The Kindly Ones

In Berlin, I again found myself overwhelmed by the Reichsführer’s requests. I had reported Speer’s visit to him, and he made only one comment: “Reichsminister Speer should know what he wants.” I saw him regularly now to discuss labor questions: he wanted at all costs to increase the quantity of workers available in the camps to supply the SS industries, private enterprises, and especially the new underground construction projects that Kammler wanted to develop. The Gestapo was making more and more arrests, but on the other hand, with the coming of fall and then winter, the mortality rate, which had dropped markedly during the summer, was increasing again, and the Reichsführer wasn’t pleased. Still, when I suggested a series of measures I thought were realistic, that I was planning with my team, he didn’t respond, and the actual measures implemented by Pohl and the IKL seemed random and unpredictable, not corresponding to any plan. Once I seized the occasion of a remark of the Reichsführer’s to criticize what I regarded as arbitrary, unconnected initiatives: “Pohl knows what he’s doing,” he retorted curtly. Soon after, Brandt summoned me and scolded me in a courteous but firm tone: “Listen, Obersturmbannführer, you’re doing very good work, but I’m going to tell you what I’ve already said a hundred times to Brigadeführer Ohlendorf: instead of annoying the Reichsführer with negative, pointless criticisms and complicated questions that he doesn’t even understand, you’d do better to cultivate your relationship with him. Bring him, I don’t know, a medieval treatise on medicinal plants, nicely bound, and talk with him a little about it. He’ll be delighted, and it will allow you to form a bond with him, to make yourself better understood. That will make things a lot easier for you. And also, I’m sorry, but when you present your reports, you’re so cold and haughty it only annoys him even more. That’s not how you’re going to settle things.” He went on a little more in the same vein; I didn’t say anything, I was thinking: he was probably right. “One more piece of advice: you’d do well to get married. Your attitude on the subject is deeply annoying to the Reichsführer.” I stiffened: “Standartenführer, I’ve already explained my reasons to the Reichsführer. If he doesn’t approve of them, he should tell me so himself.” An incongruous thought made me repress a smile. Brandt wasn’t smiling and was staring at me like an owl through his large round glasses. Their lenses reflected my own doubled image; the reflection prevented me from discerning his gaze. “You’re wrong, Obersturmbannführer, you’re wrong. But it’s your choice.”