The Kindly Ones

At Auschwitz, at the Kommandantur, I met Sturmbannführer Kraus, a liaison officer sent by Schmauser with an SD Sonderkommando, and set up in the camp as the head of a “Liaison and Transition Office.” This Kraus, a pleasant, competent young officer, whose neck and left ear bore traces of severe burns, explained to me that he was mainly responsible for the “Immobilization” and “Destruction” phases: he especially had to ensure that the extermination installations and the warehouses didn’t fall intact into the hands of the Russians. The responsibility for the implementation of the evacuation order, when it was given, fell to Bär. Bär received me somewhat unpleasantly; obviously to him I was yet another bureaucrat from the outside who was coming to hinder his work. He struck me with his piercing, anxious eyes, a fleshy nose, a thin but curiously sensual mouth; his thick, wavy hair was carefully combed back with brilliantine, like a Berlin dandy’s. I thought him astonishingly dull and narrow-minded, even more than Höss who at least kept the flair of a former Freikorps soldier. Taking advantage of my rank, I reprimanded him severely for his lack of open cooperation with the services of the HSSPF. He retorted with an ill-concealed arrogance that Pohl fully supported his position. “When Fall-A

is declared, I will obey the orders of Obergruppenführer Schmauser. Until then, I report to Oranienberg alone. You have no authority to give me orders.”—“When

Fall-A

is declared,” I replied angrily, “it will be too late to make up for your incompetence. I warn you that in my report to the Reichsführer I will hold you personally responsible for all excessive losses.” My threats seemed to have no effect on him; he listened to me in silence, with barely hidden contempt.