Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Appendix D: The Belsen Trial
sponsibility of the firm. Responsibility for administration remained with the
parent concentration camp. He said: ‘There are considerable numbers of prisoners
working with industrial firms who are sick or physically unfit to do the
work they are detailed for. All these prisoners will be drafted into Belsen
Camp. It puts an unnecessary burden upon the industrial firms concerned and
therefore these prisoners must be transferred. Which prisoners and how many
Belsen is eventually going to hold I cannot tell you at the moment, because
that will have to be worked out as we go along. The general rule is to be that
every prisoner who through illness is absent from his work for more than 10 or
14 days will be transferred to Belsen. If and when these prisoners recover in
Belsen, they will either be formed into new detachments and sent out to new
jobs or returned to their old work, whichever may be more expedient. You see
that this is going to be a very big task for you. I suggest that you go to Belsen
now to look at the camp and see how you get along. If you want any help you
can either come back to Berlin or write.’
This is where the duty conversation came to an end. Glücks then asked me
how my wife and children were, and I enquired into the well-being of his family.
I also asked whether it would be possible when I took over Belsen Camp to
move my family there. He told me that I would have to go to Belsen and have a
look. If I could find a suitable house I should write to him and he would authorize
the move of my household. This conversation took place between
Gruppenführer Glücks and myself, there was nobody else present. These were
the only instructions I received and I did not ask for any more. I did not think I
would require any more instructions and was quite satisfied with my orders.
After the interview with Glücks I spoke to three officers whom I knew personally.
They were: Standartenführer Maurer (he was in charge of the allocation
of prisoners to camps and for labor); Hauptsturmführer Sommer (he
worked in Maurer’s department); and Sturmbannführer Burger (he was the
man who supervised the administration in the various concentration camps). I
did not have any conversation on duty matters with either of the three abovenamed
people. They were friends of mine, and as I happened to be in the
house, I went to their various offices to say ‘Hello.’ The leading doctor was a
Standartenführer Dr. Lolling. He was the M.O. in charge of all concentration
camps. I cannot remember any names of other people, but I can remember
these four names because they either came to visit the camps or I saw their
names on various letters coming from the Ministry.
I then travelled to Belsen, where I was received by Obersturmführer
Schaaf. He was the officer in charge of administration. The next morning I
went to the office and met Sturmbannführer Haas, the Kommandant, who knew
that I was arriving from Berlin to take over complete charge of Belsen. I asked
him how many prisoners the camp contained, and he said, ‘Roughly 15,000.’
He said that it was not much use to discuss matters in the office and suggested
a tour through the camp. On that tour he pointed out changes and improvements
which he still wanted to make. The camp was about 1½ kilometres long
and between 300 and 350 metres wide. There were roughly 60 barracks, in-
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