Wirths showed me the reports he sent monthly to Lolling: the conditions in the different sections of the camp, the incompetence of many doctors and officers, the brutality of the subalterns and kapos, the daily obstacles blocking his work, everything was described in plain, straightforward language. He promised to have copies of his last six reports typed out for me. He was particularly up in arms about the use of criminals in positions of responsibility in the camp: “I’ve talked about it dozens of times with Obersturmbannführer Höss. Those ‘greens’ are brutes, sometimes psychopaths, they’re corrupt, they reign with terror over the other inmates, and all with the connivance of the SS. It’s inadmissible, not to speak of the fact that the results are lamentable.”—“What would you prefer? Political prisoners, Communists?”—“Of course!” He began to count on his fingers: “One: they are by definition men who have a social conscience. Even if they can be corrupted, they’ll never commit the same atrocities as the common-law prisoners. Do you realize that in the women’s camp the Blockältesten are prostitutes, degenerates! And most of the male block elders keep what they call here a Pipel, a young boy who serves as their sex slave. That’s what we have to rely on here! Whereas the ‘reds,’ to a man, refuse to use the brothel reserved for inmate functionaries, even though some of them have been in the camp for ten years. Two: the priority now is organization of labor. Now, what better organizer than a Communist or an SD activist? The ‘greens’ just know how to hit and hit again. Three: they object to me that the ‘reds’ will deliberately sabotage production. To which I reply that, first of all, it couldn’t be worse than the present production, and then that there are ways to control this: political prisoners aren’t idiots, they’ll understand very quickly that at the slightest problem they’ll be sacked and that the common-law criminals will return. It will thus be wholly in their own interest, for themselves and for all of the Häftlinge, if they guarantee good production. I can even give you an example, that of Dachau, where I worked briefly: there, the ‘reds’ control everything and I can assure you that the conditions are incomparably better than in Auschwitz. Here, in my own department, I use only political prisoners. I have no complaints. My private secretary is an Austrian Communist, a serious, self-possessed, efficient young man. We sometimes have very frank conversations, and it’s very useful for me, since he learns from other inmates things that are hidden from me, and he reports them to me. I trust him much more than some of my SS colleagues.” We also discussed the selection. “I think the principle is odious,” he frankly confessed to me. “But if it has to be done, then it might as well be done by doctors. Before, it was the Lagerführer and his men who ran it. They did it any which way, and with unimaginable brutality. At least now it takes place in an orderly fashion, according to reasonable criteria.” Wirths had ordered all the camp doctors to take their turn at the ramp. “I myself go there too, even if I find it horrifying. I have to set an example.” He looked a little lost as he said that. It wasn’t the first time someone had opened up to me this way: since the beginning of my mission, certain individuals, either because they instinctively understood that I was interested in their problems or because they hoped to use me as a channel to air their grievances, confided far beyond the requirements of the service. It’s true that, here, Wirths must not often have found a friendly ear: Höss was a good professional, but devoid of any sensitivity, and the same must have been true for most of his subordinates.
