Hartjenstein

SS Lieutenant Colonel Hartjenstein had first served in the regular army and transferred to the Waffen SS in 1938. I have known him since then. At first he was a platoon leader, then a company commander of the guard troop at Sachsenhausen. For a time he was Kommando leader of the work camps in Niederhagen and Wewelsburg. In 1940 he came to the Death’s Head Division, where he was given different duties by the various departments. Because Eicke could not find any more assignments for him and because he repeatedly failed as a unit leader, he finally ended up assigned to concentration camp duty, as was the usual case. Glucks sent him to Auschwitz with praise for him as an outstanding guard troop leader. Hartjen-stein relaced SS Major Gebhardt, who had really compromised his position.

Hartjenstein used his experiences from the front lines immediately to begin to whip this disorderly bunch of guard troops into shape and to bend them to his will. He wanted to have strict military order. He especially wanted to train and educate the officers. His main job of guarding the prisoners and camp security were not considered especially important to him. He believed that this was going to be very easy. He started in a very arrogant manner, and it continued that way.

All his grand intentions slowly vanished when he was faced with the terrible conditions in Auschwitz. As always, the number of guard troops was never enough to do the job of guarding the prisoners going to their work details outside the camp. To make matters worse, Hartjenstein wanted to free up entire companies from guard duty so they could perform field drills and basic training. He never could understand that it was necessary to have the whole roster of the guard battalion on duty. This was the cause of our disagreements right from the beginning. He couldn’t understand that camp security and guarding the prisoners came before military training. He constantly criticized me for not understanding the military aspects of the guard battalion. The other thing we argued most about was who had the disciplinary powers. If I caught an officer or an SS soldier breaking guard rules or some other violation against camp security, I punished the man myself. If I thought that Hartjenstein’s punishment was too easy, I turned the man over to the SS court. Hartjenstein was always against this and arrogantly told the SS soldiers who were involved that he would get them off because the punishment was too harsh. “The Kommandant had no heart for his soldiers!” So he systematicaUy created a wedge between the troops and me. All my protest against his practices failed. While he wanted to be the independent regimental commander, 1 wanted to build fewer but stronger companies. It didn’t matter if they consisted of 150 or 250 men. That way 1 could save on administrative personnel and free up more men for guard duty. He absolutely wanted to have twelve companies in order to show the need for a regiment and then divided them into battalions. Over my objections, he succeeded in convincing Glucks and got his regiment. He also got a few more officers which Glucks had refused to give me for the camp.

Hartjenstein trained his officers so that their first obligation and love was to the regiment; the camp came second. I desperately needed those officers to supervise the work Kommandos which were spread far from the camp. I could get them sparingly, since they were needed for regimental service. He had an understanding with his comrades and camp officers that any violations by officers or soldiers would first be reported to him, and if he thought it necessary he would then report it to me. He expected me to report any violations by the administrative personnel to him. It goes without saying that with an attitude like that most of the violations were covered up.

Hartjenstein loved to celebrate with his officers. Because I had little time and also was little inclined to join in, he took advantage by convincing the officers of his views and to turn them against me. All this in the name of “camaraderie”! It is understandable that the entire service suffered from these intrigues. There were constant disputes about construction matters. He could not see that it was much more important to improve the camp, especially the sanitary conditions, as far as the building program was concerned. He absolutely could not understand that it was necessary to speed up construction in the prisoner camp in order to ease the terrible conditions of the prisoners. Later, when he was Kommandant of Birkenau, he felt the bitter results of his attitude.

Hartjenstein was too shortsighted, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and twofaced. He worked tirelessly against my orders and directives behind my back. I told Glucks often enough about this and even proved certain accusations to him—without success. Glucks always felt that it was my fault that I couldn’t get along with any of my officers. Hartjenstein never complied with my demands to have continuous training on how to handle the prisoners using real-life examples. He said that he could never get all his regimental officers together and besides, you couldn’t expect the men to be at instruction after they had put in fourteen or sixteen hours on duty. Another thing he didn’t do was to instruct the guard troops about the most important things before they went on duty. The officers didn’t like this either because they had to get up too early, but they were very busy during the evenings having regimental parties—to practice camaraderie!

The troops had absolutely no understanding of the camp as a whole, although I always made it clear enough at the officers’ meetings and pointed out the state of distress in the camp. There were a few officers who took their jobs and duties seriously and who taught their men and tried to educate them. Hartjenstein didn’t like to see this and got rid of them at the first opportunity.

I would rather not say anything about him as camp commander of Birkenau, since I had no personal observations of him then. He hardly cared about the camp itself. He was busy enough during his six months just creating new administrative staff positions. After Birkenau he was Kom-mandant of Natzweiler concentration camp. He evacuated that camp so poorly that all the important things, especially the secret papers, fell into the hands of the French. In February Pohl released him for front line service after he saw the mess he made at Natzweiler.

Hartjenstein was the right officer for a concentration camp!