Auschwitz

Himmler180742 A 1945 Interrogation of Gauleiter Hoffmann by the British Army reveals odd recollections about Heinrich Himmler and a visit to the Auschwitz Camp.

Source: Federal Records Center, NARA, Suyitland, Md.: RG.332 ETO MIS-Y Sect., Box #50.

Picture above: July 18, 1942,
HIMMLER VISITS AUSCHWITZ
[Polish state archives]

Extract from BAOR Interrogation [032/CASE No. 0164/HOFFMANN] of Gauleiter Albert Johann Adolf Hoffmann, born 24.10.1907, Gauleiter of Westfalen Süd (NSDAP since 1926, appointed Feb 10, 1941 by Hess to be Deputy Gauleiter to Gauleiter Bracht in Upper Silesia; also to be Gauobmann of the DAF and Gauwirtschaftsberater, with officers at Kattowitz):-

"69. Subject is still convinced that National Socialist emphasis on the annihilation of the Jews was justified, since they represented a body of undesirables in Germany. His comments on the methods of treatment employed against the Jews, is, that he considers them to have been 'unfair.'
"70. Subject has personally visited two concentration Camps. Well before 1938 he inspected Dachau, where he found conditions to be excellent, and in 1941 he had occasion to accompany Himmler to Auschwitz. Here, he states, conditions were considerably worse. Maltreatment did occur and subject has actually seen the ovens where bodies where being burned. He totally disbelieves the accounts of atrocities as published in the Press. ..."

Hoffmann was captured Oct 4, 1945. His papers and typescript memoirs (Erinnerungen, dictated 1950) will be found in the Bundesarchiv-Koblenz, in file Kl. Erw. 854/1.

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