The Theory and Practice of Hell by Eugen Kogon Page B

wore Hitler’s Order of the Blood, denoting participation in the 1923 Beerhall Putsch ; and SS Captain Weissenborn as Second Officer-in-Charge. Koch had begun his notorious career as an SS sergeant in the so-called moor camps, as had Weissenborn, a one-time prison guard with a predilection for convicts—with whom he had a good deal in common. He is best characterized by the slogan the SS itself used to chalk up on walls: “ God in his wrath created Captain Weissenborn.” Rodl had come with the group from Sachsenburg.
    The large number of labor details in existence even then
     

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    reveals the high pressure with which work proceeded. There were two quarry details, a logging detail, a lumberyard detail, two excavation details, a grading detail for the neutral zone, a barracks construction detail, a road-building detail, a drainage detail, a water works detail, a powerline detail, a materials dump detail, an unloading detail, five transport details, a construction office detail, a number of shop details, a number of skilled construction workers’ details—masons, carpenters, tile-setters, plumbers, electricians, roofers, painters—SS and prisoners’ mess details, SS and prisoners’ KP details, a domestic service detail (calfactors). The work day usually lasted fourteen hours, Sundays included, from six o’clock in the morning to eight or nine at night. Work on the water mains regularly continued to ten and eleven o ’clock under floodlights, and sometimes to two and three o’clock in the morning. The lunch period was one hour, most of it going for two roll calls. There were four roll calls a day, the first in the morning before moving out, two on moving in and out again at noon, the fourth after work at night. There was prac tically no time for eating or for personal hygiene—these things were not considered important by the SS. From July 15, 1937, to February 28, 1938, the daily ration allowance per prisoner amounted to the equivalent of about twenty cents! Virtually every Sunday, rations were withheld altogether as a disciplinary measure—a practice kept up by the SS deep into the war. Sanitary conditions beggared description. The chief cause of suffering was the water shortage. For a full year the SS was content to use an improvised system, barely sufficient for its own needs. The prisoners had to do with crude water pipes running between barracks. Holes had been drilled into these pipes. The water trickled out drop by drop and had to be collected. The sewerage system was no better. At first there were nothing but open latrine pits twenty-five feet long, twelve feet deep and twelve feet wide. Poles accommodating twelve to fifteen men were set up along the sides. One of the favorite games of the SS, engaged in for many years, was to harass and bully the prisoners even during the performance of this elemental human need. Those unable to get away quickly enough when the SS put in an unexpected appearance received a beating and were flung into the cesspool. In Buchenwald ten prisoners suffocated in excrement in this fashion in October
     

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    1937 alone. Whenever an SS man appeared near a latrine, the prisoners instantly took flight—in what condition may be imagined. In the barracks the prisoners had to use old tin jam buckets. At night these were, of course, full to overflowing within a few hours. Not until 1939 was work on a real sewerage system begun.
    During the initial phase, each work detail moved out with its own SS guard detachment. The SS men posted themselves around the work area and engaged in acts of terrorism at their pleasure. There was a great shortage of tools, and deliberately senseless rules made the work even more difficult. Thus the tough hardwood tree roots had to be dug out by hand, while the loose pine stumps were blasted out. Beatings and cruelties of all kinds were administered as a matter of course. The shooting