34

Heidegger, History and the Holocaust

Auschwitz: Factory of death

If we consider briefly the expansion and development of Auschwitz during the 1940s,
we begin to get yet another insight into the emergence of mass extermination as a real
possibility. The evidence would seem to suggest that Auschwitz was initially acquired
and intended for rather less horrifying purposes. When Rudolf Hss first assumed
command of the former Polish army barracks it was to serve as a detention camp
for approximately 10,000 Polish political dissidents per year. Twenty-three thousand
Poles were rounded up and in a 20-month period about half of that number perished.
The camp was designed to function as a deterrent to would-be political dissidents in
Poland and was noted for its appalling living conditions and extreme brutality.
The first major plans for developing Auschwitz were conceived as a result of its
location. Scientists at IG Farben had spent years conducting research and experiments on how to manufacture synthetic rubber and fuel. They identified water, coal
and lime as the crucial components and since Auschwitz was very close to sources
of fresh water and lime along with some of the richest coal seams in Europe, it was
quickly earmarked as an ideal location for IG Farbens synthetic rubber (buna) factory.
Himmler visited Auschwitz and decided that a 30,000-person slave camp, the biggest
of its kind, would be constructed at Auschwitz where a somewhat Arcadian German
municipality was simultaneously to be developed for pure-bred Germans.23 Himmler
himself was to have an apartment in the town and the elaborate and lavish plans,
down to the very dcor, were drawn up by an architect charged with working on the
project. So Auschwitz, as we can see, was initially shaped according to political and
subsequently industrial objectives which had little to do with the implementation of
the Final Solution. Hitlers rather more spectacular plans, which involved the invasion
and conquering of Russia, were to outstrip the slightly less ambitious aspirations
of Himmler and would ultimately lead to the transformation of Auschwitz from a
political concentration camp for Polish political dissidents to one of the first (and
certainly the most infamous) factories of death in the history of humankind. But
again, we have to understand that this was not the simple realization of the diabolical
designs of an evil, Jew-hating demagogue; Auschwitz was the result of a series of
visions, measures and ideas which had emerged from above and below within the
political and military hierarchy of the Third Reich. The evolution of the camp is indicative of the revelatory ordinances which came from the Nazis and yet from beyond
them. Auschwitz and its original function predated the plans for the Final Solution
and the way the infamous death camp was revealed to the Nazis was something that
was determined according to circumstance. Initially it functioned as a detention camp
for political dissidents, then as a work camp for the manufacture of synthetic rubber.
Subsequently these requirements were usurped by the need to find a location for the
swelling population of Russian POWs before the Nazis finally decided that the best
solution to the Jewish problem in Europe was in fact the dissolution of the Jewish
race which led to Auschwitz revealing itself to them as an exterminationist installation
which could be used to dispose of all of the human waste which was generated during
their expansion through the East.