Aumeier

SS Captain Ham Aumeier replaced Fritzsch and was the second officer to command the Auschwitz camp. Aumeier was from Munich and was an early member of the Party and the SS. Even before Hitler came to power, he had been working in the “Brown House” [Hitler’s headquarters in Munich] in a fairly high position. When Dachau was created, he was one of the first SS men to be ordered there. Because his SS number was below 5,000, he soon became an officer, he was in the Office of Special Training in Dachau because of his previous basic training in the State Police. I was in this unit under his command for half a year. In 1935 Aumeier received his orders to become company commander at Esterweg-en; then he went on to Lichtenberg and finally was posted at Buchen-wald. In 1937 Eicke thought he was no longer useful in the Death’s Head unit. He was supposed to be transferred to the General SS as a company commander. Eicke relented, however, and sent him to Auschwitz as camp commander in exchange for Fritzsch.

Aumeier was in many respects the opposite of Fritzsch. One could call him vigorous, almost restless, very easily influenced, good-hearted, eager to serve, and willing to follow any order.

And yet I can’t explain why he had such a fear of being reprimanded by me. He had a fundamental flaw; he was too friendly and without a strong will of his own. His views were narrow; he easily lost sight of things.

He did not have much foresight and so did not think ahead. He was rash and often acted unwisely without considering the results of his actions. He did not take responsibility and lacked initiative. He constantly had to be pushed. When Himmler visited in 1942 he remarked that Aumeier’s brain was too small—Himmler had known him since 1928.

When Aumeier took command from Fritzsch, the situation was very bad. At the very beginning I told and showed him how deplorable the state of affairs in the camp had become under Fritzsch. I told him about Fritzsch’s attitude and behavior. Because he was an old comrade of mine, I asked him to help me to eliminate the conditions created by Fritzsch and to stand by me as a true friend. I am firmly convinced that Aumeier really wanted to do that. However, he was not strong enough to go against the established routine and didn’t want to be too tough right in the beginning with the officers of the day and the block leaders. He soon succumbed to the whisper campaign of the “good” comrades not to change the status quo. His misunderstood camaraderie, which soon brought him to the point that he went along with Fritzsch’s old slogan: “Make sure the old man doesn’t fmd out!” On the one hand, he did not want to be reprimanded for mistakes which came to my attention; on the other hand, he mininiized the mistakes of his subordinates so they wouldn’t be punished. And so he gradually fell into the same rut as Fritzsch. Other things contributed to this also. The coverup continued even for the most serious blunders. With his limited mentality, he just couldn’t change the way he had started, and this began to lead him more and more astray. He increasingly distanced himself from me because of fear, because of a bad conscience, and because of a false sense of team spirit with his comrades. However, he never was guilty of taking unauthorized steps, as Fritzsch did. But later on, he did many things in my name without consulting me or getting my permission. Aumeier also loved Eicke’s outdated point of view concerning the treatment of prisoners. To him, they were without exception all “Russians” [a Buchenwald expression for prisoners]. Aumeier was much smarter than Fritzsch, and could not be caught as easily. And yet, he felt the Kapos and the block leaders had more power. In the meantime, the camp grew quickly: there was the women’s camp, there was Birkenau, and added to that was the program of exterminating the Jews. This was much too vast for Aumeier’s mental range. He became nervous and more and more careless. He began to smoke and drink more and more. He became increasingly irresponsible and was literally “bowled over” by this complex operation. He could not control this huge operation anymore. He tried to swim, but he was carried along by the current of events. He was incapable of mastering the terrible conditions and was unable to alleviate them. Sometimes it all came to a head and the camp Kommandant wondered

How he was going to cope with all these things!

The abuses of the Kapos and the block leaders were in full bloom and now reached a high point. The tremendous growth of the camps brought incalculable complexity. As the number of prisoners grew daily, it was necessary to appoint new block leaders and new Kapos. To make matters worse, the worst creatures were picked for these positions. Aumeier had no knowledge of human nature at all. Anyone with a forceful manner was able to get his approval.

On a daily basis new officers of the day and block leaders had to be appointed from the troops; they were usually the least desirable. It was felt that they were just good enough for the camp. Aumeier was no match for this chaos. Even the officers, such as Schdtte, Schwartzhuber, Hdssler, and so on, who were delegated to him were unable to understand the whole situation. So everyone just muddled along to the best of his ability. I, however, had to oversee everything. It was a full-time job for most of the officers just covering up their mistakes and carelessness from me. The Kapos were also “trained” to avoid my finding out anything that was improper. In quiet moments I often talked to Aumeier man to man. I came right out and told him about the things that went on behind my back. He denied everything and said that I was too pessimistic and that I didn’t trust anyone, and that everything wasn’t as bad as I said. It was no use—not even tightening the discipline and demanding more from them. The coverup just kept increasing.

Several attempts by Gliicks to get rid of Aumeier in a nice way failed, as did the transfer requests, which contained in detail all the reasons to get rid of him. Finally Glucks, who was pushed by Maurer, had to give in. He did not, however, remove him from concentration camp duty altogether, but appointed him Kommandant of Camp Vaiara in Estonia. In GlUcks’s view, Aumeier couldn’t ruin anything there because it was off the beaten track, and Himmler never visited there. The only prisoners there were Jews! After the camps in the Baltic were closed, Aumeier came to Oranienburg and was put in charge of the work camps near Landsberg.

In January 1945 he became Kommandant of the newly opened concentration camp Grissi near Oslo in Norway. Aumeier was in a subordinate position in a rather easily controllable situation and was under strict supervision. He was useful, but in no way was he a capable officer in a camp as large as Auschwitz.