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No. 2/20                                                                                                                                             19 December 1944
 
 

13. Concentration Camp, BUCHENWALD

Preamble. The author of this account is PW Andreas PFAFFENBERGER, I Coy, 9 Landesschuetzen Bn. 43 years old and of limited education, he is a butcher by trade. The substantial agreement of the details of his story with those found in PWIS (H)/LF/736 establishes the validity of his testimony.

 PW has not been questioned on statements which, in the light of what is known, are apparently erroneous in certain details, nor has any effort been made to alter the subjective character of PW's account, which he wrote without being told anything of the intelli-gence already known. Results of interrogation on personalities at BUCHENWALD have already been published (PWIB No 2/12 Item 31).

On 30 May 1937 I was reported by ADAM GAHN and his brother LUIS GAHN (who reside in GOESMES, Bez Amt Stattsteinach, Oberfranken), for failing to return the Hitler salute. This came about in the following manner.

I was not a follower or member of the National Socialist Party and I was therefore shadowed wherever I went and several times threatened with a trip to a concentration camp. Early in 1937, for instance, while at SOOESEI'S INN in GOESMES, I was threatened with arrest for affronting the government. Leaving the room for a minute, I was set upon and knocked down by four SA-men. (ADAM and  LUIS GAHN, KARL MAIER, and PETER GAREIS). Fortunately there was a friend with me at the inn, HANS HOFMANN, who had only recently returned from AMERICA. He could not bear to sit idly by. He came to my rescue and managed to get me away from the SA-men.  After that whenever I passed these SA-men on the street they gave the Hitler salute, which I did not return.

On 30 May 1937 1 was walking in the woods and after it got dark I went to an inn for supper.  There I met several older men of my acquaintance and we began to play cards. At about ten o'clock three uniformed SA-men (ADAM and LUIS GAHN and GEORG HEROLD) entered and gave the Nazi salute. I looked the other way and did not reply.  Consequently they reported me to the SA Standarte in KULMBACH (Bavaria), and I received a one month jail sentence for contempt of uniform and refusing to give the Hitler salute.

Some time later I met SA-man ADAM GAHN on the, street when he was in mufti, and I slapped him across the face, saying, "Now you know what you reported me for." For this I got another month in jail.

After I had served this sentence in BAYREUTH the Gestapo arrested me and brought me to KULMBACH.  There I remained in solitary confinement and without a hearing from 10 March to 7  Nov 38.

 At noon that day I was told that at two o'clock a police car would take me to BUCHENWALD near  WEIMAR.  I did not realize then what that meant, as DACHAU was the only Concentration camp I had heard of.  Upon arrival in WEIMAR I found myself in a group of forty-five prisoners.  Everyone was already afraid and hoped that the Police rather than the SS would take us to our destination.  The prisoners I seemed to be aware of what went on at BUCHENWALD, but I had as yet no idea about the place.

Fortunately the Police were in charge during the twelve-mile trip from WEIMAR to BUCHENWALD: they did not mistreat us.  When we arrived they turned us over to the SS, who did not allow us to dismount but instead threw us all down from the truck, so that there were casualties among us to start with.

We were brought to a barracks of the SS Political Police, where we had to stand facing the wall in the corridor with our hands clasped to our necks.  Singly we were called into an office and euch man was asked whether he knew why he was there.  If the prisoner replied that he didn't know, he was beaten with a belt until he submitted and signed all the charges against him.  Meanwhile, those waiting in the corridor were beaten with rifle butts by the guards.

When we were through, we entered the camp proper, doubletiming through a 200-meter gauntlet of SS men armed with clubs and sticks.

Inside, we were lined up against the side of a building and were kept standing there, facing the wall with hands clasped behind our necks till the afternoon of the following day, when we were assigned to blocks.

 Entering my block, I noticed that the inmates had colored triangles (8 cm base, 10 cm sides) of cloth sewn on their coats and trousers.  Approximately 3 cm below each triangle there was a number stamped in black on white cloth.  Six of  the 200 prisoners wore green triangles, while the rest wore brown ones.  I asked a man with a brown triangle about the meaning of these signs, and he explained that green triangles indicated a professional crook or criminal, brown ones men who had not belonged to the party or any of its affiliates. Red markings indicated political prisoners; those with red stripe 2 cm wide and 1 cm above the red triangle were "hard
cases" -- men who were in the camp for the second time, while those with a numbered white cloth on the red triangle had been arrested during a purge or pogrom and were believed capable of sabotage or subversive political activity. Violet triangles stood for Bible students. Red triangles with letters were for different nationalites; P-Poles, R-Russians, E-English, T-Czechs (Tscheche), J-Yugoslavs (Jugoslaven), and A-Americans.

The six criminals with green markings were our superiors, whom we had to obey, and I now realized what kind of people I would have to live under.

 After we had been registered in the block (one coy 200-600  men) we were seated at tables and the senior green-striper gave a speech which was enough to make each of us feel  like his life might end any minute.

 Without having had any food we went to bed at eight o 'clock.  We got up at 0300 the next morning (13 Nov 38) and were formed into a work detail  for building an SS barracks. Our detail was about 600 to 700 men strong. From our working site we overlooked the quarry where the workers were mostly Jews, prisoners with brown triangles.  Among the few who wore red markings was the former Austrian Minister of the Interior REITHER, and his son-in-law whose name I cannot recall, but which is known to a prisoner WILHELM SCHUMANN , of MANIERENLEUNDE, near KASSEL.

Every day I saw ERICH VOGEL (from ERFURT), who was then in charge of the detail, and SS H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER beat and manhandle prisoners until they ware ready to run into the guard's line. (Note: The quarry outside the camp was warded by SS personnel armed with carbines, standing at three to four meter intervals. The torture procedure was as follows: The victims were forced to carry a load of rocks up a hill. When they had lost their strength, they were thrown on a table and beaten to a bloody pulp. When they were finally released, these men were so maddened by pain that they would rush blindly into the guard chain, where they were promptly shot).

 Minister REITHER and his son-in-law died in this fashion early in 1939, but I cannot recall the exact date. However, I myself actually saw how they were tortured and finally driven into the guard chain by O/Scharfuehrer ABRAHAM.

To me it was a daily occurrence to see how Scharfuehrer KOMNIZER drove Jews into a latrine. This latrine was two meters wide and four meters long. KOMNIZER would force his victims to jump so that they would fall into the offal and drown. Only after the hole was filled would he allow other prisoners to fish out the bodies and burn them.

 During his stay in BUCHENWALD from 1939 to 1940, Schaffuehrer KURITZ killed many Jews with a club and made many more die a horrible death in a pigsty. There the Jews, forced first to shovel off the top of a manure-pile, were then made to lie down on the rest.  Other prisoners were compelled to shovel the manure back on top of their comrades, after which they were forced to do exercises on top of the completed pile, while the victims buried underneath choked to death.

 If , during working hours, a prisoner caught standing erect or searching for a cigarette-butt or eating a piece of bread, he was given 25 lashes, these penalties being executed by SOMMER and SCHAEFER.

Another punishment was to hang prisoners from trees by their arms, which were tied behind their backs.  SS H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER hanged 30 to 40 prisoners daily in this manner, leaving them swaying about one foot off the ground for several hours.  Among his victims were men as old as 65 years.  In the pain of their torture, these old men would cry for their wives and children some even for their mothers and fathers, in spite of their own advanced age and the fact that they were, many of them, grandfathers themselves. Others appealed to the Virgin Mary or to the Saviour....It was a horrible scene to witness. And while it was going on H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER and his henchmen would walk among the trees making fun of the spectacle, and with their clubs they would smash the faces of their helpless victims.

 The senior prisoner (Lageraelteste) was a man with a green triangle, named ALFRED RICHTER, from HANNOVER.  He was a former SA Sturmfuehrer, and was said to be guilty of two street robberies.  During 1939 and 1940 this man executed many  of the above-mentioned
hangings, and for each one he received 10 RM from the camp leaders.

On Christmas Eve 1938, a political prisoner named Foerster was hanged  as a christmas Tree while all the other prisoners had to fall in and watch him for three hours.

ALFRED RICHTER and H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER built a wooden box 2 m long,  1 m wide and 70 to 80 cm high, which was fixed with protruding nails and barbed wire on the inside. Two at a time prisoners were forced naked into this box and were kept there until they were dead, while the rest of as had to look on.

 SS Standartenfuehrer KOCH, the camp commandant, ordered the construction of a "rose garden", which was in reality a rock pile, surrounded by barbed wire fence.  If prisoners failed to salute properly or were unfavorably noticed at work, they were brought to this enclosure and were forced to keep running in circles, day and night.  Most prisoners lasted from four to five days before they died.  Particularly cold days were chosen for this torture.

 On 25 Nov 39 KOCH, and SS Sturmbannfuehrer ROEDEL had two Jews hanged from a tree by their wrists (in the manner described above), and raised about a foot from the ground. Then two Great Danes were set on them, and the prisoners were torn to shreds. I stood only 30 feet away from the scene and saw it all.  The two Jews had been brought in during the pogrom of Nov 39, and had lived in the barracks that were reserved for Jews only, 1a to 5a.

From 1939 until 1942 hangings in the camp were performed by two Poles, 19 and 22  years old.  After each hanging the Poles were given two cigarettes and bread sausages.  I often saw them receive these rewards from Rapportfuehrer SS H/Scharfuehrer HOFSCHULTE. The gallows stood near the kennels outside the camp, and near Barrack No. 3  I and other prisoners (Fritz PRIES, Erich RESCHGE, both from HAMBURG) saw dozens of hangings.

 In 1942 the gallows were brought back into the camp and erected  next to the five-furnance crematorium, where the bodies were burned.  The hangings were by an SS H/Scharfuehrer whose name I have forgot. But it is known to Wilhelm STAUPENDAHL of WEIMAR, Thuringia, where he lives in a boarding house.   The same man (the SS H/Scharfuehrer) was in charge of the crematorium, where three convicts (with green markings, former Party members), were his helpers.  Every day two or three trucks drove up to the crematorium, loaded with corpses of prisoners and PWs, most of whom were Russians.  Some of these were not quite lifeless, so they were beaten until dead. Then the corpses were thrown from the trucks, like sacks of potatoes.

  As we marched to work one morning in the autumn of 1941, I noticed a truck parked at the inner gate of the camp. The rear of the truck was open, and I saw that it was stacked with bloody corpses, naked and unrecognizable.

 A year later I was working in a quarry situated along the road leading to the stables and the hippodrome (Reithalle).  Two or three times a week up to six canvas-covered trucks halted at the hippodrome. When this began to occur more frequently, I decided that it was my duty to find out what was going on, even if I endangered my life in doing so. One day I hid in the woods surrounding the hippodrome and observed how men were led singly, and stripped naked, from the hippodrome to the stable 20 meters away.  SS  men in white doctor's coats were walking about and I recognized H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER and O/Scharfuehrer nicknamed "SCHUHPUTZER" (21 years old, name unknown to me.)  A radio was playing inside the stable , drowning out all other noises.  No one came back from that building.  I also recognized O/Sturmfuehrer GUST, O/Scharfuehrer,  PAM PUS, O/Scharfuehrer SCHAEFER.

 I returned to my work, but while we were marching that evening I discussed the matter with a friend, a painter named HAARE, from LEIPZIG. He told me that it was  his job to whitewash the stable regularly and suggested that I take a look at the place.  Next day at noon, I entered the stable.  The corpses had already been removed to the crematorium,  but I saw the scene of the murders.  There was a cupboard, and on one side of it a measuring stick, graduated up to two meters.  About a foot below the top, the measuring stick had a hole through it, which was drilled all the side of the cupboard.  Next to this contraption was a table covered with white linen, and a radio. The floor was thick with sawdust and blood. I examined this carefully and I am certain beyond doubt that the victims were shot in the neck in this room (Genickschuss).  The table was used as a stage prop for the pretended medical examination, while an SS-man fired the shots from inside the cupboard.  I was informed by my comrades that H/Scharfuehrers PAMBUS and SOMMER did the shooting while others of the SS-men played the parts of doctor and medical personnel.  Between 1940 and 1944, 40,000 men perished in this "dispensary".   Two young Poles had the job of loading and unloading the corpses.  They slept in reception barracks and were not allowed to come into contact with the rest of us. (other Polish prisoners in BUCHENWALD know their names.)

 Often I saw O/Scharfuehrer GRAULS take Jews into the woods, where he made them lower their trousers, relieve themselves, and then eat and swallow their excrement.  If a prisoner refused, he was given 25 or 30 lashes on his bare back-side.

 In 1939, inmates of mental institutions arrived.  By 1940 they were all dead. They were made to carry boxes filled with sand or stones, as heavy as 200 lbs at double time. If the men could not keep pace, they were either beaten to death or sent to an enclosure where hundreds were killed by injections (25 cubic cm the left arm - later tobacco juice was used).

 When we marched to work in the morning, we were always afraid of the SS guards, who would tear off our caps and throw them on the ground a few feet away. Then if a man tried to recover
his cap he was promptly shot by the guards, who had been promised five days of special furlough for every prisoner killed in this manner.  If a prisoner returned from work without his cap, he was given 25 lashes, by order of SS Standartenfuehrer KOOM.

 "Rebellious elements" were sent to a special block,  No 47, where they were subjected to experiments with poison. Only two or three out of a hundred ever came back.

 This was the domain of SS O/Arzt EISLE, and when we met him anywhere we tried to get out of his sight unnoticed, and as quickly as possible, because if  EISLE disliked even a prisoner's looks, he would take the man's number and have him sent to the dispensary.  Usually the prisoner was dead an hour later.

 I visited that dispensary quite frequently because I had friends among the medical personnel. There I saw how prisoners were brought into the cellar and carried out again, dead. My friend told me that 70 or more corpses were removed to the crematorium every day.

 During 1943 1 saw a truckload of corpses arrive two or three times a week from DOMMANDO DORA, an underground establishment near NORDHAUSEN/Harz, I was told. (See PWIB 2/16 Item 20.) The bodies were unloaded in the dispensary enclosure and from there were carried to the crematorium. The corpses, mostly Frenchmen and Germans, were all black and blue and many had heads or limbs missing or were utterly mutilated.

In 1939, all prisoners with tattooing on them were ordered to report to the dispensary. No one knew what the purpose was. But after the tattooed prisoners had been examined, the ones with the best and most artistic specimens were kept in the dispensary, and then killed by injections, administered by Karl BEIGS, a criminal prisoner. The corpses were then turned over to the pathological department, where the desired pieces of  tattooed skin were detached from the bodies and treated. The finished products were turned over to SS Standartenfuehrer KOCH's wife, who had them fashioned into lampshades and other ornamental household articles. I myself saw such tattooed skins with various designs and legends on them, such as "Hans’l und Gret’l", which one prisoner had had on his knee and ships from prisoners’ chests. This work was done by a prisoner named WERNERBACH.

 There I also saw the shrunken heads of two young Poles who had been hanged for having had relations with German girls. The heads were the size of a fist, and the hair and the marks of the rope were still there.

 In the winter of 1939,  SS Standartenfuehrer KOCH ordered all camp inmates to stand at attention for seventeen hours without gloves or undershirts, despite a temperature of 25 degrees (C) below freezing.  Hundreds dropped dead and 700 to 800 men, including myself, suffered frozen limbs.

 In Feb 1940, KOCH decreed that there would be no food for the whole camp, because a pig had disappeared from the pigsty.  The order stated that there would be neither food nor water until the pig, was found. All prisoners had to stand outside until the next day, freezing in weather that was 28 degrees (C) below freezing.  Then everyone was sent, on the double, to work.  For six days there was no food, on the seventh some bread was given out, and on the eighth the regular food was issued again.  If a pig had actually been stolen, it would only have been done by an SS-man, since the prisoners were not allowed near the pigsty, and everything was so strictly guarded that the sentries fired if a prisoner so much as stuck his head out of the barracks.

 In Oct 1943, I spent several weeks on a work detail in WERNIGERODE/Harz. One Sunday morning SS O/Sturmfuehrer KROSSMANN ordered six prisoners to be hanged there. Present at that hanging were O/Sturmfuehrer KROSSMAN, O/Sturmfuehrer SCHMIDT and H/Sturmfuehrer SCHOBERT.  The executioners were the above-mentioned O/Sturmfuehrer in charge of the crematorium and two of his helpers. The victims were four Poles and two Ukrainians, who had supposedly been overheard discussing plans for a break. All the camp inmates had to watch the proceedings, and I stood only thirty feet away. It was a horrible sight. On the parade ground a crossbeam had been put up, twenty feet long, with six hooks on it. At 11 o'clock several cars drove up and the prisoners emerged bound hand and foot, and followed by the executioners. The prisoners watched while the gallows were erected next to the crossbeam. This procedure took about two hours as the murderers were in no hurry, and took time off for lunch, from which they returned half drunk. They ridiculed their victims, and O/Sturmfuehrer SCHMIDT asked if they had reflected that "the gallows were the best place to rest one’s feet". Then the hanging began in earnest. The first prisoner was led forward and made to step up to the gallows, where a rope was placed around his neck by the O/Sturmfuehrer.  He was then slowly lowered to the ground, and when he began to turn blue, SCHMIDT ordered him to be raised again, so that he might "get something out of the hanging". After this had been repeated two more times he was taken down, and as he was not quite dead, another noose was put around his neck, by which he was finally strung up on the crossbeam.  Meanwhile, the other victims had to look on, and were then, one by one, subjected to the same torture, until they were all dead and hanging from the six hooks of the crossbeam. When the murders had finished, two of them took down the gallows and loaded it on the cars.  After that the whole crew went to the kitchen for a meal, from which they came back completely drunk. Then they returned to BUCHENWALD, while we prisoners had to remain standing for three more hours around the crossbeam with the six dead men hanging front it. Many of us had for days been unable to retain food, and had to throw up again, so dreadful was the picture which is still before my eyes today.

The murders and atrocities described here are only a part of the experience I had during the six years I spend as a political prisoner with a brown triangle, in BUCHENWALD.

Of all the SS personnel at BUCHENWALD, there are no good men. They are all criminals, I know only two kinds: bad and very bad.

* * * * * * * *  * * *

I should like to add a few remarks about myself.

I was in BUCHENWALD from 10 Nov 38 until 22 June 44. During this time I suffered three broken ribs and a smashed collar-bone. I was given twenty-five lashes four times; once because I refused to beat a fellow prisoner with a club I had been given for the purpose; another time because I had stood next to a comrade who had smoked during working hours and I had not reported him; still another time, because I had not saluted properly, my kidneys were so badly smashed that they still cause mw to suffer today.

I spent fourteen days in a special penal barracks where I was kept naked, chained to a  wall by my hands and feet, and beaten to such an extent that I suffered a fractured skull. The reason for this punishment was that I had given some butter to Jews, who were not supposed to get any.

H/Scharfuehrer SOMMER was responsible for those beatings, and for making me a cripple. Each time I was tortured I was asked, "Do you know who beat you?" And I had to answer, "No one, I stumbled and fell." If any prisoner refused to give this answer he was killed on the spot.

My hands and feet were frozen and they are numb to this day.

From 1938 to 1942 we were forced to work eighteen hours a day, although after 1942 this was reduced to fifteen hours. And no matter how rough the weather was we were never allowed to seek shelter or to dry our clothes. There was only a half-hour for lunch, and the rest of the time we worked, at double-time.

One considered himself lucky if a day passed without a beating by one of the Scharfuehrers.

When we returned to our block at night, we had to take off our shoes and make our beds, which sometimes took until 11 or 12 o'clock. Then each of us received a cold bowl of soup. If we didn't finish our soup in five minutes we were beaten or even killed by our superiors, the criminals with green markings.

They would chase us out of bed at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, whenever they pleased, so that often we had only two or three hours of sleep.

In 1940, I was so run down physically, that I could not even write home to my family, but had to ask a comrades to do it for me.

When the war is over inquiries about me and my life in the camp can be made to Dr. HORN, Dr. MATOSCHER, Oberbuergermeister SENKEL of PRAGUE, and Dr. DOELLING, a lawyer from MUENCHEN, all of whom were fellow-prisoners.

On 28 June 44 I was called up for military service, and assigned to Landesschuetzen Ers Bn 1/9 in FRANKFURT/Main.

After those seven hard years I had only five days to spend with my wife and five children.

I remained in FRANKFURT for a week, then received five weeks training in SCHALLERN, after which I was sent to THURIN in BELGIUM for further training,

Our CO was a former SS Standartenfuehrer named ENGELHARDT, a captain, and 60 years old. He made life as hard as he could because he knew that I was an anti-Nazi and that I had been in a concentration camp. My every move was watched by his friend, Uffz SCHWAB, a former party-member, I always kept to myself to avoid being trapped by them.

We had not finished our training yet when the Americans were reported coming closer and we began to retreat. We had to march 50 km a day, and sometimes more.  The night before the Americans entered THURIN ( I cannot recall the date), we fell back to ZWEIFALL, where 3 Coy was committed. I belonged to 2 Coy. When we reached SIMONKALL (?), I was called before Hptm. ENGELHARDT, who told me that as punishment, I was to report to HPTM SCHINDLER at the front.

As soon as I arrived at the front I asked to see the doctor. He examined me and sent me back to the train, whore I stayed for several weeks, making coffee for the Coy, until one day Hptm. ENGELHARDT spotted me again. On 27 Oct I had to go back to the front line again, near SIMONKALL (?). I was sent to a cottage which had been turned into a strongpoint. There I was assigned a position near a corner of the building. The squad ldr told me that I would be shot if I attempted to leave the trench. Although I was watched constantly, I managed to get hold of twenty rounds of blank ammunition, in case I was actually forced to fire. I also got a Panzerfaust and several hand grenades from another soldier, pretending that I could use them to better advantage from my position. I promptly hid them under a bush.

When I saw American soldiers closing in at noon, 2 Nov, I did not give the alarm, so that no shots were fired. I myself was happy to see the Americans arriving, and finally felt free. I shouted to my companions to surrender and that the Americans were our saviours. But they seemed afraid. I tore the web-equipment off an eighteen-year-old boy and dragged him out of the building with me.  At this time the squad leader who had been near the left corner of the house gave up too, and several other men with him.

I have never considered an American, Englishman, Frenchman or Pole, etc. an one enemy. To me they were always friends, since for years I had hoped for liberation, which could only come from America.

I should like to ask the American military authorities how I can be considered an enemy. That I am a German is no fault of mine. But I have been a foe of the Nazi Party from the beginning. I have fought that gang of criminals at every turn, and as can be seen I have had to suffer it.

I ask the military authorities for the favor of putting me where SS or Party men are to be fought or watched. I put myself completely at the disposal of the American authorities to help finish off the Nazi gang at last.

I do not do this in order to gain some personal advantage. I have had to bear so much, that being a PW will not be too hard to put up with. But I think it my duty to help in cleaning out and getting rid of these rats.

I ask not to be considered a traitor. I still have character. But I do not want to be in the same class with criminals.

I ask that my name not be made public while the Nazis are still in power in GERMANY, as I have my wife and five children there, who might be put in danger.

I have only one enemy, the Nazis, the SS.

A CERTIFIED TRUE COPY:
(signed)
HENRY H. MIZE
Lt. Col, Jagd.
 
 

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