Pohl

The head of the SS Economic and Administrative Headquarters was SS Lieutenant General Oswald Pohl

I first became acquainted with Pohl during my service in Dachau, which began on December 1, 1934.

Pohl came from Kiel and was a paymaster in the navy. He was an early Party member and also a member of the navy SA. In 1934 Himmler transferred him and appointed him chief of the administration of the Federal Command of the SS.

While this office never played a roll under his predecessor, Pohl managed in the shortest time to make himself indispensible to Himmler. His office became feared and Pohl understood how to become all-powerful.

His auditors were specially selected by him and were responsible to him only and backed by him. All of the men and officers working in administration offices were deeply afraid of Pohl’s men. Pohl had achieved his purpose with these auditors, since it kept the administration of the SS clean and trustworthy. All the crooks in the administration were caught and eliminated.

Under Pohl’s predecessors the higher SS officers were quite independent in money matters and ruled as they saw fit. Pohl managed to convince Himmler that all money matters would need Pohl’s approval and would be subject to his scrutiny. This caused a great deal of resentment and excitement, but Pohl succeeded with his well-known energy and thereby won tremendous influence over all units in the SS. Even the most obstinate and pigheaded among the higher SS officers, like Sepp-Dietrich and Eicke, had to swallow their arrogance and beg Pohl for money, especially when it dealt with extra budgetary expenditures.

Every unit in the SS had an exactly figured yearly budget which had to be adhered to with the utmost accuracy. Pohl’s bloodhounds found every penny which had been spent over or under the budget.

PohVs main job from the very beginning was to make the SS totally financially independent from the government and the Party, by creating factories and plants operated by the SS. This was to ensure that Himmler would have total freedom of action with all of his plans.

This was a task with a far-reaching goal and Pohl was convinced that it was possible to accomplish it. He worked continuously to make this a reality. Almost all of the industrial SS factories were created by his initiative. Beginning with the DAW [Deutsche Ausriistungswerke—German war factories], porcelain manufacturing in AUach, the combined manufacturing of the stone quarries, brick-making plants, cement factories called the DEST [Deutsche Erd und Steinwerke], and the clothing factories. Included in the

W III Bureau were the German food industries. They consisted of the combined bakeries and meat-processing plants, food wholesale warehouses and cafeterias, the numerous mineral water distributors, the agricultural and forestry enterprises, the print shops, and finally the book publishers. All these represent quite an economic power. And this was just the beginning!

Pohl had already begun economic plans of such enormous sweep that they would even eclipse anything I. G. Farben had accomplished. Pohl’s energy would have probably accomplished that too.

For the research and experimental labs alone, Himmler needed vast sums of money. Pohl had always managed to find them for him. Himmler was always very generous in authorizing money for special purposes, and Pohl financed everything. It was easy for him because all the economic enterprises created a tremendous profit, in spite of the new investments which were constantly being made. The Waffen SS, the concentration camps, the SS Headquarters, the police, and later on some other service branches of the SS were all financed by the Reich government. Major General Frank, Pohl’s administrative adjutant, carried out the negotiations on Pohl’s order. Frank was also his budget representative and his deputy.

These budget negotiations with the federal finance minister were wars of power of the first order, because without federal means it wasn’t even possible to outfit and set up even one new SS company. Frank was clever and tough and succeeded with all his demands, often after weeks of negotiations. He was trained by Pohl and Pohl stood by him all the way.

Later Frank took over the entire administration of the police, which had completely atrophied, and reorganized it. After the attempt on Hitler’s life, Frank became the chief administrator of the armed forces, while Pohl stood behind all the scenes and directed all the moves.

Frank and Homer, who later was to become chief of Bureau B, were Pohl’s closest coworkers and confidants. Since 1934 only those two could dare oppose Pohl in critical situations and state their opinions regardless of the consequences.

During the early years after Hitler’s assumption of power, Himmler, his staff, and the SS administration were located in Munich. Pohl lived in Dachau in the vicinity of the concentration camp. Consequently, he was in touch with the concentration camp and the prisoners. This is how he got to know what the needs of a concentration camp were and about the inmates from the ground up. Because of his great interest in the development of the industrial factories in the Dachau Concentration Camp, he was very often present in the camp. On Sundays he loved to walk around and visited all the installations of the entire camp. He intentionally avoided, however, setting foot in the actual camp itself, so as not to give Eicke an opportunity to have cause to complain to Himmler. There was

A great deal of friction between Pohl and Eicke because both were brutal men. Their attitudes conflicted over the service area, jurisdiction, the treatment of prisoners that is, shelter, provisions, clothing and work in the factories.

As long as I have known Pohl, even up to Germany’s collapse, he always had the same attitude about the prisoner question. He believed that a prisoner who was housed in a good, warm place, was well-fed and clothed would work hard on his own. Punishments were to be administered only in extreme cases.

On Pohl’s initiative herb gardens were developed, because Pohl was an enthusiastic disciple of the health food theory. All sorts of spices and herbs were grown in these herb gardens. The goal was to dissuade the German people from using health-damaging foreign spices and artificial medicines and to switch to the use of harmless, good-tasting German spices and natural herbs for illnesses.

The SS and police were obliged to use all these spices. During the war almost all of the armed forces obtained these spices from Dachau. It was in these herb gardens that Pohl found the opportunity to talk to the prisoners about why they were arrested and about life in the camp. This is how he always knew what was happening in Dachau. Even in the later years he still returned almost once a month to the herb gardens in Dachau, where he also lived when he had business in Munich or near the camp.

Pohl persistently supported the release of prisoners whom he knew, if he believed they were wrongfully arrested, or if the sentence seemed too long. This was a major cause of the unresolvable disagreement between him and Eicke. This later carried to SS Headquarters and even to Kalten-brunner. In some of the worst cases, Pohl was not afraid to go directly to Himmler himself and ask him. This is something that he normally never did. He was unsuccessful for the most part because Himmler adhered strictly to the judgment of the headquarters staff in questions of release. During the time I was in the Department of Inspections, I had the task of trying to persuade the headquarters staff to Pohl’s demands, or rather, remind them of their duty. He always set short deadlines and became very indignant if the demanded releases did not happen at the given deadline. Yes, even in the most hopeless cases, as with the Nuremburg Communists, he never gave up. In a few cases he was able to get a prisoner a conditional release, i. e., the prisoner had to work under guard in one of the SS factories attached to the concentration camp, but as a free civilian employee. This form of release proved successful in the later years of the war. There were very few relapses.

In 1941 the concentration camps were incorporated into Group VII

Of the SS Economic Headquarters and came under Pohl’s command.

Pohl was precisely informed about every concentration camp because all the factories in the system provided a network of information available through the factory directors, the inspectors—Maurer was one of them— the bureau chiefs and the directors of Departments A, B C, and W.

When the concentration camps came under Pohl’s control, he immediately started to reform them according to his philosophy. A few camp Kommandants had to go at first. These were men who either didn’t obey Pohl’s orders or, as in Loritz’s case, were no longer tolerable.

Pohl’s principle demands were: treat the prisoners decently; stop the arbitrary and high-handed treatment by subordinate SS soldiers; improve the food wherever possible; get warm clothing for the prisoners in the cold seasons; provide adequate housing and improve all the sanitary conditions.

All these improvements were supposed to maintain prisoner fitness, so that they would be able to perform the work demanded of them.

However, the effects of the war were stronger than his desires. The poor and arbitrary treatment of prisoners was a direct result of the shortage of qualified and dependable officers and noncommissioned officers in the protective custody camps and the labor camps. Other reasons were the enormous growth and spread of the camps and work areas, which made the supervision of the guard personnel almost impossible because of the sheer size of the place, in addition to the month-to-month deterioration of the guard troops. Conditions became increasingly severe because of the continuous rationing of the food supply. It also didn’t help when Pohl appointed a nutrition inspector, a professor by the name of Schenk, who despite all his knowledge and ability, could not increase the rations. Of course, there were small improvements by increasing the raw vegetables, but improvements were mostly in theory only. All his plans were for nothing, however, when the next decrease in rations took place. The textile shortage also brought about cuts and more cuts for the prisoners. The mandatory clothing quota could not be met as far back as 1940. Not even using the clothing and footwear from the extermination of the Jews could sufficiently improve the clothing shortage. Adequate housing was defeated by overcrowding in all the camps, the shortage of building materials, and last but not least, the total stoppage of housing construction.

Even the best construction foreman would not have been in a position to keep up with the speed of the increasing numbers making the camps ever larger, not to mention the impossibility of keeping up with improving and enlarging the sanitary facilities.

Pohl continuously inspected a large number of work camps. He saw the terrible conditions and tried everywhere to help and improve things. If he saw that the conditions were caused by the officers or the noncommissioned officers, he ruthlessly proceeded against them without considering the person or his merits. Most of the time his inspections were unannounced and were very thorough. He didn’t let anyone lead him around. He wanted to see everything for himself. Without considering the time, his person or his meals, he rushed from one place to another. He had a fabulous memory. Once he quoted a number he never forgot it. He could also remember what he saw during the previous inspection and could always recall it. The orders and directives he had given were always in his memory. There were severe consequences for those who made mistakes or were guilty of negligence and got caught.

After Dachau he kept a special eye on Auschwitz. He committed all his energy to building up and expanding Auschwitz. Kammler often said to me that Pohl started all conferences in Berlin with the question, “How far are we with Auschwitz?” The Raw Material Bureau of the SS had an extensive file filled with demands, replacement orders, and mostly letters from Pohl, all concerning Auschwitz. 1 was probably the only SS officer in the entire SS who had extensive and full powers to purchase anything needed for Auschwitz.

Later, when 1 was director of inspections, Pohl ordered me again and again into the concentration and labor camps where he had discovered grievances and abuses he had been unable to clear up. I had to search for the guilty parties and try to alleviate the worst conditions.

But because the basic cause was not eliminated by Himmler, all efforts to improve conditions were hopeless from the beginning!

One side of Pohl was that of a cold, sober calculator, a numbers man who demanded from his subordinates the greatest sense of conscientiousness of duty and work performance. He pursued violations and negligence in an inhumanly hard way and insisted on having his will and his wishes done without question. Woe to him who dared to cross him and his plans. Pohl didn’t rest until his adversary was removed or destroyed.

The other side of Pohl was one of a great comrade, helpful with those who got into trouble without it being his fault. He was very soft, considerate, and thoughtful where women were concerned. He placed great value on proper treatment of the female guards, radio operators and other female civil employees. He wanted them treated politely and preferentially. He was particularly concerned about the the bereaved families of the SS soldiers who died or were killed in the war and supported them to the fullest. They could turn to him. The SS officer who failed to do his duty in this area or was rudely negligent was forever finished with Pohl.

He never missed noticing those who worked hard and used their brains. He was grateful for all good ideas, improvements, and suggestions on how he could take action or improve things. Those who distinguished themselves by good performances could come to him anytime with their requests and wishes. He always helped them as far as his power could.

Pohl was very moody and often went from one extreme to another. It was not advisable to contradict him when he was in a bad mood and this led to serious rebuffs. When he was in a good mood, you could tell him anything, even the absolute worst and most troublesome problem and he never took offense. It wasn’t easy to spend anything but a brief time in his presence. Adjutants were changed often and very suddenly.

Pohl loved to make a show of himself and let one feel his position of power. His uniform was markedly plain and he wore no medals whatsoever. Only after he was awarded the Iron Cross and the Knight’s Cross with Distinguished Service Medal did he wear them and only because Himmler ordered him.

In spite of being over fifty years old, he was extremely vigorous, lively, and incredibly tough. It was no pleasure to have to go on an official trip with him.

His relationship with Himmler was strange. Pohl was held in the highest regard by Himmler. Every letter and even the telegrams were always signed: “Your faithful H. Himmler.” And yet, Pohl never went to Himmler unless he was summoned.

Pohl looked at every wish of Himmler, and there were many, as an order! I have never heard Pohl make a disparaging remark about any of Himmler’s orders. An order from Himmler was for Pohl something chiseled into stone, a fact, and had to be carried out regardless of the consequences that might occur. Pohl didn’t care for it when a Himmler order which often was unclear was guessed about or mention was made that this order could not be carried out. Particularly Kammler and Glucks, who both had very loose tongues and who generally presumed a lot with Pohl, were often clearly reprimanded.

Pohl was, in spite of his authority, the most willing and obedient executor of all the wishes and plans of the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.

Pohl’s first marriage ended in divorce in Dachau. His first wife could not handle his rise to power. He had one son and two daughters from this marriage. His son served in the Waffen SS with great distinction. He was wounded several times and an excellent leader. The daughters were both married to SS officers and had several children. Pohl’s second marriage was to the widow of an officer who had fallen in World War I. From his second marriage Pohl had two children. He lived on a grand scale on an SS estate near Ravensbriick. He definitely did not enrich himself personally as far as I got to know him in the ten years of our acquaintance. But he did not ignore the privileges which his position brought him.

In the middle of April, when Germany was about to be divided in two separate parts, on Himmler’s orders, Pohl went with the rest of the SS staff to Dachau. Only a few liaison officers remained in Berlin.

His wife owned a house in the Bavarian Alps and she and his family had driven there a short while before.

Administrative Group D still had radio contact with Pohl until Oranien-burg was evacuated. After that I heard nothing about him.

Rudolf Hdss

Cr. Nov. 1946