by Rudolf Hoess
I often tried to make myself indifferent to this, but I never succeeded.
I grew accustomed to the crude language of the junior guards, whose delight in the power they wielded increased in proportion to the lowness of their mentality. I also got used to the senseless orders which these same narrow-minded officials would give, and I would carry them out without demur, and even with an inward chuckle.
I became accustomed, too, to the disgusting language used by the prisoners when they met.
But though it happened every day, I could never accustom myself to the common, cynical, and filthy way in which the prisoners treated everything good and beautiful, everything which many men regard as sacred. They became especially vicious when they noticed that a fellow prisoner could be hurt by such talk. This kind of behavior has always affected me strongly.
I have ever regarded a good book as a good friend. Up to then my restless life had given me little time or leisure for reading. But in the loneliness of my cell books became my all, and this was especially so during the first two years of my sentence. They were my one relaxation, and they enabled me entirely to forget my situation.
Toward the end of the first two years, which had passed monotonously and without any special incident, I was overcome by a most peculiar state of mind. I became very irritable, nervous, and excited. I felt a disinclination to work, although I was in the tailoring shop at the time and had hitherto thoroughly enjoyed this work. I could no longer eat and I brought up every mouthful that I forced myself to swallow. I could not read any more and became completely unable to concentrate. I paced up and down my cell like a wild animal. I lay awake all night, although I had up to then always fallen at once into a deep and almost dreamless sleep. I had to get out of bed and walk round and round my cell, and was unable to lie still. Then I would sink exhausted on to the bed and fall asleep, only to wake again after a short time bathed in sweat from my nightmares. In these confused dreams I was always being pursued and killed, or falling over a precipice. The hours of darkness became a torment. Night after night I heard the clocks strike the hour. As morning approached, my dread increased. I feared the light of day and the people I should have to see once more. I felt incapable of seeing them again. I tried with all my strength to pull myself together, but without success. I wanted to pray, but my prayers dissolved into a distressed stammering. I had forgotten how to pray, and had lost the way to God. In my misery I believed that God had no wish to help me, since I had forsaken Him. I was tormented by the memory of my definite secession from the Church in 1922. Yet this had been the ratification of a state of affairs that had existed since the end of the war. In my heart I was already leaving the Church during the last years of the war. I reproached myself bitterly for not having followed the wishes of my parents, for my lack of piety. It was strange how all this worried me while I was in this plight.
My nervous agitation increased day to day, even from hour to hour. I nearly went raving mad. My health gave way. My foreman noticed my unaccustomed absent-mindedness and the mess I made of even the simplest tasks, and although I worked furiously I could not finish my daily task.
For several days I had fasted, thinking that after this I would be able to eat once more. The guard in charge of my section caught me in the act of throwing my dinner into the garbage pail. Although he usually did his job in a weary and indifferent manner, and hardly bothered about the prisoners, yet even he had noticed my behavior and appearance, and on this account had been keeping a sharp watch over me, as he later told me. I was taken immediately to the doctor. He was an elderly man who had been attached to the prison staff for a great many years. He listened patiently to my story, thumbed through the pages of my file and then said with the greatest nonchalance: “Prison psychosis. You’ll get over it. It’s not serious!”
I was taken to the infirmary and placed in an observation cell. Then I was given an injection, wrapped in cold sheets, and immediately I fell into a deep sleep. During the following days I was given sedatives and put on an invalid diet. My general nervous condition subsided and I began to pick up. At my own wish I was returned to my cell. It was first intended that I be put in a cell with other prisoners, but I had requested to be left on my own.
At this time I was informed by the prison warden that on account of my good behavior and industriousness I was to be promoted to the second degree and as a result would receive various alleviations of my prison existence. I might now write letters once a month, and could receive as much mail as I liked. I might also have books and instructional literature sent in to me. I might grow flowers in my window, and keep my light on until ten o’clock at night. If I wished, I could spend an hour or two with the other prisoners on Sundays and holidays.
The gleam of light provided by these facilities did far more to help me out of my depression than any sedatives. Nevertheless, it was to be a long time before I could entirely shake off the deeper effects of my neurosis. There are things between heaven and earth which are outside the daily run of man’s experience, but to which he can devote serious thought when he is completely alone. Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Often, during those hours of extreme mental agitation, yet before my mind became altogether bewildered, I saw my parents standing before me in the flesh. I spoke with them, and it seemed as though they were still watching over me. I still cannot find any explanation for this, nor have I, during all these years, ever spoken about it to anyone.
During the subsequent years of my imprisonment I was often able to observe this prison psychosis in others. Many cases ended in the padded cell; several in complete mental derangement. Those prisoners whom I knew, who had suffered from and overcome this psychosis, remained timid and depressed and pessimistic for a very long time afterward. Some of them were never able to shake off this deep feeling of depression.
Most of the suicides which occurred while I was there could, in my opinion, be traced back to this prison psychosis. The conditions in which they lived deprived the men of all those sensible reflections and restraints which in normal life often stay the suicide’s hand. The tremendous agitation which rages through a man so afflicted drives him to the final extremity—to put an end to his torment and find peace!
In my experience there were very few attempts by the prisoners to feign madness or delirium in order to escape from prison life, for the sentence was regarded as suspended from the moment of a man’s removal to a mental asylum until he was sent back to prison, unless it was decided that he must remain in an asylum for the rest of his life.
Also, curiously enough, most prisoners have an almost superstitious fear of going mad!
After I had risen from the depths and had recovered from my nervous breakdown, my life in prison continued without any particular incident. My peace of mind and detachment increased daily.
During my free time I eagerly studied the English language, and had books of instruction in it sent to me. Later I arranged for a continuous supply of English books and periodicals, and consequently I was able, in about a year, to learn this language without any outside assistance. I found this a tremendous mental corrective.
My friends and families of my acquaintances were constantly sending me good and valuable books on all manner of topics. Those on ethnology, racial research, and heredity interested me most of all, and I was happiest when studying these subjects. On Sundays I played chess with those prisoners whom I found congenial. This game, better described as a serious intellectual duel, is particularly well suited for maintaining and refreshing one’s elasticity of mind, which is perpetually threatened by the sheer monotony of life behind bars.
Because of my many varied contacts with the outside world through letters and newspapers and periodicals, I was now constantly receiving fresh and welcome mental stimulus. Should I become dejected or weary or utterly fed up, the memory of my previous “black days” acted like a scourge to drive such clouds away. The fear of a repetition of my illness was far too strong.
In the f
ourth year of my sentence I was promoted to the third degree, and this brought me fresh alleviations of my prison life. Every fortnight I could write a letter, as long as I wished, on plain paper. Work was no longer compulsory, but voluntary, and I was allowed to choose my work and received better pay for what I did.
Up till then the “reward for work,” as it was called, amounted to eight pfennigs for each daily shift completed, out of which four pfennigs might be spent on the purchase of additional food, and that, if circumstances were favorable during the month, meant fat.
In the third degree a day’s work was worth fifty pfennigs and a prisoner could spend the whole of this as he wished. Moreover he was allowed to spend up to twenty marks a month of his own money. Another privilege for men in the third degree was that they might listen to the radio and smoke at certain hours of the day.
At this time, too, the post of clerk in the prison stores fell vacant, and I was given it. I now had plenty of varied work to keep me busy all day long, and I heard items of news from the prisoners of every sort who came daily to the store for a change of clothing, or for their laundry or tools. The officials in charge also told me all the prison gossip.
The stores were a collection point for all prison news and rumors. It was there that I learned how quickly rumors of all kinds are started and spread, and was able to see their effect. News and rumors, whispered from man to man in the greatest possible secrecy, are the prisoner’s elixir of life. The more a prisoner was isolated, the more effective was the rumor that reached his ears. The really naive prisoners were ready to believe absolutely anything they were told.
One of my companions who, like me, was employed in the stores, and who for over ten years had kept the inventories, took a satanic delight in inventing and spreading baseless rumors, and in observing their effect. He did this so cunningly, however, that it was never possible to put the blame on him for the serious results that sometimes flowed from his efforts.
I too was once the victim of one of these rumors. It got about that it was now possible, through the influence of friends among the senior officials, for me to receive women in my cell at night. A prisoner smuggled this piece of information out of the prison, in the form of a complaint, and it eventually reached the ears of the prison board of control.
One night the president of the Prison Commission, accompanied by several other high officials, and by the prison governor who had been got out of bed, suddenly appeared in my cell, in order to convince themselves with their own eyes of the truth of this accusation. In spite of an exhaustive investigation neither the informant nor the man who had spread the rumor was ever found. On my eventual release my colleague in the stores, to whom I have referred, told me that he had invented the rumor, that the prisoner in the cell next to mine had written the complaint and had smuggled the letter out in order to get his own back on the prison warden, who had refused him a reprieve. Cause and effect! A malicious person could create a great deal of harm in this way.
Especially interesting to me in my job were the newcomers. The professional criminal was cheeky, self-confident, and insolent, and even the most severe sentence could not get him down. He was an optimist, who relied on luck turning in his favor sooner or later. Often he had been only a few weeks “outside,” on leave as it were. Prison had gradually become his real home. The first offender, or one who through an adverse stroke of fate was being punished for the second or third time, would be depressed, timid, often miserable, taciturn, and anxious. Unhappiness, distress, desolation, and despair could be read on his face. Material in plenty there for the psychoanalyst or the sociologist!
I was always glad, after a day of varied sights and sounds, to find refuge in the solitude of my cell. In peaceful meditation I reviewed the happenings of the day and formed my conclusions about them. I buried myself in my books and magazines, or read the letters sent me by my kind and dear friends. I read of the plans they had for me on my release, and smiled at their good intentions in offering me consolation and courage. I no longer needed such solace and had gradually, after five years, become inured and indifferent to my imprisonment.
A further five years lay ahead of me, without any prospect of the slightest remission. Several petitions for clemency from influential people, and even a personal request from someone who was very close to President von Hindenburg, had all been refused on political grounds. I no longer expected to be released before my full term had expired, but I now confidently hoped to be able to remain physically and mentally fit till the end. I had also made plans for keeping myself usefully occupied, for learning languages, and for educating myself further in my chosen profession. I thought of everything, but I never anticipated an early release.
Then it came overnight! In the Reichstag a sudden and unexpected majority was created by a coalition of the extreme right wing and the extreme left, both of which had a great interest in having their political prisoners set free. A political amnesty was granted almost on the spur of the moment, and along with many others I was set free.[20]
After six years of imprisonment, I was restored to freedom and to life!
I can see myself today, standing on the steps of the Potsdamer station in Berlin and gazing with interest at the milling crowds in the Potsdamer Platz. I stood there for a long time, until at last a gentleman spoke to me and asked me where I wanted to go. I must have seemed very stupid and my reply half-witted, for he at once turned and hurried away. All this bustle and activity were completely unreal to me. It was like watching a film. My release had been too sudden and unexpected, and everything appeared too improbable and strange.
A friendly Berlin family had invited me, by telegram, to stay with them. Although I knew Berlin well, and their house was within easy reach, it took me a very long time to get there. At first someone always accompanied me when I dared to go into the street, for I paid no attention to the traffic signs or to the frenzied streams of cars that filled the metropolis. I wandered about as though in a dream, and it was some days before I became reconciled to harsh reality.
People showed me every kindness. They dragged me to films and theaters and parties and to every possible place of entertainment, in fact to all those functions that a city dweller regards as a necessity of existence. It was all too much for me.
I was bewildered, and I began to long for peace. I wanted to get away as quickly as possible from the noise and rush and bustle of the big city. Away, and into the country. After ten days I left Berlin to take a job as an agricultural official. Many more people had indeed invited me to stay with them for rest and recuperation, but my desire was to work. I had rested long enough.
Many different plans were put forward by thoughtful families and friends interested in my well-being. All were eager to help me to earn a living and to make it easy for me to resume a normal life once more. I should go to East Africa, to Mexico, to Brazil, to Paraguay, or to the United States. All this was done with the honorable intention of getting me away from Germany, so that I would not become involved once more in the political struggles of the extreme right.
Others again, especially my old comrades, insisted that I take up a prominent position in the front rank of the fighting organization of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party).
I refused both these propositions. Although I had been a Party member since 1922 and was in firm agreement with the Party’s aims, I had nevertheless emphatically objected to their use of mass propaganda, their bargaining for the good will of the people, the way they appealed to the lowest instincts of the masses, and indeed their tone.[21]
I had become acquainted with “the masses” during the years from 1918 to 1923! I certainly wished to remain a member of the Party, but I wanted neither any official position nor to join any of the subsidiary organizations. I had other ideas.
Nor did I want to go abroad. I wished to stay in Germany and help in its rebuilding. Building with a farsighted goal in view. I wanted to settle on the land!
During the l
ong years of seclusion in my cell I had come to this conclusion: there was for me only one object for which it was worth working and fighting, namely, a farm run by myself, on which I should live with a large and healthy family. That was to be the content and aim of my life!
Immediately after my release I established contact with the Artamanen.
I had learned about this organization and its objects through reading its literature during my imprisonment, and I had investigated it thoroughly. It was a community of young people of both sexes, who had the interests of their country at heart. They came from the youth movements of all the nationalist inclined parties and were people who all, at one time or another, had wanted to escape from the unhealthily dissolute, and superficial life of the towns and especially of the large cities, and to discover for themselves a healthy and tough but natural way of life on the land. They did not drink or smoke, and forswore everything that did not contribute to the healthy development of their minds and bodies. They wanted, furthermore, to return to the soil from which their forefathers had sprung, and to settle on the land which had given birth to the nation.
That was also my desire, and the goal for which I had searched so long.
I relinquished my post as an agricultural official and joined this community of people who held the same ideas as myself. I broke off all contact with my former comrades and the kind families I had met. They were too conventional to understand my disagreement with their preconceived ideas. I wanted to be left completely alone to start my life afresh.
I very soon met the girl who was to be my wife. She had the same ideals as myself, and with her brother had found her way to the Artamanen.
From the very first moment it was plain to us both that we were completely suited to one another. Our mutual trust and understanding were such that it seemed as though we had lived together all our lives. We were complementary to each other in every respect and we shared the same outlook on life. I had found the very woman for whom, during all the tedious years of loneliness, I had longed.