Television Interview With Hans M�nch
The doctor and former SS-Untersturmfuehrer Hans Münch was among the 40 members of the Auschwitz camp personnel indicted and tried in Krakow in Poland 1946-1947. The trial led to some 20 death sentences, but
Muench was acquitted.
He had taken part in gassings but had refused to assist in the so-called selections. Some
ex-prisoners also testified in his favor. After his release, Münch returned to Germany where he continued his medical practice.
In 1964 he testified at the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt am Main. He
agreed to an interview with Swedish television in 1981, against the
wish of his family. It has been broadcast twice on Swedish TV, in
1982 and 1992.
Excerpts from an interview with Dr. Hans Münch.
[...]
Münch: I received eight weeks of normal military
training and then came to the Waffen-SS Institute for Hygiene in
Berlin. That was the highest authority for all institutes of hygiene
within the Waffen-SS. The Waffen-SS was considered to be on an equal
footing with the German army. From Berlin I was ordered to Field
Laboratory South-East, and this Field Laboratory South-East had been
set up to deal with the diseases that had appeared in Auschwitz.
Swedish Television: So you came to Auschwitz? Did
you know what Auschwitz was?
M: No! It was in 1943, in the spring, early
summer. There I... That field laboratory had been established because
of the diseases that were prevalent in the camp and that leaked out
through the camp fence, and threatened the men and the civilian
population. Expert bacteriological research had to be conducted and
adequate measures taken. That was our task.
ST: Not to save the prisoners?
M: By no means...There was the possibility, but
the risk for a major epidemic among those close to 100 000 people in
unhygienic conditions and in a not too hygienic environment...
ST: The purpose was to save the personnel?
M: Yes, and the surroundings. The town of
Auschwitz was not far away. A major epidemic would certainly have
erupted. [...] During my time, the crematories were used several
times a week to burn the corpses that came. Soon after my arrival, at
the latest towards the end of the summer, transports came that were
exterminated and Auschwitz was then used as an extermination camp.
ST: The camp that was seven kilometers from
Auschwitz was Birkenau, right?
M: Yes, five or seven kilometers. Next to the camp
Birkenau was the machinery of extermination.
ST: How do you know that the extermination there
was carried out with gas?
M: When one's professional task is to inspect the
hygienic conditions of the camp and one has to pass through the camp
it was impossible not to notice.
ST: Did you see the crematories yourself?
M: Yes, of course. It wasn't part of my daily
routine, but it was impossible to avoid it, even if I hadn't known
what it was. Everybody active in the SS in Auschwitz knew of course
what the crematories were, and it was impossible not to notice the
smoke and the chimneys and feel the smell. In the SS the use of gas
was discussed quite openly.
ST: Were doctors present at the gassings?
M: They had to be present. According to strict
regulations they had to be present, as in civilized states at every
normal individual execution for legal reasons. In the same way there
was a military order that at least one doctor had to be present at
exterminations by gas in Auschwitz, for two reasons. Firstly, the
whole thing had to be under medical supervision. And the gas wasn't
thrown in by the regular camp personnel but by the camp doctors'
medical orderlies.
[...]
ST: When you were off-duty you spoke about this?
About special treatment, about the gassing?
M: It was discussed very intensely, hardly
ideologically, whether it was ideologically correct to exterminate
the Jews, but rather the technical problems that always occur at this
overstraining of the camp.
ST. You refused to participate in it. Could you
say so openly?
M: I had nothing to do with it in the first place.
I was ordered there and belonged to the Hygienic Institute. One has
to explain those bureaucratic things precisely...
ST: I understand that, but did you discuss it with
each other?
M: Yes, very intensely, also ideologically.
ST: Did you object to it, for example because of
medico-ethical reasons?
M: Yes, exactly. Among doctors we could discuss it
openly, like we talk about it today. There was no limit at all.
Outwardly you were completely isolated. Everybody knew very well that
among civilians or military personnel he should never say a word. I
was for instance often in Plaszow... No, not in Plaszow. It was a
training camp for the Waffen-SS, near Krakow. It was also important,
a military camp. There I ate in the messroom, the officers' mess.
There were SS doctors and SS officers too. "Do you come from
Auschwitz?" - everybody wanted to know how it was there.
"Is it really like that? One hears the most horrible
things." It was very difficult to be evasive. I would never have
dared to tell any SS officer, who still had to be considered an
"insider", anything at all about Auschwitz. In Auschwitz it
was completely different.
ST: There you could dissociate yourself from it?
M: Absolutely.
ST: What objections did your colleagues have who
were for it?
M: "Is it necessary to do this in the middle
of the war? There will be time for it later." "One should
try to get as big a work force as possible. It would be better if the
people were fed better." That was one view. Then there was the
opposite view. "It has to be done at once. If we wait any longer
there will be objections, and there are those who are against
it."
ST: From a purely technical point of view, people
were against it? And economically?
M: That was the main problem.
ST: But ideologically?
M: Ideologically...
ST: The majority was for it?
M: The majority of the doctors were against it
from a purely technical point of view, and also because of economic
reasons.
ST: But ideologically in favour?
M. Ideologically nobody differed.
ST: What was the ideology?
M: Simply National Socialism, as expounded by
[Alfred] Rosenberg. The Germanic race was the future of the world and
a guarantee against corruption and mismanagement and for keeping our
Europe pure. The root cause of every evil in culture, of every
degeneracy was the Jews, which is clear from the fact that the Jews
weren't tolerated already in the Middle Ages. There must have been
good reasons to put them into ghettos. There were constant pogroms,
not only in Germany, in the whole of Europe. That is because the
Jewish race is a destructive factor. There is no development, no
peace, nothing worth living for when the Jews have a finger in the
pie.
ST: Therefore they must be exterminated?
M: Because it hasn't succeeded so far in spite of
all the severe measures, but they continually take hold of decisive
posts in the economy, in the state, in cultural life. It has to be
stopped. That can be done only by total physical extermination.
[...]
ST: Isn't the ideology of extermination contrary
to a doctor's ethical values?
M: Yes, absolutely. There is no discussion. But I
lived in that environment, and I tried in every possible way to avoid
accepting it, but I had to live with it. What else could I have done?
And I wasn't confronted with it directly until the order came that I
and my superior and another one had to take part in the
exterminations since the camp's doctors were overloaded and couldn't
cope with it.
ST: I must ask something. Doubters claim that
"special treatment" could mean anything. It didn't have to
be extermination.
M: "Special treatment" in the
terminology of the concentration camp means physical extermination.
If it was a question of more than a few people, where nothing else
than gassing them was worth while, they were gassed.
ST: "Special treatment" was gassing?
M: Yes, absolutely.
ST: And "selection".
M: That was the selection of those who were still
fit for work and those who were no longer economically useful.
ST: Doctors made the "selection"?
M: It was supposed to be that way, but it was
impossible considering the number.
[...]
Sources:
Bruchfeld, Stephane: Foernekandet av Foerintelsen. Nynazistisk historiefoerfalskning efter Auschwitz, Stockholm 1995, Svenska Kommitten Mot Antisemitism.
Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism
[email protected]
Address: Box 34036, S-100 26 Stockholm, Sweden
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