The visit took place on a Friday in December. It was bitterly cold. Speer was accompanied by specialists from his ministry. His special plane, a Heinkel, took us as far as Nordhausen; there, a delegation from the camp led by Kommandant Förschner welcomed us and escorted us to the site. The road, barred by numerous SS checkpoints, ran alongside the south side of the Harz; Förschner explained to us that the entire mountain chain had been declared a no-entry zone; other underground projects had been launched a little farther north, in Mittelbau satellite camps; in Dora itself, the northern sections of the two tunnels had been allocated for the manufacture of Junker airplane engines. Speer listened to his explanations without saying anything. The road led to a large dirt plaza; on one side were lined up the barracks of the SS guards and of the Kommandantur; opposite, cluttered with piles of construction materials and covered with camouflage nets, recessed beneath a ridge planted with pine trees, gaped the entrance to the first tunnel. We entered it behind Förschner and some engineers from Mittelwerke. Gypsum dust and the acrid smoke of industrial explosives caught my throat; mixed in with them were other indefinable odors, sweet and nauseating, which reminded me of my first camp visits. As we advanced, the Häftlinge, alerted by the Spiess who preceded the delegation, lined up at attention and removed their caps. Most were horribly thin; their heads, balanced precariously on scrawny necks, looked like hideous balls decorated with enormous noses and ears cut out of cardboard; they were set with immense, empty eyes that refused to rest on you. Close to them, the smells I had noticed upon entering became a rank stench that emanated from their dirty clothes, their wounds, their very bodies. Many of Speer’s men, green, were holding handkerchiefs to their faces; Speer kept his hands behind his back and examined everything with a closed, tense look. Connecting the two main tunnels, A and B, transverse galleries were spaced out every twenty-five meters: the first of them revealed rows of bunk beds made of coarse wood, four levels high, from which, under cudgel blows of an SS noncom, there tumbled down to come stand at attention a swarming horde of ragged inmates, most of them naked or almost naked, some with their legs stained with shit. The bare concrete ceilings were sweating with humidity. In front of the bunks, at the intersection of the main tunnel, large metal barrels, cut in half lengthwise and placed on their sides, served as latrines; they were almost overflowing with a yellow, green, brown, stinking liquid. One of Speer’s assistants exclaimed: “But it’s Dante’s Inferno!” Another, standing a little back, was vomiting against the wall. I too felt the old nausea returning, but I held myself in and breathed in long hisses, between my teeth. Speer turned to Förschner: “Do the inmates live here?”—“Yes, Herr Reichsminister.”—“They never go outside?”—“No, Herr Reichsminister.” As we continued advancing, Förschner explained to Speer that he lacked everything and that he was incapable of ensuring the requisite sanitary conditions; epidemics were decimating the inmates. He even showed us a few corpses piled in front of the perpendicular galleries, naked or covered with a loose canvas tarp, human skeletons with ravaged skin. In one of the dormitory-galleries, soup was being served: Speer asked to taste it. He swallowed his spoonful, then had me taste it in turn; I had to force myself not to spit it out; it was a bitter, revolting gruel; it tasted like boiled weeds; even at the bottom of the pot, there was almost nothing solid. We visited the entire length of the tunnel this way, up to the Junker factory, wading through the mud and the refuse, breathing with difficulty, in the midst of thousands of Häftlinge who mechanically presented themselves one after the other, their faces stripped of the slightest expression. I examined their badges: aside from Germans, mostly “greens,” there were “reds” there from every country in Europe, Frenchmen, Belgians, Italians, Dutchmen, Czechs, Poles, Russians, and even Spaniards, republicans interned in France after their defeat (but of course there were no Jews: at that time, Jewish workers were still forbidden in Germany). In the transverse galleries, after the dormitories, inmates supervised by civil engineers worked on the components and assembly of the rockets; farther on, in a deafening din and in a thick cloud of dust, a veritable ant battalion was digging new galleries and emptying the stones into dump carts pushed by other inmates on hastily installed tracks. As we left, Speer asked to see the Revier; it was an extremely makeshift installation, with room for about forty men at the most. The chief physician showed him the mortality and morbidity statistics: dysentery, typhus, and tuberculosis especially wrought havoc. Outside, in the face of the whole delegation, Speer exploded with a contained but virulent rage: “Obersturmbannführer Förschner! This factory is a scandal! I’ve never seen anything like it. How can you hope to work properly with men in that condition?” Förschner, under the invective, had instinctively stood at attention. “Herr Reichsminister,” he replied, “I’m ready to improve the conditions, but I’m not given the means. I can’t be held responsible.” Speer was white as a sheet. “Very well,” he barked. “I order you to have a camp built immediately, here, outside, with showers and toilets. Have the papers for the allocation of materials drawn up for me immediately and I will sign them before I leave.” Förschner led us to the barracks of the Kommandantur and gave the necessary orders. While Speer talked with his aides and the engineers, I, furious, took Förschner aside: “I asked you expressly in the Reichsführer’s name to make sure the camp was presentable. This is a Schweinerei.” Förschner didn’t let himself get flustered: “Obersturmbannführer, you know as well as I do that an order without the means to carry it out isn’t worth much. I’m sorry, but I have no magic wand. I had the galleries washed this morning, but I couldn’t do anything else. If the Reichsminister provides us with construction materials, so much the better.” Speer had joined us: “I’ll see to it that the camp receives additional rations.” He turned to a civil engineer who was standing next to him: “Sawatsky, it goes without saying that the inmates under your orders will have priority. We cannot demand complex assembly labor from the sick and dying.” The civilian nodded: “Of course, Herr Reichsminister. It’s especially the turnover that’s becoming unmanageable. We have to replace them so often that it’s impossible to train them correctly.” Speer turned to Förschner: “That doesn’t mean that you should neglect the ones who are assigned to the construction of the galleries. You will also increase their rations, insofar as possible. I’ll talk about it to Brigadeführer Kammler.”—“Zu Befehl, Herr Reichsminister,” said Förschner. His expression remained opaque, closed; Sawatsky looked happy. Outside, some of Speer’s men were waiting for us, scribbling in notebooks and greedily breathing in the cold air. I shivered: winter had set in.
In Berlin, I again found myself overwhelmed by the Reichsführer’s requests. I had reported Speer’s visit to him, and he made only one comment: “Reichsminister Speer should know what he wants.” I saw him regularly now to discuss labor questions: he wanted at all costs to increase the quantity of workers available in the camps to supply the SS industries, private enterprises, and especially the new underground construction projects that Kammler wanted to develop. The Gestapo was making more and more arrests, but on the other hand, with the coming of fall and then winter, the mortality rate, which had dropped markedly during the summer, was increasing again, and the Reichsführer wasn’t pleased. Still, when I suggested a series of measures I thought were realistic, that I was planning with my team, he didn’t respond, and the actual measures implemented by Pohl and the IKL seemed random and unpredictable, not corresponding to any plan. Once I seized the occasion of a remark of the Reichsführer’s to criticize what I regarded as arbitrary, unconnected initiatives: “Pohl knows what he’s doing,” he retorted curtly. Soon after, Brandt summoned me and scolded me in a courteous but firm tone: “Listen, Obersturmbannführer, you’re doing very good work, but I’m going to tell you what I’ve already said a hundred times to Brigadeführer Ohlendorf: instead of annoying the Reichsführer with negative, pointless criticisms and complicated questions that he doesn’t even understand, you’d do better to cultivate your relationship with him. Bring him, I don’t know, a medieval treatise on medicinal plants, nicely bound, and talk with him a little about it. He’ll be delighted, and it will allow you to form a bond with him, to make yourself better understood. That will make things a lot easier for you. And also, I’m sorry, but when you present your reports, you’re so cold and haughty it only annoys him even more. That’s not how you’re going to settle things.” He went on a little more in the same vein; I didn’t say anything, I was thinking: he was probably right. “One more piece of advice: you’d do well to get married. Your attitude on the subject is deeply annoying to the Reichsführer.” I stiffened: “Standartenführer, I’ve already explained my reasons to the Reichsführer. If he doesn’t approve of them, he should tell me so himself.” An incongruous thought made me repress a smile. Brandt wasn’t smiling and was staring at me like an owl through his large round glasses. Their lenses reflected my own doubled image; the reflection prevented me from discerning his gaze. “You’re wrong, Obersturmbannführer, you’re wrong. But it’s your choice.”
I resented Brandt’s attitude, it was completely unjustified, in my opinion: he had no business getting involved in my private life that way. My private life, actually, was taking a pleasant turn; and it had been a long time since I had enjoyed myself so much. On Sundays I went to the pool with Helene, sometimes also with Thomas and one of his girlfriends; we’d go out for tea or hot chocolate, then I’d take Helene to the movies, if there was something worth seeing, or else to the concert to hear Karajan or Furtwängler; and we’d have dinner before I took her home. I also saw her from time to time during the week: a few days after my visit to Mittelbau, I had invited her to our fencing hall, at the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais, where she watched us fence and applauded the thrusts, then, in the company of Thomas, who flirted outrageously with her friend Liselotte, to an Italian restaurant. On December 19, we were together during the great English attack; in the public shelter where we had taken refuge, she sat next to me without saying anything, her shoulder against mine, flinching slightly at the closest explosions. After the raid, I took her to the Esplanade, the only restaurant I found open: sitting opposite me, her long white hands resting on the table, she stared at me silently with her beautiful, deep, dark eyes, a searching, curious, serene gaze. In such moments, I said to myself that if things had been different, I could have married this woman, I could have had children with her as I did much later with another woman who wasn’t her equal. It would certainly not have been done to please Brandt or the Reichsführer, to fulfill a duty or satisfy conventions: it would have been a part of everyday, ordinary life, simple and natural. But my life had taken another path, and it was too late. She too, when she looked at me, must have had similar thoughts, or rather women’s thoughts, different from men’s, in their tonality and color probably more than in their content, difficult to imagine for a man, even me. I pictured them this way: Is it possible I will enter this man’s bed someday, give myself to him? To give oneself, a strange phrase in our language; but the man who doesn’t grasp its full extent should try in turn to let himself be penetrated, it will open his eyes. These thoughts, in general, didn’t cause me any regrets, but rather a bitter feeling that was almost sweet. But sometimes, in the street, without thinking, with a natural gesture, she took my arm, and then, yes, I surprised myself by missing that other life that could have been, if something hadn’t been broken so early. It wasn’t just the question of my sister; it was vaster than that, it was the entire course of events, the wretchedness of the body and of desire, the decisions you make and on which you can’t go back, the very meaning you choose to give this thing that’s called, perhaps wrongly, your life.