Plant Security at I.G. Auschwitz
As in the other plants of I.G. Farben, guard details were mounted for the new plant in Auschwitz as well, the so-called plant security force (Werkschutz). This “central instrument in the implementation of harsher disciplinary measures by I.G. Farben’s own agents”[1] consisted of three sections, named for their areas of activity: The Investigation Section, headed by Günther Lotzmann, was responsible for handling cases of theft and dealing with the so-called shirkers or slackers (Arbeitsbummelanten). The Abwehr (“defense,” counterintelligence) Section was led by Johann Brandl. Designated by the Wehrmacht as chief of counterintelligence, he was responsible for tracking “political” offenses such as sabotage and espionage. The third section, the uniformed plant guards under Bensch, took on the security functions and operated on the plant grounds as a security service with police-type authority and weapons, including dog teams.
The other tasks of the plant security force included screening the employees to ensure their “political harmlessness”[2] and blocking escapes, especially by foreign workers. In addition to the construction site, all the I.G. Auschwitz camps—with the sole exception of the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp, which was under SS control—were under the authority of the plant security force. Presiding over the three areas mentioned above was Oberstleutnant a.D. Franz Niepmann, who was accountable only to the plant manager, Walther Dürrfeld. The chief of the plant security force, Werkschutzführer Max Sauerteig, who was subordinate to Niepmann, was known for his brutality, especially in dealing with “foreign workers” (Fremdarbeiter): Günther Lotzmann testified in the I.G. Farben trial at Nuremberg that Sauerteig beat the prisoners and was backed in this by Dürrfeld.
In December 1943, the plant security force had 166 full-time employees, in addition to 150 part-time employees and a number of informers, so-called confidential agents, “who worked in the plant in the normal way and who reported on their observation.”[3] To reward them, the plant management provided the sections with an expense allowance.
The way the Investigation Section handled suspects varied, depending, for example, on who was suspected of a theft: a German laborer was interrogated, and then the record of the investigation was sent to Niepmann, the head of plant security, who decided on his own or in concert with Dürrfeld what the penalty would be. “Foreign workers” were also interrogated, but: “If the investigator was convinced that the foreign worker concerned was guilty but he would not admit his guilt, he was also hit in the face.”[4] The penalty for “foreign workers” was selected so as to preserve their manpower for the plant, and warnings or five strokes with a rubber hose were customary. Russian workers might also be locked up for up to three days in I.G. Farben’s own “detention room.” In general, at I.G. Auschwitz emphasis was placed on handing over only the especially serious cases to the Gestapo: There was a wish to avoid losing the services of plant workers who were locked up for lengthy periods. If concentration camp prisoners were suspected of theft, however, “the IG supervisor concerned made a report to Colonel NIEPMANN and the latter passed this on to SCHOETTL, the camp chief of the concentration camp Monowitz.”[5]Punishment—always brutal—then was the responsibility of the SS.
From the I.G.’s standpoint, going after “slackers” was one of the primary tasks of the plant guards: besides prisoners
In January 1945, as the construction site was being prepared for evacuation—disassembly and flight from the approaching Red Army—the plant security force not only cordoned off the grounds until the evacuation order came, but also made up one battalion of the German Volkssturm (national militia)in the area around Auschwitz.
(SP; transl. KL)