The Theory and Practice of Hell (8 page)

The rank and file of the police machine consisted predominantly of men who had been unable to make headway in the ordinary police services, augmented by hordes of recruits who had been failures in civilian life and who generally lacked all technical and character training. Pay in all the lower grades, by the way, was so wretched that for this reason alone men of ability would always look for other and better opportunities. As for the network of stool pigeons and informers, it served as a catch-all for the scum collected from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, the working and white-collar classes. The fact that certain members of the Security Service, the Gestapo and auxiliary agencies showed in

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL 13

tellectual traits does not rule out their essential cultural and political primitivism. For it was neither superior judgment nor critical reason that prevailed but conformity in conviction and loyalty in the performance of work. Even the most in tellectual among them limited their intellects to the effective promotion of the SS super state and the execution of measures appropriate to that end.

In addition to the SD and the police, Himmler had com mand of the SS troops proper. The old SS squads that had protected Nazi rallies were nominally merged with the regular police. Actually they were considerably reinforced and turned into the so-called Special Duty SS (to which, during the war, were added foreign legionaries from many countries) and the SS Death-Head Units. In 1936 they numbered about 210,000 men, ninety per cent of them Special Duty Troops, later called
Waffen SS
(Armed SS). Toward the end of the war there were about 1,000,000 men, of whom some 25,000 were in the Death-Head Units, while about the same number consisted of foreign legionaries. The
Waffen SS
of some 940,000 was grouped into divisions and
Standarten
, each of the latter having the strength of a regiment, about 3,000 men. Together they formed an army with its own equipment and sometimes its own arsenals, a carefully calculated counterpoise to the
Wehrmacht
or regular German army.

The
Waffen SS
were Himmler’s own special troops in the conquest of Europe, and they fulfilled this task to the best of their ability. They were shock troops now, rather than the “ Defense Echelon” of the old days, and they were proud to be “ the Fiihrer’s Elite.” Hot on the heels of their victories always followed special SD liquidation units, called “ Emergency Squads.”

There was much naive and boyish idealism in the ranks of the
Waffen
SS, coupled with a savage soldier of fortune spirit, all in the service of spreading the slave system of the SS super state. Himmler needed his quota of idealists, for some day, when the soldiers’ task was done, he planned to retain the most suitable elements of the SS as a Nazi elite to maintain the new “ Teutonic” oligarchy.

The SS Death-Head Units were trained from the start as a knuckle-duster brigade for domestic use. The first Death-Head
Standarte
was organized in 1933, from the old SS units

14 EUGEN KOGON

that had been nominally merged with the Bavarian police. It was commanded by SS Colonel Eicke, a former German army officer and a veteran of the First World War, and was com posed of men of particular savagery. It was trained from the start for concentration-camp duty. In 1934 the office of “ In spector of Concentration Camps” was created for Eicke. Himmler was unable at the time to afford him any material aid—money, uniforms, arms, or equipment of any kind. By his own efforts, with great energy, unscrupulousness and suc cess, Eicke embarked upon the expansion of his single regiment into the later Death-Head Units.

All SS troops were controlled by the SS Main Office in Berlin, headed until the outbreak of the war by SS General Heismeyer. In 1939 this command was taken over by SS General Pohl and an SS Main Office of Budget and Buildings and an SS Main Office of Economic Affairs were added. In 1942 the two last named offices were combined into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, under Pohl. Among other things this office was responsible for the ad ministration of the concentration camps.

The SS troops were recruited from every group of the socially disfranchised, mainly Nazi refugees from Austria and the Balkan countries, men who were professionals with club and gun, who had lost all social stability. Migrants, truck drivers, foresters, barbers, clerks, students and prison guards were among the callings represented in the enlisted ranks. Of ficers were drawn from veterans of the Baltic and other free corps,1the army and the police—men who had failed to make headway or who for some reasons had to give up their careers, mercenaries with something at least approximating military experience. They drilled and were drilled in the spirit of Frederick the Great. Their training camps were in remote locations, soon to be combined with the concentration camps taken over from the SA. But unrestrained begging, pilfering and extortion proved to be an inadequate material basis for maintaining these formations, and Eicke turned the con centration camps with their slave system into a source of financial support. Himmler helped out from funds of the General SS whenever it was feasible.

1 Irregular formations that sprang up in Germany after the First World War to combat Communism and engage in extra-legal activities.—
Tr.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HELL 15

These men were actually professional soldiers, or rather mercenaries, but that does not mean that they can be credited with the virtues sometimes attributed to the profession of arms. Those who blindly glorify the professional soldier as a type often seem to know little about true soldierly virtues, about the strict moral standards with which great soldiers always seek to counter the special moral hazards of their craft. I do not mean merely the vaunted virtue of comradeship. That is not enough—even in wartime.

From these higher standards the members of the
Waffen SS
cannot be viewed simply as prototypes of the soldier as such. A fanatical fighting spirit alone does not justify the soldier in a cultural sense. It is quite true that such SS outfits as the Hitler Youth Division consisted almost entirely of volunteers who were animated by. a very real nationalist spirit of dedication. Certain SS regiments were formed, such as “ Adolf Hitler’s Own,” “ The Reich” and “ Germania,” all of them later expanded to division status, which were elite outfits in Himmler’s sense. Hitler was proud of them, loved them. When it finally came to war, they became the spearheads in his assault tactics. But why should we regard any of these as any better than, say, the death-defying dervishes that followed the fanatical Mahdi? Merely because they felt them selves to be an elite?

The losses Himmler tried to compensate by the recruitment of SS foreign legionaries from all over Europe and by the im pressment of German-speaking minorities in conquered territories. Here his office as Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Racial Character stood him in good stead. Strengthening indeed! If anything, diluting.

It may have been at this time, incidentally, that Himmler took up the barbarous idea of clan liability, for the families of his legionaries who remained behind, especially in the Balkans, were often subjected to clandestine reprisals by the local population.

This foreign legion character, despite its Teutonic and European embroidery, together with the merciless character of the struggle, ultimately turned the SS into the desperate sworn fellowship it grew to be. In the long run it could be held in check only by the sharpest discipline and by personalities who excelled as leaders of a lost cause.

16 EUGEN KOGON

During the war the ranks of the Death-Head complements at the concentration camps were often replenished by mem bers from this choice company who had either accumulated enough experience in the practice of cruelty, or who had had their fill of life at the front—in either case the worst elements.

In the course of the years Himmler did a great deal of shuffling and reorganizing within his numerous offices and sections, to adapt them to the needs of the moment and to keep his machine ready for instant action. He did not always succeed. In some fields an SS bureaucracy developed that failed to promote Himmler’s aims. Toward the end Himmler himself can hardly have retained a clear grasp of all the ramifications of his far-flung organization, especially since the contending ambitions of his many underlings tended to impair the efficiency of the machine. In a sense Himmler him self was a bureaucrat who sought to control his super state by a carefully regulated system of masters and slaves. Around his own person he created the “ Personal Staff of the Reichsfiihrer SS.” The functions of the top leadership were combined into the SS Operational Main Office, with numerous sub-divisions. Many functions and groups within ^ the SS overlapped or actually ran counter to each other. But there can be little doubt that had Germany won the war Himmler would have succeeded in untangling the snarls and in creating a durable and efficient network of steel that would have held Germany and Europe in its firm grip. For Himmler was an excellent organizer and calculator, and only the headlong pace of Nazi expansion occasionally made things difficult for him.

His organization, the SS machine, permeated first the Nazi party, next Germany, and finally the whole of Europe; and gave the Hitler regime its true stamp. Hundreds of thousands of Germans never knew and do not know today the degree to which their work and their zeal, their virtues and their vices were put to the service of the SS super state.

It was a state made up of four groups. There were, first of all, those who were to rule with all the panoply of ancient Oriental satraps. There were those whose task was to fight and die for the system, under the guise of lofty ideals. A third group had the administrative service for its sphere, with carefully apportioned emoluments. Ordinary work was re-