Night after night I was able to listen to their conversations. And these discussions gave me a deep insight into the mentality of the criminal. While working in the last year of my imprisonment as first clerk in the supply room, I had the opportunity to get to know them even better. The knowledge I gained daily confirmed my insights many times over. The true professional criminal, either because of his nature or his desire, has renounced society. He fights society by committing crimes. He does not wish to be part of society; he loves his crime—his “profession.” He knows the feeling of belonging only out of necessity, and also because he submits to it—just like the relationship of a prostitute to her pimp, no matter how badly he treats her. Moral values such as loyalty and trust are laughable to him, and so is the idea of personal property. His sentence and his imprisonment are just a streak of bad luck in his trade; a business mishap, a blunder— nothing else. He tries to make his term of imprisonment as short as possible. Because he knows many of the penal institutions, their idiosyncracies, their familiar, influential officials, he tries to get transferred to the one most suited to him. I do not think that he is able to conjure up any tender feelings in his heart. Any attempt to educate him, any attempt to lead him back to the right path through kindness is rejected, even though now and then he pretends to be a remorseful sinner in order to get paroled. Generally, he is coarse and mean, and it gives him pleasure when he can trample down the things that others hold sacred.
Let me state one incident as an example. In 1926-27, a humane policy of serving sentences was instituted in the penitentiaries. One of the changes was that on Sunday mornings musical performances were offered in the prison church, where some of the best artists of Berlin’s stages performed. One morning there was a performance of Gounod’s Ave Maria by a famous Berlin female singer with such perfection and tenderness as I have seldom heard. Most of the prisoners were moved by it. Even the most hardened were probably affected—but not all. The last notes had scarcely sounded when an old, depraved fellow behind me said to his neighbor, “Hey, Ed,
I’m really dying to get my hands on those diamonds.” That was the impression made by this truly heartrending performance on this type of criminal— asocials in the truest sense of the word.
Among this mass of typical professional criminals, there were now a large number of prisoners who did not quite belong to this category. These were the borderline cases who were already on the down slide to the tempting, adventurous world of crime, and others who with all then-power fought being enmeshed in the tempting mirages. And finally, there were the first-time offenders, weak-willed creatures who were tom between the outside influences of imprisonment and their own inner feelings. The mentality of this group was multifaceted and ran the entire gamut of human emotions. Often it swayed from one extreme to another. Punishment made no impression at all on the irresponsible and frivolous. Their souls weren’t burdened at all, and they went their merry way. They had no care whatsoever about the future. They would just glide on through life as before until they got caught again.
How differently the more serious-natured conducted themselves. They were tremendously depressed by the punishment, and they never came to grips with it. They also tried to escape the bad atmosphere of the community halls,- but most of them could not stand life in solitary. They were afraid to be alone and afraid of the constant brooding, and they would ask to be put back again into the swamp of the large halls. Even though there was the possibility to be with only three men in a cell, you could hardly find three prisoners who got along in this confined association for any extended period of time. These small groups had to be constantly dissolved. I didn’t see any which lasted a long time. Long-term imprisonment converts even the most good-natured person into someone oversensitive, quarrelsome, and inconsiderate. And consideration for others has to be present if a person wants to live in such a confined environment. But it’s not just the imprisonment by itself: the monotonous uniformity of all the daily chores, the constant coercion and pressure by the countless regulations, the continuous yelling and scolding of the corrections officers over trivial things, which depressed the more serious-minded prisoners, but more than that the thoughts about the future and their lives after serving the sentence. Most of the discussions revolved around that.
They worried about whether they could lead a normal life again, whether they would be the outcasts of society. If they were also married, then the nagging worry about the family was added. Furthermore, would the wife remain faithful during the long separation? All of these worries plunged these men into a deep depression from which even the daily work load, or reading serious books during recreation time, could not free them. Frequently they ended up as mental cases, or committed suicide without there being an immediate reason. By immediate reason I mean such bad news from the outside as divorce, death of a family member, refusal of parole, and other setbacks. Those who were unsure of themselves did not bear imprisonment easily. Their inner emotions were too easily influenced by life in prison. A few tempting words from an old con or a small pouch of tobacco could easily cause all their best resolutions to be forgotten. On the other hand, a good book or a serious hour of meditation compelled these characters to explore their inner selves and their consciences quietly. In my opinion, many of the inmates could have been brought back on the right path if the prison officials would have been more humane than just doing their Jobs, particularly the priests of both denominations, who Just by censoring the letters, alone were aware of the frame of mind and condition of their flock. But all these officials had become gray and dulled by the constant monotony of the work. They didn’t recognize the inner needs of the person who was seriously wrestling to becoine better. If an inmate really got up his courage to ask his spiritual counselor for advice about his inner conflict, it was at once assumed that he wanted to play the penitent sinner in order to get paroled. There is no doubt that the officials had experiences in which they were fooled by those not worthy of compassion and understanding. If there was the slightest expectation, even the most cynical criminals suddenly became very pious when the time for a parole hearing approached. Countless times, however, I overheard prisoners grumbling among themselves how much they needed help from the administration with their inner problems. Such privation had a much more severe psychological effect on the serious prisoners who really wanted to better themselves than the physical hardships and experiences of being locked up could ever have had. In contrast to the easygoing persons, they were doubly punished.
After the consolidation of the political and the economic conditions in Germany after the inflation, a broader, democratic viewpoint came to be accepted. Aside from the many other measures the government took in those years, there was also instituted the humane, progressive management of prison sentences. It was believed that those persons who had broken the laws of the land could be won back for society through kindness and education. From this thesis they concluded that every man was the product of his environment. After the lawbreaker paid his penalty, the government tried to create a Job for him in order to give him the incentive to climb up socially and protect him from making further mistakes. Specialized social care was to help him forget his asocial disposition and prevent him from being drawn into the circle of crime again. The intellectual level of the penal institutions was to be raised through general educational measures like musical leisure time to loosen up the spirit, pertinent lectures about the basic moral laws of human society and the principles of ethics, as well as other themes. The higher officials of the penal institution were supposed to concentrate more on the individual prisoner and see to his concerns as well as his psychological needs. The prisoner himself was to move through a three-step system with many radically new privileges which were not known to the prisoners beforehand. Little by little the prisoner struggled to the third step through good conduct, diligent work, and evidence of a change of heart—thereby reaching an early release with conditions of parole. The best that could happen would be remission of one half his sentence.
I was the first of the approximately eight hundred prisoners of my penal institution to reach the third step. Until my release there weren't more than a dozen who, in the opinion of the Board of Officials, deserved to wear the three stripes on their sleeve. In my case all prerequisites existed from the beginning: I had no in-house punishment, nor warnings; 1 always worked above my quota; 1 was a first offender; I didn't have a bad reputation; and I was considered a political law breaker. But since I was sentenced by a federal court as a political criminal, I could only be released ahead of time by a reprieve from the president, or by an amnesty.
In the first days of my imprisonment my situation finally became clear to me. I came to my senses. Without a doubt I had to count on spending the full ten years in the penitentiary. A letter from my defense council about this finally made me realize it, and 1 prepared myself for the full ten years. 1 took a hard, critical look at my life. Until then I just lived from day to day, took life as it came without any serious thoughts about my future. Now I had enough time on my hands to think about my life, to see my mistakes, my weaknesses, and to prepare for a life after prison, a life richer in content.
Between the Free Corps campaigns I had learned a profession which 1 really liked and knew that I could do well in. I had a passion for farming and had accomplished good things, as indicated by my grade reports [Hdss was studying farming as an apprentice]. However, the true meaning of life, that which really makes life worth living, was missing, but I didn't realize it at the time. As contradictory as this may seem, I began to do research behind the walls of prison, and found it later!
From childhood on I was taught to be absolutely obedient to the point of the most painstaking neatness and cleanliness, so it was not difficult to fit into the hard life of prison, as far as the prison officials were concerned. 1 conscientiously performed my duties and did the work 1 was asked to do—most of the time more—much to the satisfaction of the foreman. Because my cell was always an example of cleanliness and order, even the most critical inspection could not reveal anything to complain about. 1 even got used to the constant monotony of the daily routine, which hardly ever was broken by special events, although it was against my restless nature. My former life really had been quite hectic and lively.
A special event happened in the first two years, when the permitted quarterly letter arrived from the outside. Even before 1 got it, I thought about all the possible things which that letter could contain. The letter came from “my fiancee.” She was my fiancee as far as the prison administration was concerned. I had never seen or even heard of this girl, who was the sister of a fellow soldier. Since I could only write to relatives or receive mail from them, my fellow soldiers back in Leipzig got me a ‘Tiancee.” This girl had faithfully and kindly written to me through all the years and had fulfilled all my wishes and reported about all that went on in my circle of friends and passed on my messages.
I never got used to the petty aggravations of the common guards, particularly when they were contrived and hateful. They upset me very much. I was always treated correctly by the higher officials, even up to the prison warden, and also by the majority of the common guards with whom I came in contact during these years. But there were three Social Democrats among them who for political reasons aggravated me whenever they could with little needle jabs. This nevertheless hurt me deeply. Each one of these abuses hurt me more than if I was beaten. Every prisoner with a sensitive nature suffers much more from unjust, malicious, and intended psychological abuse than from physical abuse. He perceives it to be much more humiliating and depressing than any physical abuse. I have often tried to desensitize myself against it, but I never succeeded. I became used to the rough tone of the common guards. The more primitive they were, the more they indulged in their random lust for power. I had also become used to carrying out orders without inner rebellion, even with a silent chuckle at some of the most insane orders which were given by those mentally limited. I became accustomed to the brutal, vulgar manner of speech which was used by most of the prisoners there. Even though it happened daily, I could never get used to the way the prisoners dragged everything that was decent and good in life through the muck and treated things which were sacred to many people in a vulgar, frivolous, and hateful manner. It was particularly upsetting to me to see them doing it all the more when they noticed they could hurt a fellow prisoner. Listening to this has always upset me.
A good book has always been a good friend to me. The only problem was that up to now because of the unrest of the kind of life 1 led, I had neither time nor leisure for this. In the solitude of my cell it became everything, particularly in the first two years of my imprisonment. It was my recuperation, and with this I could forget my whole situation.
World History
