by Nigel Jones
About October 1944 an entirely new class of arrivals appeared. Men, if one could call them such, mere living skeletons wrapped in the rags of what had once been prison uniform, their faces and hands covered with sores, and with strange little pot-bellies which grew like tubers from their naked bones. They stood there in their hundreds, sometimes I should judge a thousand or more, and always there were some lying on their backs or their faces on the ground, unconscious or dead. As I passed them, glassy eyes stared through me without interest or recognition—gleaming eyes set in fleshless sockets supported by jutting cheekbones—noses so wasted that one could see the outline of the bones. I have never seen, nor can I imagine, any more horrible sight, and it is something which, once seen, remains with one for ever after. Who were they? They were the prisoners evacuated from the camps in Poland and elsewhere on the line of the Russian advance. I don’t know how many of them came to Sachsenhausen, but I was told that the quarters intended to house eighty prisoners, at the end of January 1945, had to accommodate 400.
After the beginning of October 1944 conditions became increasingly bad at the camp, for the simple reason that it was quite impossible to cater for its vast population. Food began to run short and, as refugees poured in to the Berlin area from the north-eastern provinces, there was such general scarcity that there was no source from which it could be replenished. All prisoners were put on short commons and the SS rations became insufficient even for my small appetite, while Paul complained that the skin of his tummy was hanging down in loose folds like a curtain. Kaindl had not been to see me for several months, and when at last he paid me a visit at Xmas 1944, I hardly recognized him, a tired, broken man. He sat with me for a while and said, “Ach Herr Best, you know I tried to make this camp fit to live in, I tried to look after everyone, but it is too big, one man can do nothing—it is a pigsty (Ein Saustall).”
There was yet another class of new arrivals. These were men whose faces were marked criss-cross with lines which seemed to have been made with a giant indelible pencil. These, I learnt, were men caught looting during the blackout. To prevent their escape during the excitement after a raid, when it was a case of all hands turning to rescue work, the air wardens were provided with a gentian violet dye with which they marked the faces and hands of looters, and for a man thus marked there was no asylum for everybody was his enemy. One day as I passed along I saw a group of people standing in the middle of the square, and a line of men dressed only in shirts which flapped in the wind around their bare legs. They were standing in a long row, and I then saw that two of them were being hung from small gallows, which looked like two high gymnasium horizontal bars side by side. I did not see anything in the nature of a platform from which the men could be dropped, and a man in prison garb was holding up the feet of one of the men as he hung by the rope; the other man was partly hidden from me by a group of guards. All the men in the row had the pencil-striped faces, and the man hanging showed gleaming white teeth and eyes which stood out sharply from his blue-striped face which, from the distance, was almost invisible. I could only take a quick glance as the warder who had accompanied me to and from the dentist hurried me along as fast as he could.
I later heard that a number of such executions invariably followed every raid on Berlin, and that in spite of the death penalty looting during the blackout and during air raids was increasing. Such executions had nothing to do with ordinary camp routine, nor did they fall under the jurisdiction of the commandant. Sachsenhausen was conveniently situated close to Berlin, and almost daily people were brought in by the Security Service for interrogation and subsequent liquidation.
From the moment that Himmler was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces after the 20th July plot, great efforts were made to induce political prisoners in the camp to volunteer for military service, and intense pressure was exercised on the conscientious objectors, Bible Students, etc., who were threatened with severe treatment if they continued their refusal to join up. The latter remained immovable and in the end nothing happened to them, but a considerable number of political prisoners, including most of those of German nationality, did join up in the hope of being able to desert if sent to the front. There were also many comb-outs of SS men employed in the camp, most of whom were passed fit for active service and sent back to their units. Amongst them were three of Elser’s guards, who were not replaced, so that from that time, 12th August, 1944, he was left solitary. There was also talk that my guards might also be taken from me, but when I asked the commandant he assured me that as long as he was in charge I need fear no change.
Elser’s three guards, who had all at times done duty with me and who often came out to the garden when I was there, came to see me to say good-bye, and each of them asked me to give him a little note stating that he had always behaved well and had been guilty of no ill-treatment of prisoners, saying that he intended to desert at the first opportunity. I did not give them anything in writing but told them that they could use my name as a recommendation. Elser, I heard, was very low, for he rightly considered that the loss of his guards was a sign that he had lost his value to the authorities, and might soon expect to lose his life as well.
On the 24th August the Bears suddenly left, being fetched by Obergruppenführer Pohle. As this coincided with the fall of the Antonescu regime in Roumania, and they were almost certainly members of the opposition against him, their evacuation immediately after his fall did not seem to augur well for their future safety. They left in such a hurry that almost all their luggage remained behind; a few days later Eccarius received orders for it to be sent on to Berlin, and it was rumoured that the Bears had been taken to the Gestapo prison in the Prinz Albrechtstrasse.
One day in September I noticed curious circular marks on the paths in my garden for which at first I could not account; then, it dawned upon me that they could only be the imprints of a lady’s high-heeled shoes, but how on earth could a woman have got into our exclusively masculine home? A few days later when the door was opened for me to go into the garden I caught a glimpse of a gentleman and lady who were already there, before I was hurriedly pulled back and the door shut. It was not long before I discovered that they occupied cell No. 80, and that they were a Dr. and Mrs. Vermehren, the parents of Dr. Erich Vermehren, a member of the German Intelligence Service in Sofia, who with his wife had succeeded in escaping to Turkey and thence to England. His brother was also in the building, his sister was at Ravensbruck, and his father-in-law, Count Plettenberg, with his daughter, had also been arrested. This was throughout, the Gestapo’s strongest suit in combating any dissidence to Nazi rule; if the offender himself could not be found, then all members of his family were at once imprisoned. Whilst there were always enough men in the opposition who feared no danger for themselves, few could face the prospect of involving their womenfolk in their fate.
The year 1944 rang out with an exhausted Germany, in much the same military position as that of Great Britain after Dunkirk, but without her popular determination to achieve victory. The Press, Goebbels and Fritzsche could rant as they pleased about secret weapons and Germany’s inevitable victory; no one believed it, and even Ditmar could not bring himself to paint rosy coloured pictures of the military position, and went sick. Himmler had started the Volkssturm in imitation of our Home Guard, and all old men and boys were being trained in the use of the ‘Panzerfaust’. Even my old guards had to attend shooting exercises, and every week there were political pep talks by specialists from the Propaganda Ministry, which all guards and other officials in the camp except those engaged on essential guard duties were forced to attend. At this time only a small minority of men on duty in the camp were Germans and most were ‘Volks Deutscher’, or as they were generally called in derision: ‘Hilfs Germanen’ ; they were Balts, Hungarians, Roumanians, and Russians, who because of German ancestry had been brought into Germany and pressed into the Waffen-SS. Only few could speak German, and in spirit they were far more in accord with the prisoners
than with their officers— the German officials seriously feared that if the prisoners tried to revolt, these men might make common cause with them. Defeat was in the air and in the grossly overcrowded conditions in the camp, and not only there, but also in our building, where many prisoners were sleeping five men to a cell, effective control of the prisoners was a thing of the past. When I walked to the dentist with my guard, prisoners made no attempt to salute or stand to attention, but deliberately jostled against us as we passed. SS men did not dare to walk through the camp alone but went in pairs with their pistols cocked.
The defences of Berlin against air attack grew visibly weaker day by day, and by the end of January 1945 allied planes were free to fly in whenever they listed without a single shot being fired, and often with hardly a searchlight to be seen. In a big attack on the 3rd February the Americans pretty well destroyed all that remained of the centre of Berlin, and for days after the city was cut off from the rest of Germany by rail, post, and cable. My Berlin guards were absolutely desperate with anxiety about their wives and families, but no one was allowed to leave the camp, and not even the daily paper reached us. By the end of February, whenever the wind blew from the east, the sound of gunfire on the Oder Front could be clearly heard, and all prisoners were wondering how soon a renewed Russian advance would bring them release, and what form this would take. Reading only German newspapers it was impossible to view the idea of falling into the hands of the Russians with complete confidence, and I was told that many of the prisoners, particularly the Poles, were panic stricken.
I was greatly worried myself on account of my guards, four of the best and kindest men I have ever known. What would happen to them? Would they be treated as Nazis because, against their will, they had been thrust into SS uniforms? Of Paul König and Karl Böning I have already spoken, for both had been with me since 1940. Besides them I had had many others, good, indifferent and bad, but since the beginning of 1943 I had found two others who matched up with Paul and Karl; they were Max Plath and Johannes Braun. The former was a hunchback with the shrewd mind, bitter tongue, and kind heart which occasionally accompanies this deformity. Early in the movement he had joined the Nazi Party and had entered the SS. He was one of the numerous men who had believed in Hitler’s promises and had followed him in all good faith, but like so many others, he was full of bitterness at the deceit practised, and he was the only one of my guards who really saw clearly that real responsibility for all the evil done in his name rested upon Hitler; Hitler was no god to him, but a cowardly swindler. His home was in Köslin, a little town in Pomerania, which at that time was threatened by the Russian advance; he had married late in life and was now full of fears for the safety of his wife.
The second, Johannes Braun, came from the Sudeten, and his home was on the slopes of the Schneekoppe, the highest mountain of the range. He was a quiet, sober man, who had never taken the slightest interest in politics, and who lived in a house which had been occupied by his family for over 400 years. He had been born an Austrian but had been quite content to become a Czechoslovak, indeed, he seemed to like the Czechs better than the Germans. A saddler by trade, his occupation had been the manufacture and repair of ski straps and fittings for the visitors at the three big hotels on the Schneekoppe.
He was one of those men who seem to be dogged by ill-luck. He was fifty-five years of age and thus free from any obligation for military service, but the self-appointed Nazi headman of his village had sent in his name, with that of others, as a volunteer for the Waffen-SS. When he ignored notices calling him up he had been threatened with imprisonment and with the eviction of his family, so in the end he had given in and had been posted to Sachsenhausen. The sights and his experiences in the camp had made him absolutely ill, and he had become so desperate as to contemplate suicide; luckily the commandant had taken a liking to him and sent him to me, and from that time he clung to me as his saviour.
While he was with me he suffered one blow after another. First his grandson died and his daughter developed melancholia, then his wife died, and finally his only son was lost on board a submarine. He was a gentle creature and accepted everything that happened with submission upheld by his firm religious faith. For him the worst blow of all was the fact that SS men were not permitted to attend religious service, and he thus for months had been unable to go to mass or confession. The place where he lived formed part of the estates of Count Czerny, the father of Mrs. von Schuschnigg who, with her husband, the ex-Austrian Chancellor, lived in one of the special villas at the camp. Braun was deeply interested in them and so through him I was always informed as to all the circumstances of their prison life that he could find out. There were four of these houses just outside the camp wall, but within a wall of their own; one was occupied by the Schuschniggs, Fritz Thyssen and his wife lived in another, and the remaining two were occupied by members of the Bavarian royal family of Wittelsbach. On the 6th February he brought me news that all these people had been hurriedly evacuated, though he could not say where they had been taken.
Elser too had gone, taken away by two men from the Security Police, as we all supposed on his last journey. It is difficult to describe the general atmosphere of insecurity which surrounded us, and even I began to have my doubts as to my expectation of a long life. My five years’ exclusion from contact with people of my own kind had, of course, left its mark on me, particularly the fact throughout these years I had spoken, read, written, and indeed, thought only in German. Through continual association with people in subordinate positions I had, I fear, become both conceited and domineering, and indeed, I was really beginning to feel myself one of the most important men in the country. My attitude to others was one of touchy benevolence; easy to get on with if I were allowed to have my own way, but liable to fly into a violent passion at the slightest provocation. I had plenty of good clothes and always took pains to be immaculately turned out; if I did not dress for dinner, I did change and put on a dark suit for the evening, and I am quite sure that the fact that I looked entirely different from the usual run of prisoners who, even if they had plenty of clothes, tended to be slovenly and let themselves go, had a great bearing on my standing with everyone from commandant downward. One day after I had asked the commandant whether it would be possible for me to be photographed so that I could give my wife some concrete proof that I was well, the adjutant, Captain Wessels, turned up with a camera and took some snaps of me. He came quite unexpectedly and I had not dressed up for him, but when May received the photograph which he had taken she was much surprised to see me looking so prosperous, and when I look at it now I cannot help feeling that my dress was rather out of place in my environment. Perhaps I was a little bit mad, but after all, even when things were at their best, my life was never free from strain, and at all times could be ended any day by an order from above.
CHAPTER VIII
THE 20th February, 1945, was warm and sunny, and for the first time since the autumn the ground seemed to be quite free from frost so that I could hope soon to start gardening again. The wind was from the east and the firing on the Oder Front could be heard very clearly; I wondered how long it would be before the Russians broke through the German lines again and made their next surge forwards. Really not much use bothering about my garden for it was clear that I should not see another harvest. I had really enjoyed this work so much that I felt quite sad at the thought of leaving it to revert to the wilderness which it had been when I first came to Sachsenhausen. The idea of leaving here seemed quite strange and I wondered how it would come about. While I was wandering round thinking in desultory fashion of the years that I had spent in my prison, and of what liberation would be like, I suddenly became aware that the commandant had come into the garden. It was quite a time since he had been to see me and his appearance now so fitted in with my thoughts that, following a friendly greeting, I asked him at once whether I was to be allowed to stay until the camp was occupied by the Russians or whether, like other prisoners, I would
be evacuated away from the battle line.
“I have really no idea,” said Kaindl. “About three weeks ago I wrote to headquarters and asked to be relieved of responsibility for some of my more important charges such as yourself, but up to now I have had no answer of any kind. Anyhow, I don’t think that the situation is quite so bad as it was and even if we can’t drive the Russians back just yet, I certainly think that we can hold them on our present line. We are not beaten yet. Don’t forget that we were as close to Leningrad and Moscow as the Russians now are to Berlin. On the whole, I don’t think that you will be moved yet, though of course I really know nothing.”
I suppose the poor man had to pretend that he did not know that the game was up, even though for days past there had been thick clouds of smoke arising from the Kommandantur, where all camp records and other secret documents were being burned. Kaindl was far too intelligent a man not to appreciate the position and not to realize how precarious was his own future, and I really felt very sorry for him. He had been a good and loyal friend to me, and I am convinced that he had done everything in his power to make life tolerable as possible for all prisoners under his care.
From what Kaindl had said, it was pretty clear that if there were a sudden Russian advance, I should not be allowed to remain at Sachsenhausen but, like others, would be evacuated. I could not make up my mind whether to be glad or sorry. Of course the Russians might recognize me as a British prisoner of war and treat me accordingly, but there was also a possibility that they might consider me a worthless member of the bourgeois class who could best be allowed to complete his disappearance. In any case, if the Russian advance brought them close to the camp one could safely reckon on a sauve qui peut on the part of all officials and guards, and some pretty bad rioting by the camp inmates. There were quite a number of SS prisoners in the Bunker, and it was to be expected that there would be a raid on the building and in the excitement it was improbable that great care would be taken in separating the sheep from the goats—there were some pretty rough customers in the camp who, if the opportunity arose, would think far more of looting than of saving lives. The conclusion to which I came was that I should prefer, when the time came, to be liberated by one or other of the Western Allies, and so I hoped that I would be evacuated in time.