Diary of Johann Kremer

Confession of gassings at Auschwitz Birkenau by an SS doctor

SS-Obersturmführer Johann Paul Kremer, M.D., Ph.D., (1883-1965) was a professor of anatomy and human genetic at Münster University. He joined the Wehrmacht on May 20, 1941 and served in the SS in the Auschwitz concentration camp as a physician during World War II, from 30 August 1942 to 18 November 1942.

Johann Paul Kremer at the The Auschwitz Trial in Kraków 1947

During his relativly short service as a medical doctor at Auschwitz (3 months when he replaced an ill doctor) he witnesses shootings and beatings. He killed some of the prisoners by phenol injections in the heart and picked out some who struck him as particularly good experimental material. One could say he took forced donations of organs from patients who were ill but not dead yet, by giving them lethal injections

As a SS witness to the gassings at Auschwitz he is important. His confessions comes from before the end of the war, before any hearings or trial, in the notes he made in his diary. He wrote for example: 

"September 2, 1942

For the first time, at 3:00 A.M. outside, attended a special action. Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing! 

September 5, 1942 

In the morning attended a sonderaktion [special action] from the women's concentration camp (Muslims); the most dreadful of horrors. Master-Sergeant Thilo (troop doctor) was right when he said to me that this is the anus mundi [=anus of the world]. In the evening towards 8:00 attended another special action from Holland. Because of the special rations they get a fifth of a liter of schnapps, 5 cigarettes, 100 g salami and bread, the men all clamor to take part in such actions. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) work."

"Muslim" (german Muselmann, or polish Muzułman) was an expression used in the camp refering to emaciated, sick, apathetic people suffering from exhaustion and starvation, resigned to their impending death. Survivors have described this kind of prisoners in their biographies. They were resigned and exhausted, didn't have much will anymore, and were often unresponsive to their surroundings. They were incapable to work and was taken away during the selections (i.e at the daily roll call or appell in the morning) to be gassed or killed in some other way as they were of no use in the workforce anymore.

The description of schnapps, cigarettes etc might seem absurd in this context. But Dr Kremer has later (at the 1965 Auschwitz trial) explained that SS men who were present during sonderaktion was given some extra goods. Kremer adds that it was "humanly quite understandable. This was war was it not, and the cigarettes and schnaps were rare." 

At the Auschwitz trial in Kraków in 18 July 1947 Dr Kremer testified about the above diary entries, saying:

"Particularly unpleasant was the gassing of the emaciated women from the women's camp, who were generally known as 'Muslims'. I remember I once took part in the gassing of one of these groups of women. I cannot say how big the group was. 

When I got close to the bunker [I saw] them sitting on the ground. They were still clothed. As they were wearing worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the undressing hut but made to undress in the open air. 

I concluded from the behavior of these women that they had no doubt what fate awaited them, as they begged and pleaded to the SS men to spare them their lives. However, they were herded into the gas chambers and gassed. 

As an anatomist I have seen a lot of terrible things: I had had a lot of experience with dead bodies, and yet what I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen before. Still completely shocked by what I had seen I wrote in my diary on 5 September 1942: 'The most dreadful of horrors. Hauptscharführer Thilo was right when he said to me today that this is the anus mundi', the anal orifice of the world. 

I used this image because I could not imagine anything more disgusting and horrific. 

(From the book The Good Old Days: The Holocaust As Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, Eds., 1991, p. 258).

Dr Kremer described the gassings of the "muslims" as particulary disturbing or "unpleasant". But why is he so "upset" about them? Possibly because other groups who just came from the trains and who were gassed in this "bunker" was kept calm and were informed they were just going through some kind of delousing, shower, desinfection or something. But these old prisoners knew from what they'd heard from others prisoners or guards that they were about to get killed. After they'd worked in the camp for weeks, months or years, they had seen many other people being taken away to this birch forest and never coming back again.

They werent offered to get undressed in the special hut made for this purpose. They were just expected to undress in the open air (a hint that the guards knew that the prisoners knew) and enter the bunker to be gassed. The scenes outside the bunker were horrible because of how the prisoners reacted, their facial expressions, their last wish to live, their pleading to be saved. These half-dead "muselmänner" suddenly started to show a will to live. They begged to the the SS men to be spared, being fully aware of what was about to happen. Other groups who arrived just followed orders, unaware of the brutal killing machinery going on in this camp for those who were considered "unfit for work".

A so called Muselmann, after Auschwitz liberation

Some people may think that a anathomist like Dr Kremer who had worked with many dead bodies, made autopsy, given lethal injections, experimented with body parts etc. should not be shocked seeing some people being killed. Most likely its not the bodies, their condition, and maybe not even their reaction that shocked him. He is facing his first "Sonderaction" (special treatment, gassing). He is suddenly realizing the cold and mechanical brutality of this death factory. Seeing these pleading prisoners being "herded" by some SS men into the gas chamber made him realize what kind of place he  was working at, a place where groups of people could be picked at any given time to be killed by gassings, a place of extensive, slow and cold genocide. A true death factory, where humans life was weighted in muscle power or workforce, and purposely driven to their limits, as everyone in the end was to be killed. Thus he made the remarks "The most dreadful of horrors.", "This is Anus Mundi".and "Particularly unpleasant was the gassing of the emaciated women from the women's camp". Dr Kremer had just realized what kind of place he was to work at during his 3 months stay. 

Hungarian jews, recently arrived at Auschwitz Birkenau in the early summer of 1944.
Old men, sick people, children and mothers, considered "unfit for work" at the
train platform selection, now standing in the birch wood, waiting to enter
the gaschamber at Crematorium IV. Image from the "Auschwitz album".

Interestingly Kremer doesn't describe the gassings taking place in rooms in direct connection to any large Crematoria building. Instead he says he is "outside" (i.e outside the general camp area, or outside the room where the gassings took place, or outside the car he usually sat in according to his 1947 testimony). He calls the gassing building "the bunker" (singularis), and the women in this case were undressings outdoors in the open. This description fits well with the The Vrba-Wetzler Report written in early 1944, which describes many of the events in Auschwitz from 1942-1943 in detail. In this document they describe for example 

"Twice weekly, Mondays and Thursdays, the camp doctor indi­cated the number of prisoners who were to be gassed and then burned. These 'selections' were loaded into trucks and brought to the Birch Forest. Those still alive upon arrival were gassed in a big barrack erected near the trench used for burning the bodies."

and:

"...1000 persons (women, old people, children as well as men) were sent without further procedure from the railroad siding directly to the Birch Forest, and there gassed and burned."

and

"At the end of February, 1943 a new modern crematorium and gassing plant was inaugurated at BIRKENAU. The gassing and burning of the bodies in the Birch Forest was discontinued, the whole job being taken over by the four specially built crematoria."

These gassings in "a barrack" described in the Vrba-Wetzler Report took place about the same time as the gassings described by Dr Kremer in "the bunker" in autumn 1942. The gassings took place in a temporary building somewhere in the birch forest, and was probably not seen from the camp or from the outside. Possibly the temporary "barrack" or "bunker" wasn't as effetive in the killing process considering that Vrba-Wetzler write this way concerning the newly built Crematorium:

"It is presumed that this is a 'CYANIDE' mixture of some sort which turns into gas at a certain temperature. After three minutes everyone in the chamber is dead. No one is known to have survived this ordeal,although it was not uncommon to discover signs of life after the primitive measures employed in the Birch Wood."

Concerning the "Bunker" Dr Kremer testified at the Krakow trial in 1947:

"On 2 September 1942, at 3 a.m. I was already assigned to take part in the action of gassing people. These mass murders took place in small cottages situated outside the Birkenau camp in a wood. These cottages were called 'bunkers' (Bunker) in the SS men's slang. All SS surgeons, on duty in the camp, took turns to participate in the gassings, which were called 'Sonderaktion' (special action-Editor's note)."

By the way, this camp (Auschwitz II Birkenau) was named after the birch forest right next to it. The German translation of the polish word Brzezinka means "birch forest".

Dr. Johann Paul Kremer

Kremer also wrote in his diary:

10 October 1942 

Extracted and fixed fresh live material from liver, spleen and pancreas... 

12 October 1942 

Second inoculation against typhus, later on in the evening severe generalized reaction (fever). Despite this in the night attended a further Sonderaktion from Holland (1,600 persons). Ghastly scenes in front of the last bunker!  That was the 10th Sonderaktion.

18 October 1942 

In wet and cold weather was on this Sunday morning present at the 11th special action (from Holland). Terrible scenes when 3 women begged to have their bare lives spared. 

8 November 1942 

This night took part in 2 special actions in rainy and murky weather (12th and 13th) [ ... ] Another special action in the afternoon, the 14th so far, in which I had participated [ ... ] 

13 November 1942 

Extracted fresh live material (liver, spleen and pancreas) from a previously photographed, severely atrophied Jewish prisoner aged eighteen.  Fixed as always, liver and spleen in Carnoy and pancreas in Zenker (Prisoner No. 68,030).

Note that Dr Kremer mentions a (personal) "second inoculation [vaccination] against typhus". Typhus was a problem in some of the camps. Holocaust deniers try to spread the idea that about every victim in the Holocaust was just typhus victims or victims of starvation due to the allied bombings preventing transportations. When you study different survivor testimonies together with SS confession you'll find that there were typhus epedemics in the camps while at the same time gassings and executions were taking place. Starvation is also described, just like in the above quoted Kremer notes, describing emaciated "Muselmänner" or "Muslims" from the womens camp at Auschwitz Birkenau. People starved in the camp in 1942, before any allied bombings, because the food they received were not enough considering their hard work. Thus it fulfilled the prediction made in the Wannsee protocol from january 1941: "Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes."

Dr Kremer was in no way an innocent man in the brutal killing process. He gave lethal injections in the heart area of several prisoners before making his surgical procedures. At the same time his diary shows that he reacted emotionally to some of the gassings, calling them "ghastly scenes", "terrible scenes" etc. It seems he mostly reacted when the prisoners was aware of the killing process and objected, pleading for their lives, begging to the spared. Such kind of prisoner reactions were not common, as he testified in 1947: "Very often no incidents occurred, as the SS men kept people quiet, maintaining that they were to bathe and be deloused." But concerning the pleading women mentioned above he said:

"During the special action, described by me in my diary under the date of 18 October 1942, three women from Holland refused to enter the gas-chamber and begged for their lives. They were young and healthy women, but their begging was of no avail. The SS men, taking part in the action, shot them on the spot."

The treatment of upset prisoners stepping out of line was cold and brutal. According to the Vrba-Wetzler Report "anyone falling out of line was shot". And Kremer described at the second Auschwitz trial where he was a witness: "They entered quietly; only some of them balked; they were taken aside and shot." No matter how cold Kremer was, and no matter how used he was to see and work on dead bodies, he reacted when prisoners started to cry and pleaded for their lives, being shot immedeately or forced into the "bunker" they knew would end their lives.

Based on the contents of his diary and his confessions, Kremer participated in 14 gassings and many medical experiments and performed lethal injections to remove and study body organs. According to his testimony in trials he never gave the fatal phenol injection in the heart area (his coworkers or subordinates did that), but he was present to select the victims and to substract verbal information from them before they were killed with injections.

Johann Kremer was captured and sentenced to death in the Auschwitz Trial (November - December 1947), but this sentence was later commuted to one of life imprisonment. He was released in 1958.

In a new trial in Münster (the city where he became a professor) in 1960 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and loss of the title of professor and doctor of philosophy. The court held, however, that he had already served his prison sentence and Kremer was pardoned.

He witnessed in the second Auschwitz trial (20 December 1963 - 10 August 1965) in Frankfurt am Main. His testimony concerning the gassings are detailed, and can be read in the book KL Auschwitz seen by the SS, Rudolf Höss, Pery Broad, Paul Kremer.

Johann Paul Kremer died in 1965. As far as i know he never changed his testimony or denied the gassings. His diary and trial testimonies still stands as witness of the reality of the gas chambers at Auschwitz II Birkenau. If the testimony was untrue or a product of torture (a favourite revisionist argument) Dr Kremer had alot of time as a free man to leave a note somewhere (or information in a will, or a last interview, or a writing a book) informing the world about the truth. But he didn't. His three trial testimonies still stands there explaining the meanining of his diary notes from Auschwitz Birkenau in 1942.