The Concentration Camps at Esterwegen and Papenburg - An account of Rudolf Diels, Head of the Prussian Political Police- Memoir from 1950.
Source: J. Noakes & G. Pridham, Documents on Nazism 1919-1945, (London, 1974), pp.184-186.
At the beginning of October we heard that in Esterwegen and Papenburg prisoners had been shot while escaping. ... I was refused access to the Esterwegen camp by the SS. I had announced my visit to the camp a week before. But Goering's order, which I had to show, had not impressed the SS. When I appeared at the entrance of the camp, as far as they were concerned I was a civilian without position or rank in their mighty organisation. Only when Weitzel, the SS group leader in Duesseldorf, had given the commandant permission by telephone was I allowed to enter the camp. The Papenburg camp granted me admission. But what can an 'inspection' of such an institution reveal? The prisoners' replies to the questions put by the inspector are determined by the fear of displeasing their tormentors in whose power the prisoners remain. The food is always adequate and the shining cleanliness of floors and barracks and the scrupulous tidiness of the beds do not tell that they are a means of tormenting the inmates. Nobody can see in the ridiculous straightness of the freshly raked expanses of sand that a violation of such orderliness means 'bunker' and corporal punishment. In Papenburg the unusual happened; a few of the prisoners' spokesmen 'let themselves go'. They not only complained of the food, but they made it clear that they had been subjected to ill-treatment.
In Papenburg, the mayor too had told me of the excesses of the SS towards the population. SS men roamed through the district pillaging like the Swedes in the Thirty Years War. They 'confiscated' arrested people who had incurred their displeasure and started brawls with the youths of the surrounding villages. My visit had also encouraged the Regierungspraesident in Osnabrueck to inform me of the misdeeds of the SS in the camp. Then, just at the right time, came a serious complaint by a Cologne lawyer, Dr. Puender, made to the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, on behalf of his brother, State Secretary Puender, who was in the hands of the SS thugs in Papenburg. Frick had Puender's complaint passed on to me and Guertner by Oberregierungsrat Erbe. Erbe promised me his support and Hanfstaengl promised to work on Hitler. At the same time, the Chief Prosecutor Halm of Osnabrueck had reported that investigations in the camps, which he had wanted to undertake because of the ill-treatment of the innkeeper, Hillig, by SS men in Papenburg had been refused with severe threats. Bypassing SS and Police Chief Daluege, I went with Joel, the public prosecutor, to Goering's representative, State Secretary Grauert. He gave us fifty Berlin police officers armed with carbines with whom Joel set off for Papenburg. A delegate sent by Joel was told that if the police approached the camp they would be received with machine guns. When Joel attempted to get into the camp, bullets flew round his ears. On his informing Grauert of this state of affairs, he was told to wait for further instructions.
Meanwhile, Himmler had protested to Goering against the use of the police against the SS. Goering would have given in, had Joel not informed him that the SS were fraternising with the prisoners in the camp and were going to arm them. This brought a new element into the revolutionary situation. Mention of the mutinous SS put all other arguments in the shade. Goering asked me to report to Hitler in his presence on what had happened. Hitler ordered the 'take-over' of the camps by the police. When I had informed Grauert, he sent 200 Osnabrueck police off to the Dutch border. But they had to make ready to lay siege, as it were, to the camps, especially as a representative of SS Group Leader Weitzel appeared on the scene and tried to intimidate the police officers with threats from Himmler. I now went to ask Hitler straight whether the police could not use force of arms against the SS. Hitler let me see him and after my renewed account of the excesses in the camps, he interrupted me in a military voice of command and ordered me to ask the Reich Defence Minister for army artillery, and to shoot up the camps, the SS and their prisoners without mercy. My colleagues were horrified when I arrived with this order from the Fuehrer. It was clear to me that I could not take it seriously. I asked my superior, Ministerialdirektor Fischer in the Ministry of the Interior, to negotiate with the mutinous SS about their 'demands', which, like freebooters, they had made the conditions of their departure. They had demanded coats, blankets, and back pay. After he had informed the SS, through an SS leader of Weitzel's, of the fulfilment of their demands, Joel took possession of the camps without bloodshed. He then spent some time in Papenburg to begin investigations into the violence of the SS guards.
... At this time Joel also went to Kemma near Wuppertal at Grauert's and my instigation. The SA had tortured the Communists there in a particularly 'original' way. They were forced to drink salty herring solution and then left to pant in vain for a sip of water throughout the hot summer days. One of my officers who had accompanied Joel reported that the SA there had also played the 'joke' of getting their prisoners to climb trees; they had to hang on in the treetops for hours on end and at certain intervals cry 'cuckoo'. The public prosecutor Winckler in Wuppertal, who proposed to act against the SA, had to flee with his wife and child from their threats. The Regierungspraesident Schmidt in Duesseldorf poured out his heart to me about the atrocities. With Joel, I succeeded in getting Goering to have the 'responsible' SA Group Leader relieved of his office, to ensure that Joel had a free hand in the prosecution of the SA guards. After a few months, Joel succeeded, despite the opposition of the Gauleiter Florian, in starting proceedings against the guilty SA men. But the struggle against Hitler, who finally terminated the proceedings, he was bound to lose. ... In reality, there were neither commands nor prohibitions. Before or after my reports to Goering and Hitler on acts of violence in the country, SA and SS leaders talked about the bravery of their men on the field of revolution. These acts were approved of and laughed over just as they were disapproved of when I represented them as excesses against the authority of the new state. ... Already, the SA were breaking into the police prisons, to get hold of the Communist leaders who had been arrested after the Reichstag fire, and who, they intended, should be the victims of their special revenge. From the police headquarters they took the files which could incriminate their leaders; the frightened officials handed over what they were asked for.
