The Kindly Ones

The plans for Hungary were taking shape; in the beginning of March, the Reichsführer summoned me. The day before, the Americans had launched their first daytime raid on Berlin; it was a very small raid, there were just thirty or so bombers, and Goebbels’s press had crowed about the minimal damage, but these bombers, for the first time, came accompanied by long-range fighter planes, a new weapon that was terrifying in its implications, since our own fighter planes had been driven back with losses, and you had to be a fool not to understand that this raid was just a test, a successful test, and that from then on there would be no more respite, neither by day nor on nights with a full moon, and that the front was everywhere now, all the time. The failure of our Luftwaffe, incapable of mounting an effective counterattack, was complete. This analysis was confirmed for me by the Reichsführer’s dry, precise statements: “The situation in Hungary,” he informed me without any further details, “will soon rapidly evolve. The Führer has decided to intervene, if necessary. New opportunities will arise, which we must seize vigorously. One of these opportunities concerns the Jewish question. At the right time, Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner will send his men. They’ll know what they have to do and you are not to get involved in that. But I want you to go with them to assert the interests of the Arbeitseinsatz

. Gruppenführer Kammler”—Kammler had just been promoted at the end of January—“will need men, a great many men. The Anglo-Americans are innovating”—he pointed at the sky—“and we have to react quickly. The RSHA must take this into account. I have given instructions concerning this to Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner, but I want you to make sure they’re rigorously applied by his specialists. More than ever, the Jews owe us their labor force. Is that clear?” Yes, it was. Brandt, after this meeting, filled me in on the details: the special intervention group would be headed by Eichmann, who would more or less have carte blanche as regards the settlement of this question; as soon as the Hungarians had accepted the principle and their collaboration was assured, the Jews would be directed to Auschwitz, which would serve as a sorting center; from there, all those who were fit for work would be allocated as needed. At each stage, the number of potential workers had to be maximized.

A new round of preparatory conferences took place at the RSHA, much more focused than those of the month before; soon only the date had yet to be decided. Excitement became palpable; for the first time in a long time, the officials concerned had the clear feeling of regaining initiative. I saw Eichmann again several times, at these conferences and in private. He assured me that the Reichsführer’s instructions had been perfectly understood. “I’m happy you’re the one who’s taking care of this aspect of the question,” he said to me, chewing the inside of his left cheek. “With you, we can work, if you permit me to say so. Which isn’t the case with everyone.” The question of the air war dominated everyone’s thoughts. Two days after the first raid, the Americans sent more than 800 bombers, protected by nearly 650 of their new fighter planes, to strike Berlin at lunchtime. Thanks to bad weather, the bombing lacked precision and the damage was limited; what’s more, our fighter planes and flak shot down 80 enemy aircraft, a record; but these fighter planes were heavy and ill-adapted against the new Mustangs, and our own losses came to 66 aircraft, a catastrophe, with the dead pilots being even harder to replace than the planes. Not discouraged in the least, the Americans returned for several days running; each time, the population spent hours in shelters, all work was interrupted; at night, the English sent their Mosquitos, which didn’t do much damage but again forced the people down into the shelters, ruining their sleep, sapping their strength. Human losses fortunately remained lower than in November: Goebbels had decided to evacuate a large part of the city center, and most of the office employees, now, came in to work every day from the suburbs; but that involved hours of exhausting commutes. The quality of work suffered: when preparing correspondence, our Berlin specialists, insomniac now, made more and more mistakes, I had to have the letters retyped three, five times before I could send them.