The Kindly Ones

The visit took place on a Friday in December. It was bitterly cold. Speer was accompanied by specialists from his ministry. His special plane, a Heinkel, took us as far as Nordhausen; there, a delegation from the camp led by Kommandant Förschner welcomed us and escorted us to the site. The road, barred by numerous SS checkpoints, ran alongside the south side of the Harz; Förschner explained to us that the entire mountain chain had been declared a no-entry zone; other underground projects had been launched a little farther north, in Mittelbau satellite camps; in Dora itself, the northern sections of the two tunnels had been allocated for the manufacture of Junker airplane engines. Speer listened to his explanations without saying anything. The road led to a large dirt plaza; on one side were lined up the barracks of the SS guards and of the Kommandantur; opposite, cluttered with piles of construction materials and covered with camouflage nets, recessed beneath a ridge planted with pine trees, gaped the entrance to the first tunnel. We entered it behind Förschner and some engineers from Mittelwerke. Gypsum dust and the acrid smoke of industrial explosives caught my throat; mixed in with them were other indefinable odors, sweet and nauseating, which reminded me of my first camp visits. As we advanced, the Häftlinge

, alerted by the Spiess who preceded the delegation, lined up at attention and removed their caps. Most were horribly thin; their heads, balanced precariously on scrawny necks, looked like hideous balls decorated with enormous noses and ears cut out of cardboard; they were set with immense, empty eyes that refused to rest on you. Close to them, the smells I had noticed upon entering became a rank stench that emanated from their dirty clothes, their wounds, their very bodies. Many of Speer’s men, green, were holding handkerchiefs to their faces; Speer kept his hands behind his back and examined everything with a closed, tense look. Connecting the two main tunnels, A and B, transverse galleries were spaced out every twenty-five meters: the first of them revealed rows of bunk beds made of coarse wood, four levels high, from which, under cudgel blows of an SS noncom, there tumbled down to come stand at attention a swarming horde of ragged inmates, most of them naked or almost naked, some with their legs stained with shit. The bare concrete ceilings were sweating with humidity. In front of the bunks, at the intersection of the main tunnel, large metal barrels, cut in half lengthwise and placed on their sides, served as latrines; they were almost overflowing with a yellow, green, brown, stinking liquid. One of Speer’s assistants exclaimed: “But it’s Dante’s Inferno!” Another, standing a little back, was vomiting against the wall. I too felt the old nausea returning, but I held myself in and breathed in long hisses, between my teeth. Speer turned to Förschner: “Do the inmates live here?”—“Yes, Herr Reichsminister.”—“They never go outside?”—“No, Herr Reichsminister.” As we continued advancing, Förschner explained to Speer that he lacked everything and that he was incapable of ensuring the requisite sanitary conditions; epidemics were decimating the inmates. He even showed us a few corpses piled in front of the perpendicular galleries, naked or covered with a loose canvas tarp, human skeletons with ravaged skin. In one of the dormitory-galleries, soup was being served: Speer asked to taste it. He swallowed his spoonful, then had me taste it in turn; I had to force myself not to spit it out; it was a bitter, revolting gruel; it tasted like boiled weeds; even at the bottom of the pot, there was almost nothing solid. We visited the entire length of the tunnel this way, up to the Junker factory, wading through the mud and the refuse, breathing with difficulty, in the midst of thousands of

Häftlinge

who mechanically presented themselves one after the other, their faces stripped of the slightest expression. I examined their badges: aside from Germans, mostly “greens,” there were “reds” there from every country in Europe, Frenchmen, Belgians, Italians, Dutchmen, Czechs, Poles, Russians, and even Spaniards, republicans interned in France after their defeat (but of course there were no Jews: at that time, Jewish workers were still forbidden in Germany). In the transverse galleries, after the dormitories, inmates supervised by civil engineers worked on the components and assembly of the rockets; farther on, in a deafening din and in a thick cloud of dust, a veritable ant battalion was digging new galleries and emptying the stones into dump carts pushed by other inmates on hastily installed tracks. As we left, Speer asked to see the Revier; it was an extremely makeshift installation, with room for about forty men at the most. The chief physician showed him the mortality and morbidity statistics: dysentery, typhus, and tuberculosis especially wrought havoc. Outside, in the face of the whole delegation, Speer exploded with a contained but virulent rage: “Obersturmbannführer Förschner! This factory is a scandal! I’ve never seen anything like it. How can you hope to work properly with men in that condition?” Förschner, under the invective, had instinctively stood at attention. “Herr Reichsminister,” he replied, “I’m ready to improve the conditions, but I’m not given the means. I can’t be held responsible.” Speer was white as a sheet. “Very well,” he barked. “I order you to have a camp built immediately, here, outside, with showers and toilets. Have the papers for the allocation of materials drawn up for me immediately and I will sign them before I leave.” Förschner led us to the barracks of the Kommandantur and gave the necessary orders. While Speer talked with his aides and the engineers, I, furious, took Förschner aside: “I asked you expressly in the Reichsführer’s name to make sure the camp was presentable. This is a Schweinerei.” Förschner didn’t let himself get flustered: “Obersturmbannführer, you know as well as I do that an order without the means to carry it out isn’t worth much. I’m sorry, but I have no magic wand. I had the galleries washed this morning, but I couldn’t do anything else. If the Reichsminister provides us with construction materials, so much the better.” Speer had joined us: “I’ll see to it that the camp receives additional rations.” He turned to a civil engineer who was standing next to him: “Sawatsky, it goes without saying that the inmates under your orders will have priority. We cannot demand complex assembly labor from the sick and dying.” The civilian nodded: “Of course, Herr Reichsminister. It’s especially the turnover that’s becoming unmanageable. We have to replace them so often that it’s impossible to train them correctly.” Speer turned to Förschner: “That doesn’t mean that you should neglect the ones who are assigned to the construction of the galleries. You will also increase their rations, insofar as possible. I’ll talk about it to Brigadeführer Kammler.”—“Zu Befehl, Herr Reichsminister,” said Förschner. His expression remained opaque, closed; Sawatsky looked happy. Outside, some of Speer’s men were waiting for us, scribbling in notebooks and greedily breathing in the cold air. I shivered: winter had set in.