Something I've been curious about

[eiszeit]

Okay, I think this goes here... but if someone feels that it should be moved to another category, feel free to go do so.

I have a question that's been bugging me for a while. I'd like it if someone can answer this and back it up with facts, but I've been doing research for the past three years or so and I've found nothing.

Did the SS send their own men to the KZs? Not as workers, I mean, but as prisoners. I'd assume such a thing happened (though the cases were probably few and far between), but I haven't found any documentation proving this... Not surprising; I sort of assumed that Heinrich would cover up his men being sent to the KZ, more for the image of the SS rather than the individual's. But, since we've got some SS men in here, I figured I might as well post this question here and see what answers come up

[sweetlunapie]

Personally, I just figured that they took them out back and shot them, or put them on trial and cut their heads off or hanged them...but I have no citations.

[brooklynfan]

From what I have read and understood, if you did something that would warrant imprisonment in the Wehrmacht, generally you were sent to the ostfront, either with a regular unit (AKA you angered a lower officer) or if you were put before a military tribunal you would have been sent Ost with a Penal Battalion. These men were considered the lowest of the low (they were not even allowed to wear insignia) and were put in extremely hazardous assignments- After all, they were expendable. To waste the lead for bullets would only have been done in times when an example was to be made and that wasnt all that common.

As far as I know I have never heard of an SS member being sent to a KL. Not saying it didnt happen, but it would have been the exception rather than the norm.

[Laurasia]

Hello Eiszeit.

I would have to scour my books to try & find specific instances, but I have heard of SS men being sent to the eastern front to die as punishment. I'm not sure about SS men being sent to labor camps as prisoners though. I do recall SS men being sent to work at a death camp for a time as a form of punishment though.

Sincerely,
Laurasia

[eiszeit]

Thanks to everyone here who responded to the question! I'm really glad I got some answers so far!

@fritzhollman: Do you happen to know any specific names/crimes? What would warrant someone in the SS sending a fellow comrade to a KZ? I'd assume it'd have to be something really, really serious... I don't think that "you'll be sent to a KZ!" was a threat thrown around in the SS offices just for the h*ll of it.

@sweetlunapie: That's what I always figured, too, to be honest. But then someone brought up the KZ possibility, and it really wouldn't surprise me if this were the case... I'm sure it didn't happen very often, but it may have happened once in a blue moon.

brooklynfan: I don't think I formally welcomed you to the forum... In that case, hello! Thank you for the information you presented here. I'd wondered what the procedure was for the Wehrmacht. I remembered coming across a lot of cases where they were sent to the front and put into hazardous situations when I was researching... Sounds like a terrifying fate to have had...

@laurasia: I definitely wouldn't be surprised if going to work in a KZ was considered a form of punishment... So much emotional damage to be done, to both the inmates and the guards. I feel sorry for some of the guards, honestly, because I've heard of cases where they literally just snapped and had to take a leave of rest, or killed themselves, or worse.

[brooklynfan]

Hmm, I had a nice long response typed out but the forum ate it. I apologise but I will have to do a quick response.

Thank you for the welcome Eiszeit

Perhaps I should have prefaced my comments with the statement that most of my knowledge is with the fighing arms of the Wehrmacht. I wasnt very much into politics back then (Heck, I wasnt even a member of the Party) and I could have cared less what the "Strasse Soldaten" did in their political circles. However, I do believe that some of those 'chosen' to work the original camps were those who had angered the wrong person or something of that matter. Later, most of those folks ended up being sent Ost anyway. Most folks dont realise it but by the time of the "Hungarian Aktion" 80-90% of the lower level guards (read: enlisted) were actually men who had been injured or declared unfit in some way or another. Heck, a fair number of them were actually from the other branches and werent even SS.

And I think that the experience did cause a great deal of stress and damage. Ive never heard of a 'confirmed' suicide in the camps by a guard, but im sure it happened, its just that it doesnt look good to report it as such. I also know that there were a number of attempts (I tried a couple of times but was too much of a coward to go through with it) and naturally, escapism ocurred as well... the most popular by far being alcohol. I know that was my drug of choice back then. Problem is that the effects are only temporary and their side effect of lowering inhibitions led, in many cases to far greater suffering for the inmates.

[Laurasia]

Hi Eiszeit.

I looked through some of the biographies in my book "The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror" by Gordon Williamson (ISBN-13: 978-0-7607-8168-5 & ISBN-10: 0-7607-8168-0) & I found some examples that you may be interested in regarding the ways that punishment was doled out amongst the SS & how it was sometimes used for propoganda.

Warning! Some content may be disturbing to some members!

Grunewald, Adam - Before the war Grunewald served as a commander of the Dachau detention centre & was an adminstrative officer in the Totenkompfverbande. He was transferred to the new SS-TK at the beginning of the war & was appointed to command the bakery company. He executed this assignment well enough to be promoted to command the division's procurment service, & remianed with the Totenkompf Division from November 1939 until October 1942. He was reassigned to camp duty as commander of the detention centre at Oranienberg, a post he held until January 1943, when he was moved up to the mager assignment of commandant of the huge concentration camp & deportation centre in Vught in occupied Holland.

Grunewald's stewardship of Vught became unusually notorious, & in early 1944 an SS investigation revealed that he had sanctioned especcialy brutal treatment of prisoners, allowing such overcrowding in the camp's detention cells that the unsanitary conditions killed a number of women political detainees. Grunewald was removed from his command & court marshalled at Himmler's express order. As punishment he was demoted to the rank of SS private & sentenced in April 1944 to an indefinite term of combat with the Totenkompf Division. While fighting with the division in Hungary in January 1945, Grunewald was killed in action fighting the Russians.

Kaminski, Bronislav Vladislavovich - Kaminiski was arrested by the SS in Lodz & charged with looting, an offense punishable by death. He was shot by an SS firing squad on being found guilty. His death was officially attributed to a Polish partisan ambush on the road to Lodz however.

Koch, Karl-Otto - Koch became commandant of Esterwegen concentration camp. In an open-air wedding ceremony in 1936 he married Ilse & they both went to Buchenwald in 1939, he as camp commandant & she as an SS-assistant, Despite Himmler's continuous preaching about SS honour & integrity, Koch & others like him grew exceedingly rich from the concentration camp system, but he went too far, even by the appalling standards of the time. While commandant of the camp at Lublin, by an irony of SS practice, Koch was judged to be criminally involved by his SS peers. The investigation of an SS court conducted by dr Morgen found him guilty of embezzlement & the illegal killing of two prisoners, Kramer & Peix. The SS court sentenced him to death & he was hanged by his SS colleagues.

Rascher, Sigmund - A particularly unpleasent character, Sigmund Rascher was urged to join the Allgemeine-SS when he demonstrated considerable Nazi spirit by denouncing his opwn father. He married a woman 15 years his senior, & as mother worship formed an essential part of Heinrich Himmler's folklore, he became very interested in the young man.

Rascher was engaged on a boring medical course with the Luftwaffe in Munich in May 1941 when he wrote to Himmler, asking if he could have human guinea pigs for high-altitude experiments using a pressure chamber which involved the death of the victims. Himmler agreed, & Rascher undertook the experiment at Dachau. Luftwaffe Colonel-General Milch had some misgivings a year later, & wrote to Karl Wolff requesting that the apparatus be returned to the Luftwaffe & suggesting that Rascher should undertake freezing experiments. Himmler visited him at Dachau in November 1941, & Rascher discussed the use of animal heat in reviving frozen airmen. Himmler found this fascinating, although Rascher's report showed that the experiment had been useless. Himmler ordered Pohl to have four prostitutes sent to Dachau for further experiments in reviving the frozen bodies, although he later protested that Pohl should not have selected girls of German blood.

Himmler had Rascher transferred to the Waffen-SS & permantently situated at Dachau, where he worked until May 1945, when Karl von Eberstein came to arrest him, not for his experiments, but because his wife had kidnapped children from orphanages. The camp commandant & the chief medical officer seized their chance, emitting a flood of complaints against Rascher, whom they described as a "dangerous, incredible person" who had himmler's patronage in performing "unspeakable horrors". Himmler would not countenance a trial of the Raschers, but they were confined in the political bunkers of Dachau & Ravensbruck, the fate of people who knew too much. It is believed they both perished at the beginning of May 1945.

Sincerely,
Laurasia