18: Corruption and Morale

The task of processing the property of the deceased Jews went on continuously in an immense operation called Action Reinhard. Large staffs of prisoners, occupying warehouses at the camps, were put to work sorting, cataloging and distributing the goods -- mountains of shoes, shirts, watches, eyeglasses, gold teeth and other effects.

Most of the possessions were turned over to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, known by its German initials WVHA. The German paper money collected by the WVHA was bundled off directly to the Reichsbank. Dental gold, jewelry precious stones, pearls and foreign currency were inventoried by the WVHA, then deposited at the Reichsbank. The bank credited all the value to on Max Heiliger, a code name for the WVHA account.

Soon the bank's vaults were filled to overflowing. Though a bank director sniffed, "the Reichsbank is not a dealer in secondhand goods," trading specialists for the bank began selling the loot through Berlin pawnshops and on the Swiss jewelry market. For a time the Swiss outlets were glutted with such wares.

Less valuable items -- watches, clocks, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, razors, pocketknives, scissors, flashlights, wallets and purses -- were sent to Army post exchanges for sale to the troops. Other useful commodities went to a second agency, called VOMI, a contraction of Volkdeutsche Mittelstelle, the SS Welfare Organization for Ethnic Germans. Men's and women's clothing was sent by VOMI to needy Germans. Feather beds, quilts, blankets, umbrellas, baby carriages, handbags, leather belts, shopping bags, pipes, mirrors, suitcases and other accessories and possessions were sent by VOMI to distributors throughout the Reich and the occupied lands.

There were a few exceptions. All valuable furs were claimed by the WVHA, while more ordinary furs were allocated to the SS clothing factory at Ravensbrueck for alteration and distribution to the Waffen-SS. Miscellaneous items of very low value went to the Ministry of Economics to be sold by weight. The Ministry of Economics also appropriated women's silk underwear and other silk garments, which it distributed as wedding presents to the brides of SS men.

The property of the deceased Jews was enormously valuable. During the two years following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans deported 434,329 Jews from eastern Galicia. That operation alone, according to an Action Reinhard inventory, yielded a booty that included: 97,581 kilograms (214,678 pounds) of gold coins; 167,740 kg. silver coins; 82,600 kg. broken gold; 4,326,780 kg. broken silver; 20,952 kg. gold wedding rings; 20,880 kg. gold rings, with stones; 18,020 kg. silver rings; 11,730 kg. dental gold; 39,917 kg. brooches, earings, etc,; 2,892 kg. gold watches; 3,133 kg. silver watches; 3,425 kg. silver wrist watches; 1,256 kg. gold wrist watches; 22,740 kg. pearls; and 68 kg. cameras.

Naturally, the huge concentrations of easily pocketable valuables invited petty theft -- and large scale corruption -- and required strict supervision. But while the SS officers in Action Reinhard tried hard to stanch the pilferage, overall they lacked the manpower or the inclination to stand and watch over their own staffs.

Recounted Hoess, "It was demoralizing for the members of the SS, who were not always strong enough to resist the temptation provided by these valuables, which lay within such easy reach. Jewish gold was a catastrophe for the camp."

The possessions of the dead Jews were considered Reich property and individual guards or cataloguers caught stealing or accepting bribes were reduced in rank, sent to prison or, in extreme cases, executed. Such actions were embarrassing to commanders -- another reason why they often chose to look the other way.

Corruption on a grand scale was usually investigated sooner or later, but little could be done about it in most instances. They key witnesses were often Jews, and camp commanders naturally sent them to the gas chamber before they could be asked questions that would produce damaging answers. Once an entire work camp of Jews was slaughtered on a hurry-up schedule to prevent a hearing on the guards' open traffic in the inmates' confiscated possessions.

Under the circumstances, SS inspectors sometimes had to take Draconian measures to see that justice was done. One such cased involved a camp commandant accused of corruption. Before the trial could be held, an SS officer in protective custody as a material witness was found dead in his cell, and the SS inspector felt sure that the man had been poisoned by the camp doctor at the instigation of the commandant. So the inspector ordered that liquid from the dead man's stomach be administered to four Russian prisoners of war. The POWs died and that broke the case. The doctor was arrested and forced to testify against the commandant who was convicted and executed.

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Corruption was but one of the morale problems that vexed the men in charge of the Final Solution. A number of deathcamp guards showed signs of severe stress, including an excess of gratuitous violence. In 1943, Himmler told a group of top SS officers that the camp personnel in general were bravely withstanding their death-dealing ordeal: "To have gone through this and -- apart from a few exceptions caused by human weakness -- to have remained decent, that has made us great."

But he realized that numerous guards and other camp personnel were becoming savages or neurotics. And since job efficiency was at stake, Himmler repeatedly ordered his adjutants to try any measure that might help keep the camp guards from breakdowns.

SS administrators took several tacks. In the hopes of providing the guards with an outlet for their pent-up tensions, they set up brothels in some camps, making prostitutes of inmates. The only certain result of this practice was that the guards -- once they had tired of the women -- found it an added chore to dispose of them in the gas chamber.

The SS guards were ordered to follow what Eichmann called "language rules" -- euphemisms that would spare them the use of unpleasant terms and also help preserve the secrecy of camp business. The euphemism for the shipment of Jews to the death camps was "evacuation for resettlement." In referring to the gassing process, the guards said "special treatment." Gas chambers were called "special installations." Killing was called "cleansing."

The SS tried to correct the thinking of guards who had moral scruples against their work. The guards were told "all of Jewry rose from criminal roots," that German scientists had proved that the elimination of the Jews was "a matter of political hygiene," necessary for the health of the nation. Their public-spirited work in the camps, it was suggested, like Beethoven's music and Nietzche's philosophy, was somewhat ahead of the time but soon would win the same worldwide acceptance. Therefore, as Himmler said, Germans had the "moral right to annihilate this people," and no objections to the Final Solution would be tolerated unless they dealt with conditions damaging to the war effort or the German people or the SS.

SS leaders ordered camp commandants to use stern discipline as therapy for the guards. Men who violated orders or committed atrocities or killed Jews without authorization were to be punished severely, the thesis being that they would henceforth focus on the job rather than on their feelings. This policy was honored mostly in the breach.

In fact, none of the measures worked. Guards and other death-camp personnel went insane, became alcoholics, committed suicide -- and were replaced. Vicious practices of every description were routine. The camps were filled with guards who were sadists to begin with or who became sadists under the crushing horror of the work.

Men were beaten at any time for any reason and for no reason at all. Women were raped. Men and women were forced to abuse themselves and to perform sexual acts for the entertainment of their guards. One SS female guard whipped her prisoners mercilessly, that watched, rocking rhythmically, while doctors sutured the wounds in a painful operation, without anesthetic. One male guard forced his prisoners to immerse their testicles alternately in ice water and boiling water, and then painted their tortured scrotums with tincture of iodine, causing agonizing pains.

A guard who prided himself on his marksmanship periodically selected 20 of the prettiest women prisoners he could find, stripped them, lined them up and used them for target practice. Irma Grese was a guard at Auschwitz who liked to pick out buxom women prisoners and flay their breasts with a whip. Kurt Franz, the camp commandant at Treblinka, periodically hung prisoners upside down from a gallows and turned his fierce dog loose to savage them. Gustav Franz Wagner, the deputy commander at Sobibor, killed "like a drunk that needed a drink," said one survivor. "He used an ax, a shovel, a whip, even his bare hands. When he killed he smiled."

At every camp, inmates were crippled or beaten to death with cudgels, rifle butts or shovels. In some cases, beatings and worse were meted out as punishment for imagined breaches in discipline. At Auschwitz, a guard stopped a young girl who seemed to be trying to avoid him, as if she were smuggling something. He aimed his rifle at her but assured her he had no intention of killing her for her "crime." Instead he shot her once in each foot. Her wounds festered and her feet were amputated.

Slave laborers at Auschwitz were frequent victims of large-scale sadism. After the day's work was done, they were forced by SS guards to exercise for hours -- to run, fall down in the mud, crawl, get up and run again. Many prisoners died of heart failure during the drill. Others crept away to their barracks and perished there.