1. For a thorough review of the literature see Ludewig, Hans-Ulrich, “Zwangsarbeit im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Forschungsstand und Ergebnisse regionaler und lokaler Fallstudien,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 31 (1991): 558–78.Google Scholar The standard work is Pingel, Falk, Häftlinge unter SS-Herrschaft: Widerstand, Selbstbehauptung und Vernichtung im Konzentrationslager (Hamburg, 1978).Google Scholar Among many excellent case studies see Siegfried, Klaus-Jörg, Das Leben der Zwangsarbeiter im Volkswagenwerk 1939–45 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988);Google ScholarFröbe, Rainer et al. , eds., Konzentrationslager in Hannover: KZ-Arbeit und Rüstungsindustrie in der Spätphase des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Hildesheim, 1985), 1–43; 131–276.Google Scholar For an excellent, short overview see Herbert, Ulrich, “Arbeit und Vernichtung: Ökonomisches Interesse und Primat der ‘Weltanschauung’ im Nationalsozialismus,” in Ist der Nationalsozialismus Geschichte? Zu Historisierung und Historikerstreit, ed. Diner, Dan (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 198–236.Google Scholar

2. My prosopographical studies of the WVHA officer/managerial corps are based primarily on names gathered from the “SS Führer des Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamts,” BDC Hängerordner 1206–1313. My study includes 160 officers who at one point in their SS careers served in significant positions in the WVHA or its predecessors. The data are complete only for those above the rank of Hauptsturmführer, as those entered as Hauptsturmführer are not listed with their administrative function. In a complete list from 1944, out of a total of 138 administrative officers, 85 worked as officers building other institutions outside the WVHA. This leaves around 60 topranking officers when one adds five above the rank of general (not included in the document). Those excluded from my prosopographical data were, for instance, officers that led the Truppenwirtschaftslager of the Waffen SS. Such officers were much more subordinate to the Führungshauptamt than the WVHA. I also excluded officers who worked in the administrative service of other SS Hauptämter for similar reasons. Extrapolating the same ratios for Hauptsturmführer included in the totality of all administrative officers in the SS, 390, yields an activated staff of around 121 officers in the service of the WVHA. My data are, however, significantly more expansive than this, although by no means exhaustive, because they include officers who left the WVHA's forerunners in its early days for various reasons and are not included in the “SS Führer des Wirtschafts-Verwaltungsdiensts” which dates from 1943 or 1944.

3. Current historical treatments of the SS largely overlook the WVHA and the ideals proclaimed by its officers. Robert Gellately's extensive review essay discusses primarily the SD of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, “Situating the ‘SS-State’ in a Social-Historical Context: Recent Histories of the SS, the Police, and the Courts in the Third Reich,” Journal of Modern History 64 (1992): 338–65.Google Scholar Several historians have begun to provide historical treatments of the WVHA. See for instance, Naasner, Walter, Neue Machtzentren in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1942–45: Die Wirtschaftsorganisation der SS, das Amt des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitseinsatz und das Reichsministerium für Bewaffnung und Munition/Reichsministerium für Rüstungs- und Kriegsproduktion im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem (Boppard am Rhein, 1994);Google ScholarKaienburg, Hermann, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit,” Der Fall Neuengamme: Die Wirtschaftsbestrebungen der SS und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Existenzbedingungen der KZ-Gefangenen (Bonn, 1990);Google ScholarKarny, Miroslav, “SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs Hauptamt: Verwalter der KZ-Häftlingsarbeitskräfte und Zentrale des SS-Wirtschaftskonzerns,” in Deutsche Wirtschaft: Zwangsarbeit von KZ-Häftlingen für Industrie und Behörden, ed. Eiber, Ludwig and Reemtsma, Jan (Hamburg, 1991), 153–67.Google Scholar

4. Sofsky, Wolfgang, Die Ordnung des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt am Main, 1993), 21 and 296–314.Google Scholar

5. Quoted in Browning, Christopher, “The Decision Concerning the Final Solution,”Google Scholar in idem, Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (New York, 1985), 10–11.

6. Mommsen, Hans, “Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’ im Dritten Reich”Google Scholar in idem, Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991), 213–14.

7. Both citations from Sofsky, Ordnung des Terrors, 33.

8. NO-542, Walter Salpeter, undated, from between April 39 and June 39, “Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W).” (PS, NO, NI, and NG documents were collected for the war-crimes trials against leading Nazis after the war. They are deposited in many different locations and the National Archives has microfilmed them. I will use the PS, NO, NI, and NG numbers to facilitate location in different archives.)

9. Rebentisch, Dieter, “Hitlers Reichskanzlei zwischen Politik und Verwaltung,” in Verwaltung contra Menschenführung im Staat Hitlers: Studien zum politisch-administrativen SystemGoogle Scholar, ed. idem (Göttingen, 1986), 65–99; and Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Verfassungsentwicklung und Verwaltungspolitik 1939–45 (Stuttgart, 1989);Google ScholarMommsen, Hans, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rebentisch's chief concern is that National Socialists so hypocritically claimed to create a simplified, unitary bureaucracy but ended up creating a ballooning, unwieldy one instead. Yet he deals relatively stingily with those authorities which actually proved themselves to be very competent—like Albert Speer's or Fritz Todt's armaments ministry and Fritz Sauckel's plenipotentiary for the Reich Labor Action. Nevertheless Rebentisch remains convinced that “because of his total ignorance of administrative-organizational and state-legal affairs, [Speer] frequently presided over considerable confusion of competencies and not without reason the Reichskanzlei considered him one of the greatest destroyers of the Reich's system of administration” (p. 337 and likewise a similar comment about Todt: p. 346). The startling efficacy of Speer's armaments ministry and its organizational innovations (the Ausschüsse and Ringe for example) never warrant mention. Nor does the book mention that Speer and others like him aggressively tried to erect modern administrative hierarchies precisely because they were hostile to the traditional bureaucracy of the German Beamtentum. That Speer was a nuisance to the Reichskanzlei can hardly serve as evidence that Speer was incompetent.

10. This is despite the emphasis that Raul Hilberg placed on “organizational innovations” that made genocide possible. See The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1967).Google Scholar Hilberg's exploration of bureaucracy has also been pursued by Christopher Browning in several important essays, eap. “Bureaucracy and Mass Murder: The German Administrator's Comprehension of the Final Solution,” in idem, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge, 1992), 125–44.Google Scholar

11. Hüttenberger, Peter, “Nationalsozialistische Polykratie,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 2 (1976): 417–42.Google Scholar Of course, Neumann's, Franz, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (Oxford, 1942)Google Scholar prefigured Huttenberger's analysis. Aredt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963 [repr. 1977]).Google Scholar

12. Broszat, Martin, The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich (New York, 1969 [trans. 1981]).Google Scholar Dieter Rebentisch, “Hitlers Reichskanzlei,” 65–99.

13. Hüttenberger, “Nationalsozialistische Polykratie,” 421–23, citation 421.

14. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, pt. 3 (New York, 1951), 27.Google Scholar Christopher Browning has pointed out to me that the image of bureaucratic “cogs” is not nearly as influential among contemporary scholars as among early interpreters of the Nazi genocide, and he is, of course, correct. Nevertheless, as recent synthetic work by Zygmunt Bauman attests, this image ligers. See for instance, Bauman, , Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithica, 1989), 195.Google Scholar Bauman's judgments about the Holocaust are strikingly similar to Arendt's own. He decries the amorality of modern bureacracy and technology.

15. Mills, C. Wright, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (Oxford, 1951), xv, xvii,Google Scholar and the chapter “The Morale of the Cheerful Robots,” 233–35.

16. Arendt, Eichmann, 26 and 49 respectively.

17. Mommsen, “Die Realisierung,” 213–14. Compare Speer, Albert, Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremecy (London, 1981).Google Scholar

18. Walter Naasner's, Neue Machtzentren offers a narrowly conceived study of the WVHA Arbeitseinsatz, the Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz (Fritz Sauckel), and the Ministerium Speer precisely because he has employed a polycratic model of institutional history. Although based on extensive primary research, the book explores very little secondary literature nor does it account for the social makeup of the SS. In one case Naasner labels an energetic man of 36 a “grey eminence” of the WVHA (pp. 238–39 and ff.). In another case, Naasner expresses surprise that the holding company (Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe) founded by the SS possessed little capital (pp. 421–29). Yet holding companies serve exactly this function: they act as central organs for the audit of profit and loss among subsidiaries but avoid carrying capital liabilities as much as possible. Instead of viewing the institutions at the center of his book as corporations and state bureaucracies with substantive functions, Naasner unfortunately views them merely as political bodies vying for power. Too often the SS's main goal appears as “institutionelle Verselbstständigung” (p. 402).The book seldom goes on to address what use the SS had in mind for its institutional independence. The content of daily operations and the motivational drives perpetrators only appers in one detached chapter that is not integrated into the body of the book.

19. Koselleck, Reinhart, Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848 (Stuttgart, 1967).Google Scholar

20. When WVHA officers are mentioned at all in postwar histories, too often they are presented as stupid (see Speer, Albert, Infiltration [New York, 1981], 15Google Scholar and the similar but more global view of Sofsky, Ordnung des Terrors, 32) or as just that type of empty, powerdriven bureaucrat that Arendt has conditioned us to expect. Enno Georg discusses the WVHA's “aspirations toward monopoly” (Monopolbestrebungen) but no ideological motivations in Die wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen der SS (Stuttgart, 1963), esp. 142.Google Scholar Robert Koehl's treatment is quite typical: “These men can neither be described as ideologically motivated nor as misfits of the depression…”; rather they were efficient businessmen who sought only to profit personally from concentrationcamp labor (The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS (Madison, 1983), 170).Google Scholar Thus existing scholarship offers meager evidence to dissuade the reader from viewing the SS's labor lords as “cogs in the machine” of genocide.

21. Contrary to most of what is claimed about the SS, private industry, and the armaments ministry originally came to Himmler and asked for his help. This is treated extensively in Allen, Michael, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS: the Business Administration Main Office (Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt),” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995), 307–82.Google Scholar Up until March of 1942, Himmler and Pohl had been busy with plans for their own labor-action that had nothing to do with weapons production: namely the production of building materials and the furnishing of construction brigades for the SS Friedensbauprogram. See Pohl and Kammler to RFSS, 10 February 1942, “Aufstellung von SS-Baubrigaden für die Durchführung von Bauaufgaben des RFSS in Kriege und Frieden,” Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK) NS 19/2065 and the entire NS 19/2065 file.

22. The impetus for this reorganization was not, as many have suggested, spurred by the mobilization for total war. Nor did Himmler order the formation of the WVHA to head off a brewing power struggle between Speer's war ministry, Fritz Sauckle's, Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz, and the SS as some suggest. Lastly, Himmler was not interested in establishing the SS as an independent armaments producer. Cf. Naasner, Neuc Machtzentren; Herbert, “Arbeit und Vernichtung,” esp. 218–19; Janssen, Gregor, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rüstung im Krieg (Berlin, 1968), 97–103;Google Scholar and Roth, Karl Heinz, “‘Generalplan Ost’—‘Gesamtplan Ost’: Forschungsstand, Quellenprobleme, neue Ergebnisse,” in Der “Generalplan Ost”: Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik, ed. Rössler, Mechtild et al. , (Berlin, 1993), 25–95.Google Scholar All of these authors have conducted exhaustive research into primary documents, and the probing analysis of Herbert and Janssen is rarely matched. Nevertheless, here the overemphasis lent to polycratic power struggles has diverted even these farsighted scholars from underlying issues of deep ideological importance to the SS, not to mention the initial eagerness for collaboration on the part of Speer's ministry and Himmler's labor lords. The WVHA's incorporation of the IKL, for instance, seems to have come in response to an initiative by Walter Schieber, one of Speer's closest deputies. The transition to total war is treated extensively in Michael Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS: the Business Administration Main Office,” 307–50.

23. Goffman, Erving, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (New York, 1961).Google Scholar

24. From Eicke's personal file; in Segev, Tom, Die Soldaten des Bösen: Zur Geschichte der KZ-Kommandanten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1992 [orig. 1988]), 145.Google Scholar

25. Michael Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS,” 62–88. See also the forthcoming dissertation of Karin Orth, at the Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg on KZ personnel, who point out that there was great continuity among the internal Lagerführer who exercised the most control over daily prison life (separate from the Standortärzte and Verwaltungsführer, who formed a very discrete, continuous group). I thank Karin Orth here for our many profitable conversations.

26. Kaienburg, , “Vernichtung durch Arbeit,” 90–112, 423–28. Walter Salpeter, 1939,Google Scholar NO- 542, “Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W) in the Economic and Administrative Main Office the RFSS.”

27. The best treatment of this period I have found is Jaskot, Paul, “The Architectural Policy of the SS, 1936–45” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1993), chap. II.Google Scholar

28. Staatssekretär des RJM-Berlin, DrFreisler, Jur. Roland, “Arbeitseinsatz im Strafvollzug” (Title Article for 13 09 1940), Deutsche Justiz 102 (1940): 1021–25.Google Scholar This is exactly the function of labor identified by Goffman, Asylums, 141 and ff. Its practice is described clearly by Richardi, Hans-Günter, Schule der Gewalt: Das Konzentrationslager Dachau 1933–34 (Munich, 1983), 83–87, 150–54Google Scholar and Drobisch, Klaus and Wieland, Güther, System der NS-Konzentrationslager 1933–39 (Berlin, 1993), 76–81.Google Scholar

29. Drobisch and Wieland, Das System, 13. Forced labor as punishment for political opponents had been a long-standing element of the political platform of the NSDAP.

30. Pingel, Häftlinge unter SS-Herrschaft, 37; Tuchel, Johannes, Konzentrationslager: Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der “Inspektion der Konzentrationslager” 1934–38 (Berlin, 1991), 153–56.Google Scholar Compare Richardi, Schule der Gewalt, 88.

31. These were the orders of Eick's direct predecessor, Hilmar Wäckerle, PS–1216, Dr. Wintersberger to Staatsanwaltschaft bei dem Landgericht München II; Staatsministerium der Justiz, 29 May 1933 (one month before Eicke), “Sonderbestimmungen (Lagerordnung)— Dienstvorschriften. Vermerkung über Todesfälle-Besprechung.” Compare Richardi, Schule der Gewalt, 69–72.

32. Eicke, Theodor, 1 October 1933,Google Scholar “Disziplinar- u. Strafordnung für das Gefangenenlager” and “Dienstvorschriften für die Begleitpersonen und Gefangenenbewachung,” Bundesarchiv Potsdam (hereafter BAP), Microfilm Collection PL5: Roll 42053. These films lack frame numbers.

33. Bartel, Walter et al. , ed., Buchenwald Mahnung und Verpflichtung (Berlin, 1960), 222.Google Scholar

34. Drobisch and Wieland, Das System, 435. My friend Paul Jaskot points out that some of the most brutal forms of physical labor took place in SS stone quarries, where prisoners could be worked to death and high output could be safeguarded simultaneously using laborintensive means of production. See Jaskot, “The Architectural Policy of the SS,” esp. 125.

35. Kaienburg, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit,” 200–1. This interview, conducted by Kaienburg, did not include dates of the prisoner's incarceration. Judging from the work, however, this was probably sometime between 1940–1942.

36. Testimony of Fritz Schmidt, KL Häftling im Aussenlager Zwieberge in Bartel et al., Buchewald Mahnung, 269. Compare Taylor, Frederick, Principles of Scientific Management (New York, 1911), 57–62.Google Scholar

37. Compare Richardi, Schule der Gewalt, 143–46. Also various examples of prison labor in Drobisch and Wieland, Das System, 76–81, 119–22, 207–10.

38. Eicke, Theodor, 1 October 1933,Google Scholar “Disziplinar-u. Strafordnung für das Gefangenenlager” and “Dienstvorschriften für die Begleitpersonen und Gefangenenbewachung,” BAP, PL5: 42053.

39. Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 127.

40. Before this the IKL was located in the Friedrichstrasse in the Spandauer Vorstadt, what is now one of the more ethnically diverse parts of Berlin. Drobisch and Wieland, Das System, 256.

41. Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, lists several Kommandanten who were skilled laborers or craftsmen, but none who were practicing engineers. Even those who had been craftsmen had usually suffered career setbacks and abandoned their trade. In the Amtsgruppe D in Oranienburg, the successor to the IKL, only one officer had technical training, a master mechanic, about the rank of foreman. It is not clear what his function was, however. Berlin Document Center (hereafter BDC). SS Personal-Akte Ernst Schulz. Heinrich Schwarz, the Arbeitseinsatzführer at Auschwitz had also trained as an “Elektrotechniker” but had long given up the trade by the time he took over industrial management at Auschwitz III-Monowitz. In Weimar he had worked as a technician in photo studios. BDC Personal-Akte Heinrich Schwarz.

42. Pingel, Häftlinge, 37–39. Every concentration camp was supposed to have an administrative and a technical office. The administrative officers took charge of payroll and supplies for camp guards. Labor management lay far from their concerns, unless they employed a few prisoners in their own service. Ibid, Dr. Wintersberger, 29 May 1933, “Sonderbestimmung” and Eicke, 1 October 1933, “Dientvorschiften” and “Lagerordnungen.” unsigned, undated, “Lagerordnung für die Konzentrationslager,” with chart, BAP, PL5: 42053. Dated by Höss from 1936.

43. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 192–202; Kaienburg, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit,” 56–63.

44. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 52–62, 143.

45. PS–1469, Oswald Pohl to Himmler, 30 September 1943, “Todesfälle in den KL.” See the tables of mortality statistics in Karny, Miroslav, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit: Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern,” in Sozialpolitik und Judenverichtung: Gibt es eine Ökonomie der Endlösung? ed. Aly, Götz et al. , (Berlin, 1987), 140–45, esp. tables 140–41.Google Scholar

46. See Boehnert, Gunnar, “The Third Reich and the Problem of ‘Social Revolution’ German Officers and the SS,” in Germany in the Age of Total War. ed Berghahn, Volker et al. , (London, 1981), 203–17, esp. 206.Google ScholarZiegler, Herbert, Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy: The SS Ledership 1925–39 (Princeton, 1989), 93–148.Google Scholar As yet we have no rigrous social analysis of the IKL personnel, who were different from the Waffen-SS Totenkopf divisions that Boehnert and Ziegler analyze. However Karin Orth is doing extremely interesting work on exactly this problem.

47. Most officers under Pohl had received systematic training in modern administration. In fact, almost 80 percent received some kind of occpational training and over 40 percent of these held higher academic degrees, most typically in economics, buiness law, or—in the future construction corps organized by Pohl—in civil engineering. I have counted the Abitur as elite education, sufficient to prepare one for a business career. I did not count Volksschulen and appreticeships as modern occupational training. Expanding educational institutions between the wars provided valuable modern occupational training which was, however, not considered elite, for example, the Fachschulen, Technikum, technische Lehranstalten, Handelsschulen, or military training programs. I am indebted to Kees Gispen who helped me to clarify some of these categories. Scanning some of the SS managers' dissertation titles should leave little doubt about their acquaintance with modern management: Bobermin, Hanns, “Die Rationalisierung des kaufmännischen Büros im Industriellen Grossbetrieb und ihre Wirkungen auf Angestellte” (Wirtschaftswissenschaft diss., University of Rostock, 1930).Google ScholarSalpeter, Walter, “Verbotene und unsittliche Geschäfte im Steuerrecht,” (Jura. diss., University of Halle-Wittenberg, 1933).Google ScholarHorn, Max, “Zum Bewetungsproblem in der Jahresbilanz der Unternernehmung,” (Leipzig, 1935).Google ScholarVolk, Leo, Die Übertragung des Anwartschaftsrechts aus bedingter Übereignung (Winningen an der Mosel, 1936).Google ScholarKammler, Hans, “Zur Bewertung von Geländeerschlissungen fü die großtädtische Siedlung,” (Engineering diss., Hanover, 1931).Google Scholar Compare, Ziegler, Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy, table 104, 113–17, 147.

48. After Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 145.

49. Cited after Boehnert, “The Third Reich and the Problem of ‘Social Revolution’” 203.

50. Pohl, Oswald to Baier, Hans, 10 04 1937,Google Scholar “Nachwuchs für SS-Verwaltungsführer,” BDC SS Personal-Akten Hans Baier.

51. See for instance Pohl, Oswald, 8 09 1942,Google Scholar “Befehl Nr. 31,” US National Archives Microfilm Record Group T–967, Record of the SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt, Roll 36, Frame 856–57 (hereafter cited T–967/Roll #: Frame #). R–129, Order of Oswald Pohl to Amt D, Lagerkommandanten, Werkleiter Amt W, 30 April 1942, T–967/36: 994–5. For more detail: Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS,” 62–85.

52. NO–542, Salpeter, “Tasks, Organization and Finance Plan of Office III (W).” Salpeter was one of the greatest advocates of “moderm” prison labor within the SS companies. For similar problems of coordination: Walther, Werkleiter to Geschäftsleitung DESt, 1 09 1941,Google Scholar “Abstellung von Bewachungsmannschaften,” T–976/25: 400–850. Mummenthey, 27 November 1940 and 20 December 1940, and “Monatsbericht,” T–976/26: 1–516.

53. NO–3698, Loerner, Georg to RFSS, 14 09 1940,Google Scholar “Branch offices of the Main Office Budget and Buildings for prisoner allocation.” BDC Wilhelm Burböck letter from Leckebusch to Chef of Amt I, VuWHA shows that as early as 6 October 1940 plans were already underway to create a liaison for labor operations to the IKL. These had most likely been initiated at the end of 1939.

54. NO–2315, Pohl, 5 September 1941, “Häftlingseinsatz.”

55. NO–718, Burböck to all Schutzhaftlagerführer “E,” 28 November 1941, “Assignment of internees’ detachments: Regulation IKL.” PS–3677, Burböck, 7 November 1941, “Allgemeine Dienstanweisung für die Schutzhaftlagerführer ‘E.”

56. Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS,” 148–70 and regarding Burböck, 239–57.

57. Robert Koehl, The Black Corps, 143. Burböck had excellent connections to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who took charge of some 7,200 SS men during the Anschluss to seize public buildings in various cities throughout Austria, and Kaltenbrunner acted as auxilliary police chief.

58. NO–1712, Wilhelm Burböck to Dienstsellen des HAHB, 27 November 1940, “Neuer Organisationsplan für die Hauptabteilung 1/5.” PS–3677, Burböck, 7 November 1941.

59. NO–2126, affidavit of Phillipp Grimm.

60. Tom Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 175–85; see also Eugen Kogon, the former prisoner of Buchenwald, , Der SS-Staat: Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager (Munich, 1971).Google Scholar

61. Quote: NO–3657, letter from Grimm to administration of Buchenwald, 24 October 1940. See also No–2126, Affidavit of Phillipp Grimm. NO–2120; NO–2105, Phillipp Grimm to Staf. Koch, Kommandant Buchenwald, 28 October 1940 and 13 December 1940, “Transfer of Prisoners.”

62. NO–2120.

63. Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 192–202; Kaienburg, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit,” 56–63.

64. Affidavits of Gerhard Maurer and Karl Sommer, BAP, PL5: 42063. BDC Personalakte Gerhard Maurer. BDC Personalakte Maurer and undated, “Lebenslauf” (from after the war), BAP, PL5: 42063. Dr Wilhelm Schneider, 6 September 1939, “Urkunderolle,” NS3/435.

65. BDC SS Personalakte Maurer. NO–1202, Affidavit Hans Moser. NI–1065, Affidavit Karl Sommer and Affidavit Gerhard Maurer in Defense Document Books of Karl Sommer. Paul Zapke, 1 August 1952, “In der Reichsschutzsache Gerhard Maurer,” BAP, PL5:42064. Pohl often rubber-stamped Maurer's initiatives. E.g., his order to extend work to 11 hours a day with Office D2 in the letterhead: NO–1290, Oswald Pohl, 22 October 1943, “Working Time of the Prisoners.“

66. Maurer, to all KL Kommandantur, 24 06 1942,Google Scholar “Häftlingseinsatztagung,” BAP, PL5: 42055.

67. Kommandantur Flossenbürg, Obsff. Baumgärtner to all KL's 10 November 1944, “Rundschreiben von Abteilung Hollerith im Arbeitseinsatz,” KT-OVS Litomerice Lovosice 27, Folder 2 and “Aufstellung der Haftlinge-Metallarbeiter aus dem Transport v. 6 October 1945” and “Ingenieurs und Techniker,” 6 October 1944, KT-OVS Litomerice Lovosice 27, Folder 3, Státní ústrední archiv, Prague.

68. Maurer, to all Kommandaten, 24 06 1942,Google Scholar “Häftlingseinsatzführertaung” and Maurer to all Kommandanten and Arbeitseinsatzf., 22 August 1942, BAP, PL5: 42055. Cf. with Wilhelm Burböck's managerial tools: NO–718, Burböck to all Schutzhaftlager “E,” 28 November 1941, “Assignment of Internees’ detachment; regulation IKL dated 14 October 1941 Par. E.”

69. Glücks, Richard to Lagerkommandanten, 20 02 1942,Google Scholar “Arbetiseinsatz,” BDC SS Hängeordner: 1825. Glücks to all KL's 12 February 1942, “Herabminderung der Häftlingszahl für Lagerbetriebe,” BAP, PL5: 42056

70. E.g., Milch, Erhard to Maurer, , 13 04 1943,Google Scholar T–175/80: 600582. In particular cases, Speer also sought out the direct intervention of Maurer. See Speer, 8 June 1944, “Generalkommissar für die Sofortmassnahmen,” T–175/70: 87633–6. Other industries also sought his cooperation: Letter Maurer to Hohberg, 5 April 1843 “18–Fertigung bei den Reichswerken Hermann Goering in Druette bei Braunschweig” and Pohl to Paul Pleiger “Vertrag mit den HGW in Druette b/Braunschweig” 5 June 1943, BAP, PL5: 42064.

71. See Maurer to all Kommandanten, 24 June 1942 and 22 August 1942.

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75. Mummenthey, Karl, 27 11 1940,Google Scholar “Monatsbericht,” NS3/1346.

76. NO-1285, Pohl, Oswald to RFSS, 16 03 1943,Google Scholar “SV.-Häftlinge.”

77. For discrepancies in KL statistics, see Miroslav Karny, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit’. Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern,” esp. 140–45. Paczula, Tadeusz, “Organisation und Verwaltung des ersten Häftlingskrankenbaus in Auschwitz,” in Die Auschwit-Hefte. ed. August, Jochen, (Weinheim, 1987), 159–71.Google Scholar KL Doctors' statistics often lumped marginal cases in with the sick. Their records on the absolute number of healthy workers tended to be more reliable because of this bias. Note that preserving labor capacity should be sharply distinguished from preserving life. Preserving the labor capacity of the camps actually went hand in hand with the destruction of life.

78. NI–10815, Glücks to all KL Lagerärzte, 26 December 1942, “Ärztliche Tätigkeit in den KL.”

79. See Allen, Michael, “The Puzzle of Nazi Modernism, Modern Technology and Ideological Consensus in an SS Factory at Auschwitz,” Technology and Culture 37 (1996): 527–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. Browning, Christopher, “Vernichtung und Arbeit: Zur Fraktionierung der planenden deutschen Intelligenz im besetzten Polen,” in “Vernichtungspolitik”: Eine Debatte über den Zusammenhang von Sozialpolitik und Genozid im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland, ed. Schneider, Wolfgang, (Hamburg, 1991), 37–52.Google Scholar Herbert, “Arbeit und Vernichtung,” 198–236. See Pressac, Jean-Claude, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz: Die Technik des Massenmordes (Munich, 1993), 38–50.Google Scholar

81. Furthermore, if a prisoner was declared arbeitsunfähig, the firms who ordered his daily labor from the Amtsgruppe D did not have to pay. This secured the cooperation of private firms in eliminating sick or injured prisoners from the “Arbeitsfähigen.” Compare Lifton, Robert Jay, The Nazi Doctors (New York, 1986), 174.Google Scholar

82. Pohl, Oswald to Amt D, Lagerkommandanten, Werkleiter, Amt W, 30 04 1942, T–967/36: 994–95.Google Scholar

83. Affidavits of Gerhard Maurer, BAP, PLS: 42063. Affidavit of Friedrich Köberlein, Defense Document Books Georg Lörner. These affidavits are confirmed by Pohl and Glücks, regulations booklet of 15 May 1943, “Dienstvorschrift für die Gewährung von Verg¨nstigungen an Häftlinge (Prämie-Vorschrift) gültig ab 15 May 1943, “BAP, PL5: 42056. Maurer, 27 July 1943, “Lagerordnung für Häftlinhge,” BAP, PLS: 42053 with his memo to Kommandantnen 27 July 1943 “Bewachung der Häftlinge,” BAP, PL5: 42053.

84. NO–3104, affidavit of Wolfgang Adolf Egon Sanner. Similar means of resistance to Maurer's statistical supervision have been recorded by Karny, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern,” 143–45 The Gestapo, which controlled the Politische Abteilung of the camps, hid incoming populations fromthe WVHA by cynically filling out “discharge papers” for them before they sent them to be gassed. The Gestapo thus used its administrative authority over incarceration, which was imbedded in the managerial structure of the camps, to find a way around the Amtsgruppe D's production mandate. Entering prisoners in the categories of “discharge” had the administrative function of keeping them out of the Amtsgruppe D's card files and statistics tables. Such prisoners were therefore invisible to Maurer's managerial supervision.

85. See the armaments minister's letter of praise: Speer, Albert to Kammler, , 17 12 1943,Google Scholar BDC SS Personalakten Hans Kammler. Neufeld, Michael, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York, 1995), 260–65.Google Scholar

86. See Boehnert, “The Third Reich and the Problem of ‘Social Revolution.’”

87. DrHotz, Ing. Edgar and DrKammler, Ing. Hans, Grundlagen der Kostenrechnung und Organisation eines Baubetriebs für den Wohnungs- und Siedlungsbau in Stadt und Land (Berlin, 1934), 1.Google Scholar

88. Kammler to Höss, 18 June 1941, “KL Auschwitz Baumassnahmen 2. und 3. Kriegswirtschaftsjahr,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum Microfilms Collection RG–11.001M.03 filmed at the OSOBIY Archive in Moscow, Fond 502: roll 19. Hereafter cited: RG–11.001M: Roll # with the original Moscow call numbers in parenthesis. The date here is important. In the summer of 1941, the Third Reich was yet to convert to a total war economy. Not the pressure of war, but rather the ideological motovation to get moving on the Fridensbauprogramm of the New Order and Kammler's effective technological control lent him the authority to overcome the intransigence of the IKL.

89. Quote: Kammler, 17 November, “Organisation der SS Baudienststellen.” Cf. “Dienstanweisungen für den Leiter einer Bauinspektion”; “Dienstanweisung fü den Leiter einer ZBL”; and “Dienstanweisung fü den Leiter der Bauleitung,” all in Kammler and Pohl to all Arntschefs, 17 November, “Organisation der SS Baudienststellen,” RG–11.00M.03: 19 (502–1–12).

90. ZBL Auschwitz to All BL, 2 August 1944, “Geschäftsbetrieb bei den ZBL mit den angegliederten Bauleitungen und Abteilungen,” RG–11.001M.03: 24 (502–1–84).

91. Kammler, evaluation of Franz Eirenschmalz, 17 November 1944, BDC SS Personalakte Franz Eirenschmalz.

92. Kammler evaluation 16 April 1944, BDC SS Personalakte Robert Riedl.

93. On the collective identity including statistical evidence on the Office Group C corps of civil engineers in the SS see Michael Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS,” 297–305.

94. The cooperation and collaboration, as well as the conflicts, between the SS, private industry, and the Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion is dealt with extensively in Allen, “Engineers and Modern Managers in the SS,” 350–82, 425–76.

95. Kammler to Rüstungskontor GmbH, 2 October 1943, “Vorstandsmitglied SS,” BAK R121/405 and Segev, Die Soldaten des Bösen, 38. Testimony of Josef Ackermann, Prisoner/medical assistant at Dora-Buchewald, Protokoll: 952–56. On the close relationship between Office C-Construction and Office D2 see Lenzer to BI, ZBL, 20 May 1942 and Chef Amt II, Stbaf. Heidelberg to Neubauleitung Flossenbürg, 4 July 1940, BAK NS4/31. Kammler to Kommandanten des KL Auschwitz 9 July 1942, “Bauvorhaben im 3. Kriegsjahr,” RG–11.001M.03: 19 (502–1–9). Lenzer to BI, ZBL, Amtsgruppe C, Amtsgruppe D, 17 July 1942, “Anforderung und Berechnung von Häftlingen für die Bauleitungen,” RG–11.001M.03: 18 (502–1–3).

96. For example: Kammler to ZBL Auschwitz, 7 September 1943, RG–11.001M.03: 24 (502–1–83). Compare also Raim, Edith, Die Dachauer KZ-Aussenkommandos Kaufering und Mühldorf: Rüstungsbauten und Zwangsarbeit im letzten Kriegsjahr 1944/1945 (Landsberg am Lech, 1992), 220–39.Google Scholar The blunt words of Kammler himself illustrate his methods, Jägerstabbesprechung, 2 May 1944, BA MA RL3/6, “It always depends upon this: that the people [prisoners] have noticed that they are not being held firmly enough in grip. I have let 30 people hang in a Special Treatment. Since they have been hung, things are going in relative order again. It is the old joke: if the people notice that they will not be immediately and firmly seized as before, they try to get away with everything.” For examples of innovation see Colonel W. R. J. Cook et al., Underground Factories in Central Germany, CIOS File No. XXXII-17 (Deutsches Museum Archives), 12–13, 34–40, 144–50; including interview with a Polish prisoner who worked in the excavation, 84.

97. Karny, Miroslav, “‘Vernichtung durch Arbeit’ in Leitmeritz: Die SS-Führungsstäbe in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft,” 1999 4 (1993): 52–53.Google Scholar

98. Vogel to Hans Baier, 7 April 1944, NO–405. This letter also contained demand for privileges and special administrative measures to preserve skilled workers.

99. The Phenomenon of bureaucratic dynamism at the local level has recently been explored by Browning, Christopher, “Bureaucracy and Mass Murder” and Aly, Götz, Endlösung: Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1995).Google Scholar