The Kindly Ones

The Reichsführer was leaving the next morning. In the Warthegau, a fall rain had soaked the plowed fields, leaving puddles the size of small ponds, dull, as if they’d absorbed all the light from the unchanging sky. The pine woods, which always seemed to be hiding horrifying and obscure deeds, darkened this muddy, receding landscape; here and there, rare in these parts, birch trees crowned with flames still raised a last protest against the coming of winter. In Berlin it was raining, and people scurried by in their wet clothes; on the bomb-damaged sidewalks, water sometimes formed impassable areas, pedestrians had to turn back and take another street. The day after my return, I went up to Oranienburg to spur my project along. I was convinced it would be Sturmbannführer Burger, the new Amtschef of D IV, who would give me the most trouble; but Burger, after listening to me for a few minutes, said simply: “If it’s financed, it’s fine with me,” and ordered his adjutant to write me a letter of support. Maurer, on the other hand, made a lot of difficulties for me. Far from being happy with the progress my project represented for the Arbeitseinsatz

, he thought it didn’t go far enough, and told me frankly that he was afraid if he approved it he’d close the door to any future improvements. For over an hour I exhausted all my arguments on him, explaining to him that without the agreement of the RSHA, we couldn’t do anything, and that the RSHA wouldn’t support a project that was overgenerous, for fear of favoring the Jews and other dangerous enemies. But on this subject it was especially difficult to come to an understanding with him: he got muddled up, he kept repeating that precisely, for the Jews, in Auschwitz, the numbers didn’t match up, that, according to the statistics, scarcely 10 percent of them worked, where did the others go, then? It wasn’t possible that so many of them were unfit for work. He sent letter after letter about this to Höss, who replied vaguely or not at all. He was obviously looking for an explanation, but I decided that it wasn’t my role to give him one; I confined myself to suggesting that an on-site inspection might clear some things up. But Maurer didn’t have time to carry out inspections. I ended up wresting a limited agreement from him: he wouldn’t oppose the system of categories, but would request on his side that the scales be increased. Back in Berlin, I reported to Brandt. I told him that, according to my information, the RSHA would approve the project, even if I didn’t yet have any written confirmation. He ordered me to send him the report, with a copy for Pohl; the Reichsführer would eventually come to a final decision, but it would serve in the meantime as a working basis. As for me, he asked me to start going through the SD reports on foreign workers, and to begin thinking about this question as well.