of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union.

One of these enterprises was the herb garden in Dachau, Known as the plantation.

The plantation at Dachau and the smaller one at Ravensbruck concentration camp were distinctive in the sense that they were cultivated almost exclusively by prisoners. The other projects, which were spread across Germany an Austria, employed a good deal more civilian workers and were cultivated only in part by prisoners. They were also less labor intensive, being based around experiments with biodynamic cultivation methods in which both Himmler and Pohl were believers as well as cattle and sheep breeding and experimenting with veterinary medicine etc.

Ernst-Günther Schenck was tasked to set up the plantation.in Dachau concentration camp, which contained over 200,000 medicinal plants, from which, among other things, vitamin supplements for the Waffen-SS were manufactured.

In 1940 he was appointed as inspector of nutrition for the SS. In 1943 Schenck developed a protein sausage, which was meant for the SS frontline troops. Prior to its adoption it was tested on 370 prisoners in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, some of whom died of hunger.

The extensive cultivation of medicinal herbs, however, particularly in the given climate conditions, was highly labor intensive: such a project under the the prevailing wage conditions was hardly feasible. For the initiators of the project to use concentration camp prisoners was therefore an obvious one. Using a labor force that could be exploited could guarantee the viability of the whole undertaking.

The plantation was located outside the prisoner camp. It was a large nursery with areas of cultivated land that, from 1938 onwards, the prisoners were forced to lay out and work on. The SS described this agricultural operation euphemistically as the “herb garden”. Today, the area is mostly overbuilt with industrial buildings.

The complex comprised numerous structures, including a maintenance building, a teaching and research institute, a shop, an equipment shed, a bee house, greenhouses, as well as large sections of productive land. It was Heinrich Himmler’s idea that by cultivating and studying medicinal and aromatic herbs the Nazi state could itself independent of its reliance on foreign medicines and herbs. Establishing a “Volk medicine” in close touch with nature was a prestige project of Nazi health policy and was avidly supported by the leader of the SS. Responsible for selling the produce from the experiments and testing was the SS-owned company “Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Ernährung und Verpflegung GmbH” (DVA).

The residents of Dachau, as in the town Dachau, and neighboring areas could purchase the produce of the “herb garden” in a shop. There individual prisoners succeeded in secretly establishing contact with the civilian population who helped them, at the risk of death, to smuggle goods and information in and out of the camp.

The prisoners called the feared deployment to the outdoor areas of the “herb garden” the “plantation” work detail. They were forced to do the extremely arduous and exhausting work no matter the weather. Inadequate clothing, malnutrition, bullying and abuse by the SS turned the already hard outdoor work into a perilous torture. The working conditions in the buildings and greenhouses were less brutal. A work detail of illustrators had to compile a herbarium.

The former administrative and institute building as well as remnants of three greenhouses with added end structures have survived. There are plans to restore the building ensemble, which is in the possession of the City of Dachau authority. Based on a new utilization concept, the historical structures are to be integrated into the Memorial Site and become part of its ‘space of memory’.

In April 1945 Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck volunteered to work in an emergency casualty station located in the large cellar of the Reich Chancellery, near the Vorbunker and Führerbunker,during the battle in Berlin.

Although he was not trained as a surgeon and lacked the experience, as well as the supplies and instruments necessary to operate on battle victims, he nonetheless assisted in major surgical operations. During these surgeries, Schenck was aided by Dr. Werner Haase, who also served as one of Hitler’s private physicians. Although Haase had much more surgical experience than Schenck, he was greatly weakened by tuberculosis, and often had to lie down while giving verbal advice to Schenck.

During the end time in Berlin, Schenck saw Hitler in person twice, for only a brief time: once when Hitler wanted to thank him, Haase, and nurse Erna Flegel for their emergency medical services, and once during the reception after Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun.

Because of this chance encounter with Adolf Hitler his memoirs proved historically valuable. His accounts of this period are prominent in the works of Joachim Fest and James P. O’Donnell regarding the end of Hitler’s life, and were included in the film Downfall (2004).

sources

SS experimental agricultural facility “herb garden”/“plantation”

https://www.thirdreicharts.com/the-dachau-herb-garden

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Otto Moll – a special kind of evil.

Moll

There were many evil men in the SS. but some appeared to have more joy in their evil deeds than others..

Otto Moll was arrested on April 29,1945 when the US Army liberated Dachau but prior to his role in Dachau he had several position in Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau. He was in charge of the crematoria at Auschwitz.

I will not say too much about Moll myself, instead I will use the words of 2 survivors and the words of The Auschwirz commandant Rudolf Hoess and the words of Moll himself. It is believed that Moll personally murdered thousands of victims, Before you read the testimonies have a good look at the picture below. In it you can see Moll in the front row. A picture of SS officers having a ‘jolly’ good time, and then read the testimonies and read them more then once. At the front row areKarl Hoecker, Otto Moll, Rudolf Hoess, Richard Baer, Josef Kramer (standing slightly behind Hoessler and partially obscured), Franz Hoessler, Josef Mengele, Anton Thumann, and Walter Schmidetzki. Hermann Buch is in the center. Konrad Wiegand, head of the vehicle pool is in the middle.

ss

Testimony of Alter Feinsilber.a member of the Sonderkommando at Birkenau .

“It happened that some prisoners offered resistance when about to be shot at the pit or that children would cry and then SS Quartermaster Sergeant Moll would throw them alive into the flames of the pit”

Testimony of Henryk Tauber also a member of the Sonderkommando.

“Hauptscharführer Moll was the most degenerate of the lot. Before his arrival at the camp, he was in charge of the work at the Bunkers, where they incinerated the gassed victims in pits. Then he was transferred for a while to another section. In view of the preparation necessary for the “reception” of convoys from Hungary in 1944, he was put in charge of all the crematoria. It is he who organized the large-scale extermination of the people arriving in these convoys. Just before the arrival of the Hungarian transports, he ordered pits to be dug alongside crematoria V and restarted the activity of Bunker 2, which had been lying idle, and its pits. In the yard of the crematory, there were notices on posts, with inscriptions telling the new arrivals from the transports that they were to go to the camp where work was waiting for them, but that first they had to take a bath and undergo disinfestation. For that, it was necessary for them to undress and put all their valuables in baskets specially placed for this purpose in the yard. Moll repeated the same thing in his speeches to the new arrivals. There were so many convoys that sometimes it happened that the gas chambers were incapable of containing all the new arrivals. The excess people were generally shot, one at a time and often by Moll himself. On several occasions, Moll threw people into the flaming pits alive. He also practised shooting people from a distance. He ill-treated and beat Sonderkommando prisoners, treating them like animals. Those who were in his personal service told us that he used a piece of wire to fish out gold objects from the box containing the jewels taken from new arrivals, and took them off in a briefcase. Among the objects left by the people who came to be gassed, he took furs and different types of food, in particular fat. When he took food, he said smilingly to the SS around him that one had to take advantage before the lean years came. Under his direction, the Sonderkommando was strengthened and increased to about 1000 prisoners”

Extract from the interrogation which was conducted by by Lieut.-Colonel Smith W. Brookhart on April 16 in Nuremberg.

Q. You are the same Otto Moll who appeared here this morning and you understand that your statements here are made under oath?
A. Yes. May I make a request please?
Q. Yes.
A. In Landsberg I made a request that I be confronted with Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Auschwitz Camp, so that I may testify in front of Hoess and Hoess may testify in front of me. I request you now that this may be granted. I would like to have Hoess testify in my presence, as I would like to see him make the statements in my presence and I can testify as to the truth.
Q. Assuming that you are confronted by Hoess, are you going to tell the truth, or are you going to continue to give us the same kind of a story that you gave us this morning?
A. No. I want Hoess to come here and state just what orders he gave me and I can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to what is true and what is not true. Hoess should come here and say what orders he gave me, what duties I fulfilled and in what manner I accomplished them and then I can deny or confirm what he says.
Q. We will conduct the interrogation in the manner we wish and on the basis of the subjects in which we are interested. You are to listen carefully, you are not to interrupt or make any sound whatsoever until you are requested. Do you understand that?
A. I will remain silent and I will listen to him.
Q. You will be given the opportunity to speak at the proper time.
A. Please approve this request that Hoess may come in here and repeat his incriminating testimony against me. It hurts me to see that he, the commandant, is running around free, when I have to go around shackled to a guard.
Q. We are not interested whatsoever in your feelings in this matter.

(Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the Auschwitz Camp, enters room)

Q. Are you the same Rudolf Hoess that has appeared here on numerous occasions and given testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you understand that the statements you make here this afternoon are made under oath?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know this person sitting to your right that is shackled to the guard?
A. Yes.
Q. What is his name?
A. Otto Moll.
Q. Where did you know him?
A. First at Sachsenhausen and later at Auschwitz.
Q. What did this Otto Moll do at Sachsenhausen and later at Auschwitz?
A. In Sachsenhausen he was a gardener and later at Auschwitz he was used as a leader of a work detail and later on he was used as a supervisor during the various actions.
Q. You mean the actions whereby people were executed and later cremated.?
A. Yes.
Q. You told us this morning about his first assignment in 1941 when farm buildings were converted into an extermination plant. Will you restate what you said about that?
A. At first he worked on the farm and then later I moved him into the farm house, which was used as a professional extermination plant.

Questions directed to Otto Moll

Q. Otto Moll, is what the witness has just said true?
A. First, I was used in work in connection with the excavation of the mass graves. Hoess must know that. He is in error if he said that I worked in the buildings where the gassing was carried out. At first I was used for the excavation of the mass graves and he must remember that. Hoess, do you remember Swosten, Blank, Omen, Hatford and Garduck [sic]? Those are the people who worked in the building at the time when you alleged I worked there and I was working on excavations. Surely Hoess remembers that.

Question directed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Is that right?
A. Moll is correct insofar as he says he was first used in the excavations – that was before he was being used for the executions.

Question directed to Otto Moll

Q. What is being said here, as I told you this morning, is that you are responsible for this operation, namely for killing and destruction of the bodies in the first improvised slaughter house.
A. I was responsible to see that the corpses were burned after the people were killed. I was never responsible for the actual supervision of the killing. It was always the officers or the physicians who were present at the time. As my commandant, at the time, Hoess should be able to confirm this.

Questions directed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. What do you say about this?
A. As I said this morning, Moll is only partly correct. As I explained, the gas was actually thrown into the chamber by the medical personnel and Moll was not responsible for supervising the entire process, beginning with the arrival of the transport and the burning of the corpses, he was only responsible for a part of this process, at least initially.
Q. You did say that he was responsible for seeing that these people were exterminated.
A. I could have been misunderstood. What I said, or meant to say, was that Moll was responsible in the buildings where he worked. At first, to see that people were undressed in orderly fashion, and after they were killed, to see that the bodies were disposed of in an orderly fashion, later on when the extensive extermination plant was completed, he was responsible for the entire plant.
Q. Just what operations in the plant was he responsible for?
A. He was responsible for everything up to and including the actual leading into the gas chambers of the people and after that, to remove the bodies to burn them.
Q. Will you please repeat about Moll shooting people through the neck.
A. As I explained this morning, those that were too weak to be moved to the gas chamber, or who could not be moved for some other reason, were shot through the neck by him or…[ellipses in original PM] some of the other fellows around, with small caliber arms.

Questions directed to Otto Moll

Q. Well, what do you say about that?
A. It may be possible that some of them were shot by me, but it was a comparatively small number and I would like to know if Hoess ever saw me do it.
Q. I told you this morning that Hoess said he saw you do it many times and so did many others.

Questions directed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Hoess, isn’t that right?
A. Yes, it is true. I mentioned this morning that there were comparatively few killed in that manner.
Q. You could not tell if it was a few dozen or a few hundred. That was your problem.
A. I cannot quote you an exact number—that is impossible for so many years; there were many. Sometimes there were a few out of each incoming transport and sometimes there were none. That is why I cannot tell you the exact number.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. Well, this is the first thing you have admitted, now you are telling the truth about which you lied this morning. Are you ready to tell us the truth regarding your responsibility about other operations?
A. Yes, I will tell you the truth as long as my Commandant is present. Let my Commandant tell you what I did and what my duties were.
Q. We know what Hoess said. What we want to know is your story. You are asking us for the opportunity to tell your story and that caused us to bring Hoess in here.
A. No, I asked that I be interrogated in the presence of Hoess.

Question addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. You told us this morning that Moll was considered the best man for exterminations because he handled the teams of prisoners and guards better than your other subordinates. Is that right?
A. Yes.

Question addressed to Otto Moll

Q. Moll, suppose you tell us what was your method of selection of foremen from the Capos and just what you found to be the best method of handling the guards that had charge of the transports after they came in.
A. When I was ordered to do this work, the work details had already been selected. My Oberfuehrers had already selected the Capos or foremen, whatever you call them. I carried out correctly the work in all kinds of weather. I was never drunk on duty, or when I was with the prisoners, and I never mistreated any of the prisoners. I achieved good success in the work of the prisoners because I, myself, helped them with their work with my own hands. The prisoners had respect for me because I always behaved as an exemplary soldier toward them, there, I was designated for any kind of difficult work that came up. May I ask Hoess to confirm that?

Question addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Is that correct?
A. Yes, that is what I stated this morning.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. You were decorated for your work, were you not?
A. I received a decoration for my services. Almost all of them who served for a number of years in the whole of Germany received these decorations. I did not receive any decoration for special work that I had done like this work. I would not have wanted to receive a decoration for this kind of work.
Q. Why?
A. Because I did not look upon this work as honorable work.
Q. Did you ever protest?
A. I asked many times why those things had to be done, why they could not be stopped. I even asked Hoess and he answered that he himself did not like this, but he himself had strict orders and nothing could be done about it. He, like the rest of us, suffered by this work and none of us were really sane anymore.

Questions addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Is that right Hoess?
A. Yes, others also said that and already testified to that in the Reich.
Q. When do you think you lost your sanity, Hoess?
A. I think you mean that: just when our nerves started to crack. I can testify that I was not healthy in 1942. I told you about my leave in 1943, however, I had to do those things as there was no one there who would do it for us. There were strict orders and they had to be followed. Many of the others felt as I did and subordinate leaders came to me in the same manner as Moll did and discussed it and they had the same feeling.
Q. Do you think that Moll is crazy?
A. No.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. How long do you think you have been without your sanity?
A. I did not mean to say that I was insane or I have been insane, what I mean is that my nerves have cracked and have cracked repeatedly. They were very bad after I had an attack of typhus and I was in the hospital and was granted a leave of absence by the doctors for the conditions of my nerves. I was never declared unfit for duty on account of bad nerve, or because of the so-called paragraph 51.
Q. How many people do you estimate went through the operation, which you were responsible for –how many victims?
A. When you use the words—‘you were responsible’—I want to emphasize again that I do not wish to have that word applied in any way to the actual killing of the people, as I was not responsible for the actual physical ending of their lives and I will not admit that as it is not the fact.
Q. You did not pull the trigger, but you caused someone else to do it. Is that your position?
A. I do not understand the question.
Q. How many victims were exterminated in the camp from 1941 on?
A. I don’t know the number and I don’t think I would be able to give you any number at all as far as the total number of victim goes. I believe Hoess might know that.
Q. The only thing we are interested in is what you have knowledge of.
A. When I was in charge of these excavations, as I told you about before, together with another comrade, which was confirmed by Hoess today, we put between 30,000 and 40,000 people in these mass graves. It was the most terrible work that could be carried out by any human being.
Q. Stick to the figures.
A. I don’t know who those people were or how they got there. I only excavated the mass graves. I was responsible for burning the bodies right there.

Question addressed to Rudolf Hoess.

Q. How does that figure strike you, Hoess?
A. It is impossible for him to know the exact figures, but they appear to me to be much too small as far as I can remember today. The people buried in the two big mass graves of the so-called dugouts one and two, amounted to 106,000 or 107,000 people.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

A. I could not complete the excavation detail, which I mentioned before, I then got the attack of typhus.
Q. What do you estimate was the number of bodies you handled?
A. It was later they went through my crematory plant and I would say between 40,000 and 50,000, that is at the crematory where I was responsible. I was not responsible for the two large crematories, as they were two SS corps [members] Nussfeld and also Foss, who were responsible for the two large cremations and Hoess will remember that.
Q. You tell us about the figures you know.
A. I told you the number, maybe 50,000 and possibly there were more.
Q. Is that for all times from 1941 clear to the end?
A. Yes, that is from 1941 for the entire length of my service when I had anything to do with the matter.
Q. Don’t you think you are much too modest? You had the reputation of being the biggest killer in Auschwitz. The figures there run into the millions. Won’t you change your answer?
A. It is not true that I was the greatest killer in Auschwitz.
Q. You were the greatest cremator.
A. That is not true either. The number is not right and is probably brought up by the men who want me to be punished by death.

Questions addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Hoess, what do you think would be the correct figures?
A. Moll, in my opinion, cannot possibly have any idea of the number of killings in the dugouts where he was working and responsible. At any rate, they were far, far too low—that is, Moll’s figure.
Q. What figure would you attribute to Moll’s responsibility?
A. It is impossible for me to quote the exact, or even a very rough figure, of the number of corpses that were handled by Moll. As the use of the extermination plant varied at all times, I do not know how many corpses. I would have to attribute to Moll and how many to Nussfeld and the others.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. Moll, how many women and children do you estimate were among the bodies you handled?
A. Men and women were there in about equal numbers and the ratio of children to the other people was about one child in one hundred people brought in. Sometimes transports arrived without children. I would also like to say that I was not constantly working with these transports and of course, I cannot tell you what happened during my absence when I was not there, as I was away on leave of absence, etc.
Q. We have heard that there were more children than that. Do you want to change your statement?
A. As I told you, it may be one child in a hundred, or it may be more. I cannot remember that exactly.

Questions addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. What do you say to that Hoess?
A. My estimate is that one-third of all the victims would be men and two-thirds women and children. I am not able to quote the exact ratio between women and children, as that depended or/and [sic] varied greatly with the transports that came in, however, I do remember that in the transports that came in from the Ukraine and Hungary the proportion of children was particularly high.
Q. In what year was that?
A. That was particularly in 1943, or it may have been early in the year 1944.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. Moll, yesterday, you told us you had two installations and spoke of the furnace in which there were twelve large ovens and two additional with two ovens each, making a total of twenty-eight separate burning units. How many human beings could you cremate at one time?
A. Two to three corpses could be burned in one furnace at one time. The furnaces were built large enough for that.
Q. Did you operate at full capacity often?
A. I would like to emphasize that I had no responsibility at all with the cremation in the stoves. What I was responsible for was the burning of the corpses out in the open. Corporals Nussfeld and Foss were responsible for the cremation in the furnaces.

Questions addressed to Rudolf Hoess

Q. Is that right, Hoess?
A. First of all, Moll is slightly wrong in regard to the figures he quoted on the furnaces. The two large units were made up of five double furnaces each and the others of four double furnaces each. It is true that Nussfeld and Foss were responsible for the furnace details, each had a large and a small one and Moll was responsible for the bodies out in the open. Moll was responsible for the disposition of the ashes, but later on I put Moll in charge of the entire cremation. This was in the year 1944.
Q. Was that in the two months you were back at Auschwitz after you were away?
A. Yes, that is when I was transferred back to Auschwitz.
Q. How often were the crematoria detail of prisoners exterminated?
A. As far as I can remember, it was twice before I left for the first time and they were exterminated again after the action against the Hungarians was completed.
Q. On whose orders were the prisoners exterminated?
A. I received that order from Eichmann and he ordered in particular that the furnace commandoes should be shot every three months, however, I failed to comply with these orders as I did not think it was right.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. You have said that your detail was never exterminated. What do you say now?
A. No, that is not true. The work detail with which I worked was never exterminated as long as I was there and as long as I worked. As regard to the first work detail I had for the excavation of mass graves, which I had to leave because of my attack of typhus, they may have been exterminated when I returned to duty. The only thing that I know of is when I left, the last work detail I worked with, was still alive and that is, every member of the detail was alive when I left. Sometime later when I left mutiny broke out in the camp. I know that the entire guard company at the camp was used to suppress this mutiny. I was not there, I was at Gleiwitz at the time. I do not know anything about this, but Hoess can tell you that.
Q. Did you ever cremate any of your crematorium detail?
A. No.
Q. You mentioned that in the killing of the people in the gas chambers that it took only one half minute. On what do you base that?
A. The gas was poured in through an opening. About one half minute after the gas was poured in, of course I am merely estimating this time as we never had a stop-watch to clock it and we were not interested, at any rate, after one-half minute there were no more heavy sounds and no sounds at all that could be heard from the gas chamber.
Q. What kind of sounds were heard before that?
A. The people wept and screeched.
Q. You observed all this and heard the sounds?
A. Yes, I had to hear this because I was near there with my work detail. There is nothing that I could do against this as I had no possibility of changing this in any way.
Q. We are not interested in your opinions on that. You helped make the arrangements to put them in the gas chamber and burned them afterwards when they were killed. The only thing you failed to do personally was pour in the gas. Is that it?
A. I was not responsible for the preparations as there were no special preparations. The victims were led to the gas chamber by the duty officer and then there was a work detail from the administrator, they told them to undress, there was a further detail from the proper administration [sic], which were responsible to collect all the valuables from the people. The whole thing happened very correctly and in no instance was there any reason to interfere. I had no right to interfere, always a doctor supervised the entire thing.
Q. You recall yesterday, you said you were told that if any prisoners coming off of new transports detailed for the gas chamber would escape, you would be court-martialled.
A. I was talking about the work detail, not about the transports.
Q. This came at the time you were testifying about your responsibilities at the crematorium.
A. No, I only say as far as the work detail is concerned for which I was responsible.
Q. We will not argue about it, as the notes show otherwise.

Questions addressed to Rudolf Hoess.

Q. What do you say of the detail of Moll.
A. Moll is not looking at this the right way. It actually is true and I have explained this before, that the officer was responsible for the entire transport, that is he was responsible to see that all were unloaded from each transport, the doctors were responsible for the phase of work to see that people were killed and all the bodies disposed of. It was the responsibility of the subordinate, like Moll, to see that the people actually got into the gas chambers under the doctors and then to see that their bodies were burned. As far as the subordinate leader was concerned, it was his responsibility to see that none of his work detail escaped and he would be responsible to see that none got away. In the last analysis I was responsible for the entire matter, that is for the entire situation dealing with these transports.
Q. You have told us about some of the problems of making sure that everyone was exterminated. For instance, that mothers hid their children under their clothing after they undressed. Who was the person that gathered up the children, searched them out and put them into the gas chamber?
A. I think this thing has been slightly misunderstood. The way this thing happened is that mothers had babies with them, who would be wrapped in blankets or cloth. The people had been told that they were going to take a bath, they had no idea that they were going to be killed. It was not the idea, the mothers did not want to take the children in with them to the bath and they left them outside. Later on, the work detail from the administration, which was responsible for them, would pick up the babies and put them in the gas chamber then.
Q. Was it Moll’s responsibility to see that the children were disposed of?
A. Yes, but it would not mean on the other hand that Moll would have the particular task of picking out the babies from under the blankets. I did not tell any one of the officers or non-coms [NCOs] that they would be responsible for any particular thing, but the entire team was responsible for the extermination. It was to be done and all of them carried out the orders smoothly and properly.

Questions addressed to Otto Moll

Q. You, Moll, said that your team respected you because you gave them a hand. Was this job of picking up small children and gassing them a part of the hand you loaned them?
A. Possibly this was not expressed correctly by Hoess. I had nothing to do with the searching of the clothes because that was not my duty. As I said, the officers that had charge of the duty when the transport came in was responsible for them until the moment they entered the gas chamber. I had nothing to do with that, I never touched the babies or had anything to do with it.
Q. Did any of your men have anything to do with that? Anyone under you?
A. Yes, the prisoners were responsible for that. They had to clean up the room after it had been cleared of people, they would then take the babies and throw them into the gas chamber. There was a strict order against any SS men touching any of this property.
Q. We are not talking about property. We are talking of people. Did you have a special operation to kill these babies or were they thrown into the room where people were still alive and all were gassed together?
A. Such a thing happened rarely and I cannot remember a case where a baby was found, but if they were found they were thrown into the gas chamber.
Q. How do you know?
A. Well, that was an order for the officer responsible for the transport and if any children were found they were to be disposed of like all the rest in the gas chamber.
Q. You carried out your orders?
A. I emphasize again that I myself did not find any children, but if I did find any, I would have to do it too.
Q. Did you shoot any babies in the neck, like you did the other victims?
A. Such a thing never happened.
Q. That is what you said about shooting other people this morning then we proved you a liar. Are you sure you are telling the truth this time?.

 

Otto Moll was executed on 28 May 1946, Thankfully justice was served.

 

 

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Sources

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Birkenau/Birkenau03.html

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1163609

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=64198

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1167624

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Moll#Brutality

 

They were so utterly shocked and frightened, you could do with them what you wanted.

Hans

Below is a part of the testimony of Hans Friedrich a member of of the 1st SS Infantry Brigade. His words are shocking.

“Try to imagine there is a ditch, with people on one side, and behind them soldiers. That was us and we were shooting. And those who were hit fell down into the ditch.They were so utterly shocked and frightened, you could do with them what you wanted.

When he was asked  what he thought and felt when he was shooting, he replied.

“Nothing. I only thought, ‘Aim carefully’ so that you hit properly. That was my thought.”

His answer to the question if he  no feelings for the people, the Jewish civilians that he shot? “No”

When asked why not

“Because my hatred towards the Jews is too great. … And I admit my thinking on this point is unjust, I admit this. But what I experienced from my earliest youth when I was living on a farm, what the Jews were doing to us—well that will never change. That is my unshakable conviction.”

Just read his testimony and then read it again and remember what hate can do.Especially what hate based on lies can do.

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The Dutch SS training camp-Built with the blood of slaves.

SS

Although there were many Dutch who with disregard of their own safety and lives were willing to help their Jewish fellow men and women, however there were  also those who ceased the opportunity to fulfill their own evil ambitions and joined the SS.

I know there will be some who say that some of these men were just misguided and did look passed the policies of the Nazi regime, and only joined the SS for the adventure and the chance to fight in an efficient army unit, and to an extend that was true. But it had to have become very clear to them shortly after joining what the SS really stood for.

SS NL

It already started at the building of the SS training camp Avegoor which had been a stately home prior to the start of the war.

One of the key areas the Nazis focused on was sport,Hitler was convinced that a good athlete would make a good soldier.

Hauptscharführer Karl Hautz was responsible to build a state of the art sport facility at the SS training centre Avegoor.

He did this by using 139 Jewish slave laborers to build a sports hall.an athletics ttacl, a sports field and 2 exercise facilities and stands.

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The sporting complex was also used by the Hitler youth and the Youth Storm for matches and competitions.

The 139 men arrived on 2 and 3 September 1942, they had to carry out the work under appalling circumstances. Not enough food, little sleep and comfort long hours and the constant fear of punishment.

Three of the Jewish slave labourers died  while building the sport camp. They died so that others could be trained to kill.

Camp

Of the 139 men only 33 eventually survived the war.

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De Nederlandsche SS- The Dutch SS

Storm_het_blad_der_nederlandsche_SS_in_alle_kiosken_10_cent.

Although the majority of the Dutch citizens hated the German occupiers, there were many who saw an opportunity in the situation they found themselves in.

This is the story of approximately 7000 cowards who found it more favorable to pledge allegiance to an evil regime than to the country they were born in raised in, the Nederlandsche SS(Dutch SS).

nss

The Nederlandsche SS was formed on September 11, 1940. On November 1, 1942 the name was changed to Germaansche SS in Nederland (Germanic SS in the Netherlands). The Nederlandsche SS in total counted about 7,000 members and was primarily a political formation. In addition it served as a reservoir for the Waffen-SS. They dressed in black uniforms that were based on those of the German SS.

Beediging+leden+Nederlandse+SS

In a meeting on June 9, 1940 between A.A. Mussert and Gottlob Berger of the German SS-Amt,

 

ADN-ZB Gottlob Berger, SS-Obergruppenf¸hrer und General der Waffen-SS, Leiter des SS-F¸hrungshauptamtes, ab 1940 Chef des SS-Hauptamtes Erbwesen f¸r Waffen-SS in Berlin. Er wurde 1944 mit dem Ritterkreuz mit Schwertern zum Kriegsverdienstkreuz ausgezeichnet (unser Bild). Im N¸rnberger-Wilhelmstraflen-Prozess 1949 zu 25 Jahren Gef‰ngnis verurteilt, wurde er bereits 1951 wieder entlassen. (geb. 16.7.1896 in Gerstetten/Wttbg.)

Mussert was ordered by Hitler to recruit Dutch men for the Wiking division of the Waffen-SS. The Dutch volunteers would get their own regiment, the Standarte ‘Westland’.

There were four reasons why the formation of extension of Himmler’s SS in the Netherlands was important. First, the SS wished, as a result of Himmler’s desire for expansion, to take an important position in the conquered countries. Second, the SS thought it to be of great importance for the recruitment of volunteers for the Waffen-SS. The Nederlandsche SS could not only serve as a pool of reserves, but also had an important task for creating a foundation from which future recruitment could take place. Third, the Nederlandsche SS served to push Mussert in the desired direction of a Greater Germanic Reich. Finally, the formation of a Nederlandsche SS was of great propaganda value.

At first Mussert refused to cooperate, but he had to make concessions to the German authorities to retain his own position. Despite his failure to cooperate and even advising NSB members not to serve in the SS, the unit was still established. The Germans got fed up with his half-hearted attitude and threatened to advance Meinoud Rost van Tonningen to his position, forcing Mussert to agree with the formation of the Nederlandsche SS, as a variant of the Allgemeine SS.

Meinoud_Rost_van_Tonningen_Anefo

On September 11, 1940 the Dutch SS was formed by Mussert, formally as Afdeling XI (Department XI) of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (National Socialist Movement, the NSB) making Mussert the theoretical leader of the department. Henk Feldmeijer, a protégé of Meinoud Rost van Tonningen was appointed “Voorman”. In practice, Feldmeijer reported to Rauter and Heinrich Himmler, completely bypassing Mussert and his NSB.feldmeijer

Feldmeijer sought more and more integration with the German Allgemeine SS. A training school was opened for the Dutch SS at the Avegoor estate in Ellecom in the Spring of 1941.

On 1 November 1942 the name was changed to Germaansche SS in Nederland  This change emphasized that it was the Greater German aspect rather than the Dutch – that was of greater importance.

By the end of 1944 the Germaansche SS in Nederland only existed on paper, thanks to the changing tide against the Germans and their supporters as the war drew to a close.

As the Nederlandsche SS was supposed to be an elite corps, not everybody was allowed to become a member. There were selections based on race, attitude to life, personality and physical condition. To become a member, the candidate (SS-maat, a translation of the German SS-Anwärter) had to satisfy the following conditions:

  1. Aryan descent proven to the year 1800 (1750 for the officers). The candidate had to give his word of honour that he knew nothing of any non-Aryan ancestors.
  2. No dishonorable criminal convictions.
  3. At least 1.72 m in height.
  4. Physically healthy, confirmed by medical examination.
  5. Age 18-30. Exceptions were made for those who were true national socialists before May 9, 1940.
  6. Pledge of unconditional loyalty to all superiors.

A thorough series of physical and genealogical examinations and investigations were made on each applicant. Only after these were successfully concluded did the candidate officially become an SS-Man.

16988618090_17a909f3a6_c

They had a propaganda magazine called “Storm” which had slogans and ‘inspirational’ messages  like “Vreugde in Arbeid” (Joy in work) or “De macht van een gedachte” (The power of a thought)

arbeid

power

About half of the Dutch SS did go on to serve in the Eastern front, for those who survived the east front and those who had remained in the Netherlands were tried  in the Netherlands as war criminals and collaborators. Those who weren’t sentenced to death, were imprisoned in camps.

hars5

 

By early 1950’s most of the Dutch SS men were released, however they were still hated by the general population. They had also lost their citizenship and were often cast aside by their families. Some of them joined the French and Spanish foreign legions while others tried to regain citizenship by fighting in the Korean war under the UN banner.

I deliberately called them cowards because that is really what they were, It puzzles me how they could volunteer,knowing what happened to their fellow country men,women and children.Some historians say we judge them too harshly, I don’t subscribe to that point of view.

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Hugo Boss-Fascist Fashion

hugo-boss

 

In 1923, Hugo Boss founded his own clothing company in Metzingen, a small town south of Stuttgart, where it is still based. In 1924 he started a factory along with two partners. The company produced shirts, jackets, work clothing, sportswear and raincoats. Due to the economic climate of Germany at the time, Boss was forced into bankruptcy.

Boss joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler came to power. By the third quarter of 1932, the all-black SS uniform (to replace the SA brown shirts) was designed by SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck (graphic designer).

KarlDiebitsch

The Hugo Boss company produced these black uniforms along with the brown SA shirts and the black-and-brown uniforms of the Hitler Youth.

Berlin, Kaserne der LSSAH, Vergatterung

Boss_1933_adv

Some workers are acknowledged to have been French and Polish prisoners of war forced into labour. In 1999, US lawyers acting on behalf of Holocaust survivors started legal proceedings against the Hugo Boss company over the use of slave labour during the war. The misuse of 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers led to an apology by the company.

In 1945 Hugo Boss had a photograph in his apartment of him with Hitler, taken at Hitler’s Obersalzberg retreat.

r-HITLER-HUGO-BOSS-large570

The Hugo Boss company was one of 15,000 clothing companies that produced uniforms for Nazi Germany.

Because of his early Nazi Party membership, his financial support of the SS and the uniforms delivered to the Nazi Party, Boss was considered both an “activist” and a “supporter and beneficiary of National Socialism”. In a 1946 judgment he was stripped of his voting rights, his capacity to run a business, and fined “a very heavy penalty” of 100,000 DM ($70,553 U.S. dollars).However, Boss appealed, and he was eventually classified as a ‘follower’, a lesser category, which meant that he was not regarded as an active promoter of Nazism.

He died in 1948, but his business survived.

hbeu58058068_999_21

 

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