Oskar Schindler, page 38
Yet in fairness to Schindler, it is important to add that “Susanna” also talked a lot about Schindler’s kindness and his promise to save her. And at a distance it would seem as though Oskar’s special relationship with Göth was the price he had to pay to maintain some autonomy from the SS and protect his ever-expanding Jewish labor force. But was it really necessary for Schindler to go to such an extent to befriend Göth? Was Amon Göth a key figure in Oskar’s ability first to hire and protect his growing Jewish labor force in Emalia and later to transfer his factory, with his Jewish workers, to Brünnlitz? This must all be looked at in the broader context of the complexities of operating factories that used Jewish slave labor in the General Government after 1942.
By the time Göth had closed the Kraków ghetto and fully opened the Płaszów forced labor camp of the SS and Police Leader in the Kraków District (Zwangsarbeitslager Plaszow des SS- und Polizeiführers im Dis-trikt Krakau) in the spring of 1943, the SS was now in full control of the various factories in these camps, which were overseen by the SS’s German Equipment Works (DAW; Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke GmbH) as part of Oswald Pohl’s Office Group W.11 The SS had always used forced labor in its growing network of camps throughout the Third Reich. However, the nature of this labor changed with the fortunes of war. This was particularly true after Albert Speer became Nazi Germany’s economic tsar in early 1942 as Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions (Reichsmin-ister für Bewaffnung und Munitionen). Walther Schieber, one of Speer’s closest advisers and an honorary SS-Brigadeführer, approached Himmler soon after Speer’s appointment about expanding armaments production in the concentration camps. In response, Himmler, driven by a desire to create more economic autonomy for the SS as well as a desire to help the war effort, decided to revamp the organizational structure of concentration camp administration by appointing Oswald Pohl the new head of WVHA.12
On March 16, 1942, after meeting with Himmler, Speer’s armament specialists met with Richard Glücks to work out the new arrangement between the Armaments Ministry and the SS. Himmler had earlier insisted that all armaments factories that used concentration camp inmates had to be located within the confines of the camps. Speer’s armaments specialists would be responsible for the design of these factories and their administration. The accord concluded “relocated armaments industries in the concentration camps will continue under the guidance of their individual firms, not only for production but under all economic considerations as well.”13
This was the core arrangement between the SS and the Armaments Ministry that governed the operation of armaments factories in the concentration camps for the rest of the war. According to Michael Thad Allen, “the ministry relied upon the SS to manage the prisoners’ bodies—getting rid of those who had been worked to death and supplying fresh replacements. Meanwhile, the Office Group D left technical management to industry.”14 This latter office was part of the SS’s Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA; Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt) in Berlin. Though technically under the incompetent SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Richard Glücks, Amtsgruppe D was really run by the head of Amtsgruppe D2, SS-Obersturmbannführer (later SS-Standartenführer) Gerhard Maurer, who oversaw all aspects of prison labor.15
After Maurer assumed his post in 1942, he began to implement policies designed to give a better idea about the number of prisoners in each of Amtsgruppe D’s camps. From Maurer’s perspective, the only way he could properly manage a camp’s prison population and get a better sense of its potential labor output was to have more detailed statistics on the health, good and bad, of its inmates. He also gave SS camp physicians a great deal of power periodically to “cull” inmate populations, even at factory sites, to weed out prisoners too sick, injured, or aged to work. The results of these inhumane reforms did see a decrease in slave laborer mortality rates of 10 percent to 2 percent to 3 percent from the end of 1942 until early 1944, though these figures should be put in the context of the rising slave labor population that continued to grow in the camps during the same period.16
But the use of slave labor proved problematic and, when combined with other issues, particularly the lack of SS managerial skills in the camps in question, it created serious production problems in the scattered SS armaments factories. Himmler blamed the Armaments Ministry for these failures and, by the spring of 1943, began to suggest more direct SS managerial control over these factories. Yet, months earlier, Speer had already begun to suggest an expanded role for the SS in armaments productions. In a meeting with Hitler, Speer suggested that the SS be given 3 percent to 5 percent of all arms production. He also told Oswald Pohl that the SS should consider dropping its insistence that all SS armaments work be done within the confines of established concentration camps. Himmler, Speer suggested, should consider expanding beyond these camps into “the open fields.”17 Pohl added: “We may put up an electric fence around it; then we can provide the necessary number of prisoners; and then the factory can be run as an SS armaments works.”18
But Amtsgruppe D was not the only WVHA office that Schindler, Madritsch, and Göth would have to deal with in planning the construction of any armament-related factory workshops at Płaszów. They would also have to work with Amtsgruppe C, which oversaw all SS construction projects. Office Group C was overseen by SS-Oberführer Dr. Hans Kammler, who brought the same ruthless professional skills to his job that Maurer had to Office Group D. Kammler put together a staff of civilian trained engineers who insisted on exacting standards when it came to the construction of SS facilities, whether they be in concentration camps or elsewhere. Over time, Kammler’s office gained a solid reputation for excellence not only in the SS but throughout the Third Reich’s armaments construction industry. In 1944, Hermann Göring appointed Kammler, with Hitler’s approval, as head of Sonderstab Kammler (Special Staff Kammler), which oversaw special construction projects for the SS. Kamm-ler reported directly to Himmler, thus bypassing Pohl.19 Sadly, the admired standards of Kammler’s office cost Diana Reiter, a Jewish engineer, her life when she was shot by Albert Hujar in Płaszów for questioning construction standards on a particular building. She was killed by an SS man for trying to enforce SS building regulations.20
The other element that Schindler, Madritsch, and other factory owners had to contend with was the Wehrmacht High Command’s (OKW; Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) Armaments Inspector in the General Government (Inspektor der Rüstungsinspektion im Generalgouverne-ment), General Maximillian Schindler, who was responsible for all aspects of armaments production. General Schindler’s biggest problems centered around labor shortages, which intensified with the transfer of large numbers of Poles to forced labor situations in the Third Reich and the mass murder of Jews. The labor shortage, in turn, affected production goals in factories throughout the region. General Schindler had been caught in the middle of the controversy that erupted between the Wehrmacht and Himmler over this issue in 1942. As a result, the SS had gained control over the supply of slave labor used in most armament works in the General Government.21
Gerhard Maurer of Amtsgruppe D2 now worked to stabilize the labor shortage crisis by reducing concentration camp mortality rates even though the shortages remained one of General Schindler’s principal concerns. General Schindler was also responsible for military production quotas and was the one who initially suggested that factories in the Reich producing uniforms and shoes be transferred to the General Government where they could be made by Jewish slave labor. And any owner, or, for that matter, forced or concentration camp commandant in the General Government who wanted to have his workshops or factory declared war essential, had to have the approval of General Schindler. Amon Göth, for example, could not have Płaszów declared a permanent concentration camp in early 1944 until he had received General Schindler’s stamp of approval.22
What transpired was a complex application process for the opening, expansion, or building of armaments-related facilities that intended to use Jewish slave labor. It began with simultaneous applications to the Armaments Ministry, which would turn the matter over to General Schindler’s office in Kraków. His office would have to approve of the armaments-related goods produced in the proposed factory. The Armaments Inspectorate was not only concerned about labor resources but also the supply of raw materials for production use and the military value and production quotas of the goods proposed for production. If the workshop or factory was tied to a forced labor or concentration camp, the owner, after receiving the approval of the SS, would inform Maurer’s Office Group D2 of his labor needs. It would inspect all housing facilities to see whether they met SS standards and make certain that proper security measures were in place in the factory to prevent prisoners from escaping. Office Group D2 would then issue a permit that allowed the use of slave laborers. Representatives of the newly approved firm could then choose the workers they wanted in their factory or workshop. Depending on the situation, this meant the chosen workers would live in the concentration camp and be marched to and from the camp factory site or would be housed in an SS approved factory sub-camp. By the spring of 1944, Speer’s Armaments Ministry took over the entire application process and required all businesses to deal directly with it before final approval.23
What further complicated all of this, particularly for Oskar Schindler and Amon Göth, was the fact that they never truly produced military essential items in the factories in Płaszów or Emalia. How did they get away with producing uniforms, enamelware, and other items of questionable military value to a German war machine struggling with a severe arms shortage? A large part of the explanation centers around the power of corruption and favoritism in the General Government, particularly in SS circles.
Yet it should be remembered that the SS was not just interested in the manufacture of weapons, which never became a big part of its burgeoning industrial empire. The SS got into the manufacturing business primarily to give it an economic base from which to supply its outposts in the newly occupied territories in the east, although Speer and the Wehrmacht suspected that Himmler wanted either to take over the war economy or to use its expanded role in war production to better arm the elite Waffen SS units. Occupied Poland and Russia were the new colonial areas of the Thousand Year Reich, the proposed breeding ground for a superior Aryan race that was slowly to eliminate the inferior races from the face of Europe. The SS needed every kind of manufactured good to maintain itself as Germany’s elite racial and spiritual organization. Consequently, though the SS did undertake modest though not overly successful arms production activities at some of its concentration camps, the WVHA often subcontracted its armaments production to maintain the façade that it was contributing to the total war effort while continuing to operate factories of lesser military value through its network of camps and sub-camps and thus insure its economic survival when peace came. And even after the adoption of the new Siegentschei-dend (Decisive for Victory) theme after Stalingrad, factories under DAW continued to produce goods of questionable value to the desperate war effort. Consequently, when Oskar Schindler sought to add a small wing to his Emalia operations for arms production, it was something of a cover for the pots and pans that Emalia continued to produce throughout most of the war. 24
The illogic of such policies worked to Oskar Schindler’s advantage and enabled him to produce far more valuable black market trade goods than essential military items at Emalia. We know that Schindler considered his armaments work at Emalia an important, though not essential, part of his operations, yet we know little else about it. He stated in his 1945 financial report that he produced about RM 15,000,000 ($6 million) worth of enamelware in Emalia and only about RM 500,000 ($2 million) worth of armaments products.25 Schindler’s interest in developing a small armaments operation at Emalia seemed to develop some time in 1943. Mietek Pemper said that whenever Schindler came to Płaszów during this period to order tools for his factory, he would stop by the camp office to talk to him and Stern. Pemper said that he urged Oskar to create a “sole armaments production, because you can’t win a war with kitchenware products.” On one occasion Oskar told Pemper that “he was already thinking about shifting production to armaments.” Pemper added that “Oskar still had close contacts with his former Abwehr colleagues and very good connections to the Armaments Inspectorate, whose highest boss was General Schindler.” Most people assumed that General Schindler was a relative of Oskar’s, who “never denied clearly” that he and the general were related.26
The large, hangar-style factory building constructed by Siemens-Bauunion G.m.b.H. was not completed until the summer of 1944, and this could be one of the reasons Oskar produced little in the way of armament-related items at Emalia. But what was important here was not Oskar’s armaments production output but his intention to produce armaments once the large Siemens building was completed. The construction of the armaments factory building, and his use of Jewish labor to help build it, was the key to his success in increasing the size of his slave labor force during this period. Intention, in other words, was more important than reality.
Yet once Oskar received permission from the Armaments Inspectorate and the SS to operate his factory, he could use SS regulations about maintaining low mortality rates among Jewish workers to help create better working conditions for them. Oskar kept them healthy, which in turn kept them out of the hands of the death squads at Płaszów and the transports to death camps. And the key to good health, beyond avoiding beatings and overwork, was food. To an extent, this can be seen as simply good business. The SS was always ready to take away workers deemed unfit for labor. But if a factory owner mistreated his workers to the extent that he had a high mortality rate, which the SS theoretically discouraged, he would have to replace them with unskilled workers who would have to be trained in various production skills. The operation of factories under DAW’s watchful eyes, at least from the perspective of the civilian owners, was all about making a profit; it followed that treating one’s workers, whether they be Jewish or Polish, was just good business.
Emerging from all this in the fall of 1942 were new opportunities and problems concerning Jewish forced and concentration camp labor. The agreement worked out between the Armaments Inspectorate and the SS about Jewish labor in the General Government left grey areas that Himm-ler and Pohl sought to take advantage of. Uniform production now became an area of exclusive SS control in the General Government, which explains why Julius Madritsch was forced to move his workers and sewing machines to Płaszów. Schindler, on the other hand, was helped by Himmler’s decision to open factories beyond the confines of the SS camps in “the open fields,” as Albert Speer put it. But Schindler knew he would need other things to insure the transformation of Emalia into an SS-approved sub-camp away from Płaszów, and that would be the support of Amon Göth, who had important SS connections, and Schindler’s ongoing friendship with important figures in the Armaments Inspectorate in the General Government.
The same thing could be said of Julius Madritsch, though his situation was more complex than Schindler’s because he needed SS approval not only to move his Kraków operations and workers to the new forced labor camp but also to do the same eventually for his factory in Tarnów. Evidently, SS-Hauptsturmführer Julius Scherner, the HSSPF in the Kraków district, opposed the movement of Madritsch’s factory in the former ghetto to Płaszów. It is possible that Scherner was aware of Madritsch’s considerable efforts to hide, save, and help Jews escape from his factories in Kraków and Tarnów. This could be the explanation for an incident that took place just before the SS began to close the Tarnów ghetto on September 2, 1943. The day before, Madritsch and his Kraków manager, Raimund Titsch, were invited to an 8:00 P.M. dinner at Göth’s villa. Both men accepted Göth’s invitation with mixed feelings. When they arrived, Göth told them “in a friendly way that tonight the evacuation of all Jews of the Kraków district [which included Tranów and Bochnia] would take place, and that [they] had to be his guests” until the next morning. Göth then left Madritsch and Titsch in the company of two SS officers who “just tormented” them because they could not show how they felt, “much less talk about how afraid [they] were.”27
At 5:00 A.M. the next morning, Madritsch and Titsch were released and drove immediately to Tarnów, where they met Göth, who was overseeing the brutal closing of the ghetto there. Göth promised Madritsch that none of his “people” would be harmed. Madritsch said that as far as he could tell, none of his Jewish workers were killed in the closing of the Tarnów ghetto. He credited his factory manager, Dr. Adolf Lenhardt, for this. Evidently, Dr. Lenhardt had managed to smuggle some of Madritsch’s workers into columns of workers destined for the Kunzendorf forced labor camp at Trzebinia, about twelve miles northeast of Auschwitz. Later, Madritsch and Lehardt drove to Kunzendorf with a plan to help free some of their former workers and help them escape into Slovakia. Their plan was thwarted, Madritsch claimed, “because of the incomprehensible attitude of the Jewish police at Kunzendorf.”28
Eleven days later, Madritsch received permission from Scherner to open his new factory in Płaszów, though he did not go into details in his wartime memoirs, Menschen in Not! (People in Distress), about the “fight” within the SS that broke out over his application to move his sewing factory. Madritsch’s new contract with the SS “was valid until the end of the war.”29 Madritsch said that the principal reason for his success was the backing of Amon Göth, who supported the move “solely because [Madritsch and Titsch] were his fellow countrymen.”30
There is no doubt that Madritsch had to bribe Scherner, Göth, and other SS men for their support. Unlike Oskar, who broke down the amount of money he spent (Zł 750,000; $234,375) for bribes to the SS and others, Madritsch cited only the money he paid the SS each month for subsistence (Zł 350,000; $109,375) and “food subsidies” (Zł 250,000; $78,125). The latter payments to the SS had “to be balanced through sales on the black market.”31 And though Göth and other SS officers undoubtedly skimmed as much of this as they could from the top, Madritsch said that other costs centered around “the constant little gifts for the ‘attention of the other side’ [which] amounted to considerable sums, since not only prominent persons but also a high number of little people needed to be satisfied.” He included in this list of “little people” a small group of Jews who had “friendly relations with the camp commanders.”32 Given the size of his operation, which was a little larger than Schindler’s, one would assume that Madritsch was forced to pay bribes that exceeded the estimated Zł 750,000 Oskar Schindler spent on bribes during his years in Kraków.33
