The Camps from the SS perspective

Bill Medland · Post by **Bill Medland** » 17 Nov 2002 15:50

I am interested to find out more about how the SS run the camps.
I would like to know what it was like for the SS, by this I do not mean the top people, I mean the SS-Sturmmann etc. Duty plan, camp rules for guards. How much free time, pay and conditions.
Was there cross postings to other camps, any form of rotation.
Were wifes and families of the lower ranks also housed in the guard quarters.
Is anyone else interested in this part of the holocaust, and any good websites where the training of Camp Guards is mentioned.

Regards,Bill.

Birgitte Heuschkel · Post by **Birgitte Heuschkel** » 17 Nov 2002 17:22

I am very interested, but unfortunately also very ignorant.

Thorfinn · Post by **Thorfinn** » 18 Nov 2002 00:11

I do not have the specifics in my head about pay, rotation, ect., but I have been told personal stories by relatives that had seen reality in punishment camps. The shortness of it is that the camps were not bad like most say they were; maybe they were bad in the end (I am sure they were not very good), but I have not heard personally about this, and there are outside factors for this. For inmates, it was better than being in a modern day strict prison. The guards did associate with inmates, and the general mood was not bad between the two groups.

witness · Post by **witness** » 18 Nov 2002 00:22

What an idyll ..! How moving...!

Benoit Douville · Post by **Benoit Douville** » 18 Nov 2002 03:24

Uh Thorfinn... You said that for the inmates in the concentration camp it was better than being in a modern strict prison. I completely disagree. The condition was inhuman. Enough said!

Davey Boy · Post by **Davey Boy** » 18 Nov 2002 07:38

Thorfinn wrote:I do not have the specifics in my head about pay, rotation, ect., but I have been told personal stories by relatives that had seen reality in punishment camps. The shortness of it is that the camps were not bad like most say they were; maybe they were bad in the end (I am sure they were not very good), but I have not heard personally about this, and there are outside factors for this. For inmates, it was better than being in a modern day strict prison. The guards did associate with inmates, and the general mood was not bad between the two groups.

Thorfinn, get a life.

Birgitte Heuschkel · Post by **Birgitte Heuschkel** » 18 Nov 2002 07:52

I am willing to buy Thorfinn's statement for a very few locations. I guess it depends on how you define 'camp' -- if somehow you get it obscured with internment or prison...

On the whole, though, I'm inclined to go with Hetman's laconic sentiment.

Thorfinn · Post by **Thorfinn** » 18 Nov 2002 22:51

Keep your immature views. How many of you know, or knew men that were actually in the camps, and saw their reality? For me, the words of honest Germans, with nothing to gain or lose, mean more than the popular word of those with an agenda. I know that the camps were not as bad as the popular myth, and if you can not hear that with an opened mind, you have the problem. Keep your ideals of piles of gold teeth, and unhuman SS guards.

witness · Post by **witness** » 18 Nov 2002 23:22

the popular myth

You are denying that the atrocitities in the camps happened .
This is obvious. Keep your very mature views.You can also visit a couple of the Neo-Nazi sites to share your maturity with the like -minded fellows.
Did you speak with the survivors of the camps btw ?

Davey Boy · Post by **Davey Boy** » 19 Nov 2002 08:14

Thorfinn wrote:Keep your immature views. How many of you know, or knew men that were actually in the camps, and saw their reality? For me, the words of honest Germans, with nothing to gain or lose, mean more than the popular word of those with an agenda. I know that the camps were not as bad as the popular myth, and if you can not hear that with an opened mind, you have the problem. Keep your ideals of piles of gold teeth, and unhuman SS guards.

My great uncle was a prisoner at a concentration camp for stealing a sack of grain from a train station. I can assure you, it wasn't all fun and games for him, and he's got the scars to prove it. Very few of his friends from the camp survived to be liberated. He was lucky.

Thorfinn, you're a complete clown. Maybe one day you will realise how ridiculous you are, but I doubt it. I kind of feel sorry for you. Your relatives have been telling you fairy tales all your life and you believe every single word of it. You're almost living in a parallel universe where reality has no meaning. Wake up you fool.

Oleg Grigoryev · Post by **Oleg Grigoryev** » 19 Nov 2002 09:07

What a conception… it is like asking NKVD veterans how GULAG was… Interesting, if they told, that in fact GULAG was on big playground, would Thorfinn believe them? on the other hand we have plenty of our own Thorfinns.

Birgitte Heuschkel · Post by **Birgitte Heuschkel** » 19 Nov 2002 09:17

What, GULAG wasn't a cheery winter resort with free after-ski bars? There goes my vision...

Kidding aside, to assume that any form of internment is ever pleasant strikes me as fairly ridiculous. The instant you take an individual's freedom of movement and speech away you are hurting him. There has never been any doubt in my mind that KZ or GULAG, it was atrocious. If there is any difference in gruesomeness at all, it must be that the Nazis industrialized death, whereas Stalin at least had the 'social economical sense' to work his undesirables to death.

julian · Post by **julian** » 19 Nov 2002 09:32

Ah yes, perhaps Thorfin has hit the nail on the head with his comments regarding the social interaction between the guards and inmates at the concentration camps, were there perhaps family days, when the inmates families and the guard's families would have a barbecue(using the on site facilities no doubt), only in this case whilst the guard's families would go home, the inmate's families would stay. Indeed, maybe Bill and Thorfin could organise a reunion for former guards and inmates(those left of course), I'm sure this would be a great idea, hey Thorfin

Cheers

Julian

Birgitte Heuschkel · Post by **Birgitte Heuschkel** » 19 Nov 2002 10:18

Oh, would they then join in merry games such as Teach A Jew To Fly which was described by some camp guard in Nuremberg? You take a Jew and a tall cliff...

tomalbright · Post by **tomalbright** » 19 Nov 2002 14:27

Bill..a very good question..we don't enough about the war-time camp guard units....we do know that the guard units were not permitted by regulation to enter the protective custody camp..their contact with the prisoners was limited to guarding outside labor details (in these duties, the kapos and detail leaders were responsible for the discipline and "performance" of a detail, not the guards) or hunting down escapees..several major exceptions: at KL Auschwitz-Birkenau, guard unit details were used to secure the railhead landing platforms during extermination operations. Also, many murders were committed by individual guard personnel on the "death march" evacuations which took place in the last months of the war. At KL Mauthausen, guard personnel were responsible for many of the arbitrary quarry shootings when inmates would be driven over the guard line by sadistic kapos and SS detail leaders. Generally speaking, the guard units represented an amorphous "outer circle of hell" in the camp system. Most of the individual SS crimes you read about were committed by camp administrative personnel, particularly Block and Detail leaders, Rapportfuhrers, and Schutzhaftlagerfuhrers. These individuals had life and death authority over the camp inmates' day-to-day existence. Many, perhaps most, camp guards could in fair conscience say they never committed any crimes against inmates, but they were all complicit in the system of oppression.

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The Camps from the SS perspective

The Camps from the SS perspective

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