The Nuremberg Interviews (54 page)

How often were these buildings used? “Well, it was like this. These transports didn’t come daily; sometimes two or three trains arrived on a single day, every train containing two thousand people, but there were periods when no transports arrived for three to six weeks.” How long were these people kept at Auschwitz? “No time at all. A side track went to Birkenau and unloaded, and there the selection was made. Those who were able to work were sifted from those unable to work.” What criteria for selection were used? “Well, we had two SS doctors and they sat at tables, and the people from the transports got off the train and walked by these doctors. These people were fully clothed; they just walked by and the doctors judged by their looks, age, and strength.”

Out of the transport of two thousand, approximately how many were saved for work? “In all of those years, I figured an average of twenty to thirty percent of the people were able to work.” And then what happened? “Those not able to work were marched to the farmhouses. These were a good kilometer from the side track. There they were made to undress. At first they had to undress in the open, where we had erected walls made of straw and branches of trees that kept them from onlookers. After a while we built barracks. We had big signs, all of which read ‘To Disinfection’ or ‘Baths.’ That was in order to give the people the impression that they would merely receive a bath or be disinfected, in order not to have any technical difficulty in the extermination processes.

“And the internees whom we used as interpreters and general helpers in those stations instructed the people that they should take care of their clothing when they laid it on the ground in neat piles so that they should be able to find their clothes when they came out of the bath or disinfecting room. These internees helped quiet all of the people by answering their questions in a reassuring manner and telling them they would only be bathed in those houses.

“Then the people were brought to the chambers and the internees who accompanied them went along with the people into the extermination chambers so that the people would be quiet, since they saw the attendants go inside themselves. It was so done that all of the chambers were filled up at the same time. At the last moment, when the chambers were filled, the internees who worked for us slipped out, the doors were jammed shut, and the Zyklon B gas was thrown through small openings.”
Was there any panic among the people prior to their murder? “Yes, sometimes, but we worked it smoothly, more smoothly as time went on. The men were always exterminated in a separate chamber, and the women and children together in the same chamber.” At what age, for example, did you distinguish between a child and a grown-up, that is, between a boy and a man? “I can’t say. We judged by the looks of the boys — you know, some are grown-up at fifteen years, others at seventeen. We judged mainly by stature.”

Do you mean that all of those executed were unfit to work? “Not exactly, but one can assume that the majority of those exterminated were not able to work.” Why? “Well, the doctors who checked on the people fully clothed when they filed out of the transports also were present when the people whom they had selected for extermination were undressed, and they often remarked that their quick selection at the railroad siding was accurate because with few exceptions the people who had been selected for extermination were not capable of much work.” I don’t understand. You said that the doctors who made the selections sat at the railroad siding and the people filed past fully clothed? “Yes, but what I mean is that the doctors said such things later, when they were present at the undressing, right next to the gas chambers, out in the open. They would say that their selection generally had been accurate.”

How long did it take for Zyklon B to work? “After all of the observations done all of those years, I feel that it depended upon the weather, the wind, the temperature; and as a matter of fact, the effectiveness of the gas itself was not always the same. Usually it took from three to fifteen minutes to extinguish all these people, that is, for no sign of life anymore. In the farmhouses we had no peek holes so that sometimes when we opened the doors after a considerable period of time had elapsed, there were still some signs of life. Later on, in the newly erected crematory and gas chambers, which I designed, we had peek holes so that we could ascertain when these people were all dead.

“After a half hour, the farmhouse doors were opened. There were two doors, one on each end, and the room was aired. The workers were equipped with gas masks and they dragged the corpses out of the rooms and placed them at first in large mass graves.

“I believed that crematoriums could be erected fast and so wanted to burn the corpses in the mass graves in the crematory, but when I saw that the crematory could not be erected fast enough to keep up with the
ever-increasing numbers exterminated, we started to burn the corpses in open ditches like in Treblinka. A layer of wood, then a layer of corpses, another layer of corpses, et cetera. To start the fire we used a bundle of straw dipped in gasoline. The fire was usually started with about five layers of wood and five layers of corpses. When the fire was going strong, the fresh corpses which came from the gas chambers could merely be thrown on the fire and would burn by themselves.

“In 1942 the great crematoriums were completed and the whole process was then done in the new buildings. New railroad tracks led to the crematorium. The people were selected as before, with the only exception that the ones unable to work went to the crematory instead of being marched to the farmhouses. It was a large, modern building; there were undressing rooms and gas chambers underground, and crematory above ground, but all in the same building. There were four gas chambers underground; two large ones each accommodating two thousand people and two smaller ones each accommodating sixteen hundred people. The gas chambers were built like a shower installation, with shower outlets, water pipes, a few plumbing fixtures, and a modern electrical ventilation system so that after the gassing, the room could be aired by means of the electrical ventilation apparatus. The corpses were brought by elevators to the crematory above. There were five double stoves.

“Burning two thousand people took about twenty-four hours in the five stoves. Usually we could manage to cremate only about seventeen hundred to eighteen hundred. We were thus always behind in our cremating because as you can see it was much easier to exterminate by gas than to cremate, which took so much more time and labor.

“When the act was in progress, two or three transports came daily, each with about two thousand people. Those were the times that were hardest because we had to exterminate them at once and the facilities for burning even with the new crematories could not keep up with the extermination.”

How many were killed in this way? “I can’t give the exact number. In the first place, all files on these people had been destroyed. There was no record or names, and even numbers were only roughly estimated. In about 1945 Eichmann had to submit a report to Himmler, because Eichmann was the only one who had to save the numbers for Himmler. Eichmann told me before he went to Himmler that in Auschwitz alone 2.5 million people were killed by gassing. It is quite impossible to give an
exact figure.” Do you think the figure might have been higher, perhaps as high as 3 million or 4 million? “No, I think 2.5 million is too high, but I have no proof. None of the people exterminated were registered, only those who went to work were registered in the camp.” Were those who were selected to work, instead of being killed, exterminated later if they were Jews? “No, only there were some who died a natural death, like an illness, for example.” Did many die of sickness? “Yes, there were constant epidemics of typhus as a result of the crowded camps and the lack of sanitary installations, which could not be built as fast as people came in.

“I reckon in all of those years in all of the epidemics, approximately half a million people died as a result of sickness.”

How many people went through Auschwitz? “That is impossible to say. I have no idea how many went through the camp. I know that in the years 1943–44 we had 144,000 internees in the camp who worked there. Most of the newly arrived people able to work were transported away from Auschwitz, and I don’t know what happened to them.”

I have heard that the gold was taken out of the teeth of those exterminated. “Yes, after the bodies were taken from the gas chambers, since early in 1942, orders were received from higher headquarters to remove all gold from the teeth and send it to the Finance Department. From there it was sent to the treasurer, I believe.” Who did this removal of gold from the teeth of the dead? “Internees, mostly dentists who worked there. We usually saved doctors, dentists, and nurses from the gas chambers in order to use them in technical positions.”

How many Germans were there in Auschwitz on your staff? “Do you mean including the guards?” Yes. “Well, in 1943, about December, when I left, there were 3,500 guards and about 500 men on the administrative staff, and that included those who supervised the agriculture section, the testing laboratories, the supervision of the extermination chambers, crematories, et cetera.”

How could the Germans not know of these affairs if at Auschwitz alone 3,500 Germans worked at it? “I can’t answer that because there is no doubt that it was widely known among many people, but certain precautions were taken. For instance, it was not carried in the newspapers; we used the same train crews for the transportation; and almost everyone who worked in Auschwitz had to make a sworn statement not to talk.” Can you explain more about these 3,500 Germans who worked at
Auschwitz? “Until 1939, that is until the outbreak of the war, concentration camps were staffed by the SS Death’s Heads units. When war broke out, Eichmann, who was inspector of concentration camps, took them in one division for combat. The guards were replaced by older people from the General SS. In the later years, that is from 1941 on, we used many so-called ethnic Germans, from Hungary, Galicia, for example, who had to serve there.

“In 1943 and 1944 the large units of the army, navy, and air corps were transferred to the SS to supervise work in war factories, armament production, and the like. For example, in an armament factory that worked for the navy and that used internees for labor — in such a case, the navy had to supply its own guard personnel. The same was true for the army and air force, because there were not enough guard units in the SS. The army, navy, or air force personnel that were used as guards later on were transferred to the SS.”

What happened to you after December 1943, when you left Auschwitz? “I went to the headquarters in Oranienburg to work for the inspector of concentration camps. Auschwitz had become so big it had to be divided into three camps, called Auschwitz 1, 2, and 3. Or they could be labeled ‘Auschwitz’ itself; ‘Birkenau,’ which would be Auschwitz 2; and ‘Monowitz,’ which would be Auschwitz 3. In Monowitz were all of the work labor camps that belonged to Auschwitz. The figure 140,000 which I gave you before takes into consideration only those who worked in Auschwitz and not the transient internees, who were either liquidated or sent on to other places.

“I went to Oranienburg in December 1943. My immediate supervisor was Lieutenant General Richard Gluecks. My job was chief of Office I, the so-called political section. My work included the complete supervision of all concentration camps, the administrations, releases, punishments, exterminations, all dealings with the RSHA, all files of internees — in short, everything that went on in the concentration camps.”

From the time you left Auschwitz until the end of the war, how many people were exterminated there? “The figure 2.5 million takes care of 1944.” Were there any exterminated in 1945? “No, at the end of 1944 the whole thing stopped. It was forbidden by Himmler.” What happened to the transports that arrived in 1945? “Hardly any transports arrived in 1945, and the only people who came were those able to work.” Why did the exterminations stop? Was it because there were no more Jews to
exterminate? “In November 1944 I was with Eichmann in Budapest and he told me that there were negotiations going on between Himmler and representatives of the Jews in Switzerland through various middlemen and that from then on exterminations would have to stop immediately.”
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When do you figure the last exterminations occurred? Hoess thinks and rubs his hands together. He finally says: “I am not sure, but I think in October 1944.”

What sort of man in your estimation was Eichmann? “Eichmann is thirty-four or thirty-five years old, a very active, adventurous man. He felt that this act against the Jews was necessary and was fully convinced of its necessity and correctness, as I was.”

Do you know Bach-Zelewski? “Yes, not officially, but in 1940 and 1941 Bach-Zelewski was the Higher SS and police chief in Austria. He was succeeded by Ernst Heinrich Schmauser.
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From then on I had nothing more to do with Bach-Zelewski.” Did Bach-Zelewski know of the extermination of the Jews? “At the time he left Silesia the extermination program in Auschwitz had not begun, but in Russia there were
Einsatzkommandos
[action commandos] of Security Police in every district. There it surely happened, too. Because we never received any Jews from occupied Russia and I know for a fact that the Jews were rounded up and exterminated in Russia by these commandos.”

Marital History:
Hoess was married in 1929. His wife is now thirty-eight. They have five children, ranging from ages two and a half to sixteen years. He states that he was happily married during his four years in Auschwitz. His wife and children lived nearby in the city itself. He had no marital difficulties as a result of his work.

About the time of VE Day, Hoess was with Lieutenant General Gluecks in Flensburg. Himmler was also in Flensburg. “Himmler ordered us to go into hiding with the army or navy. I made some connection with a navy commander, a well-known submarine commander. He gave us navy papers and we were dressed as sailors and later discharged as navy men by the British in Schleswig-Holstein.”