The Kindly Ones

This visit left me with a bad taste in my mouth. What did these two characters want with me? They had struck me as very aggressive, insinuating. Of course I had lied to them: but if I had told them I had seen the bodies, that would have created all kinds of complications. I didn’t have the impression that they suspected me on this point; their suspicion seemed systematic, an occupational trait, probably. I had found their questions about the Moreau legacy unpleasant: they seemed to be suggesting that I might have had a motive, a pecuniary interest, it was ridiculous. Could they possibly suspect me of murder? I tried to remember the conversation, and had to acknowledge that it was possible. I found that frightening, but the mind of a career policeman must be made that way. Another question worried me even more: Why had my sister taken the twins away? What relationship was there between them and her? All that, I must say, troubled me deeply. I found it almost unfair: just at the moment when my life seemed finally to be headed for a kind of equilibrium, a feeling of normality, almost like anyone else’s life, those idiotic cops came to stir up questions, give rise to anxieties, questions without answers. The most logical thing, actually, would have been to call or write to my sister, to ask her what the story was with those twins, and also to be sure, if ever those policemen came to question her, that her story didn’t contradict my own, on the point where I had deemed it necessary to dissimulate part of the truth. Yet, I didn’t really know why, I didn’t do so right away; it’s not that something held me back, but rather that I didn’t want to hurry. Telephoning wasn’t a difficult thing, I could do it when I wanted, no need to rush.

What’s more, I was very busy. My team in Oranienburg, which, under Asbach’s direction, continued to grow, regularly sent me summaries of its research on the foreign workers, what was called the Ausländereinsatz

. These workers were divided into a number of categories, based on racial criteria, with different levels of treatment; they also included prisoners of war from Western countries (but not the Soviet KGF, a separate category, completely under control of the OKW). The day after the visit of the two inspectors, I was summoned to the Reichsführer’s office; he was interested in the subject. I gave a rather long, but complete, presentation, for the problem was complex: the Reichsführer listened almost wordlessly, inscrutable beneath his little steel-rimmed glasses. At the same time, I had to prepare Speer’s visit to Mittelbau, and I went to Lichterfelde—after the raids, cruel Berlin tongues called the neighborhood Trichterfelde, the “crater meadow”—to have the project explained to me by Brigadeführer Kammler, the head of Amtsgruppe C (“Construction”) of the WVHA. Kammler, an abrupt, nervous, precise man whose rapid-fire speech and quick gestures masked an inflexible will, spoke to me—and this was the first time I heard something other than rumors about this subject—about the A-4 rocket, a miraculous weapon that according to him would irreversibly change the course of the war as soon as it could be mass-produced. The English had caught wind of its existence and, in August, had bombed the secret installations where it was being developed, on the north of the island of Usedom, where my convalescence had been spent. Three weeks later, the Reichsführer suggested to the Führer and to Speer that the installations be transferred underground and their secrecy guaranteed by using solely concentration camp inmates for their construction. Kammler himself had picked the site, underground galleries in the Harz Mountains, used by the Wehrmacht to store fuel reserves. A company had been formed to manage the project, Mittelwerke GmbH, under the control of Speer’s ministry; the SS, however, maintained complete responsibility for designing the premises as well as for on-site security. “The assembly of rockets has already begun, even though the installations aren’t finished; the Reichsminister should be satisfied.”—“I just hope that the working conditions for the inmates are adequate, Brigadeführer,” I replied. “I know that’s a constant concern of the Reichsminister’s.”—“The conditions are what they are, Obersturmbannführer. It’s war, after all. But I can assure you that the Reichsminister won’t have any reason to complain about the level of productivity. The factory is under my personal control, I myself chose the Kommandant, an efficient man. The RSHA doesn’t give me any problems, either: I sent one of my own men, Dr. Bischoff, to supervise production security and prevent sabotage. Up to now, there haven’t been any problems. Anyway,” he added, “I inspected several KLs with subordinates of Reichsminister Speer’s, in April and May; they didn’t have too many complaints, and Mittelbau is no worse than Auschwitz.”