Broad report

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Pery Broad (1964)

The Broad Report is a transcript by Pery Broad of what happened in the Auschwitz concentration camp . Broad is a convicted war criminal and was a member of the political department of the concentration camp. He wrote the report after 1945 as a British prisoner of war on his own initiative and handed it over to the Second Army on July 13, 1945 .

Among other things, the report was used as evidence in the 1st Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial .

Origin and transmission history

After the end of the war, Pery Broad was sent to a reception camp for German prisoners of war in Gorleben on the Elbe at the beginning of June 1945 . After a few weeks, Broad reported to Cornelis van het Kaar, commandant of a small English detachment for the interrogation of prisoners of war, and began to tell his story of Auschwitz. This seemed so important to van het Kaar that he instructed his sergeant Paul Winter to get Broad out of the camp immediately, to give him accommodation in his department and an English uniform. He asked Broad: “Write down everything you can remember from Auschwitz, exactly. And also write down in particular how daily life was played out there. "

Pery Broad was taken from camp and billeted with Paul Winter. In the days that followed, he wrote down what he knew, but without incriminating himself. On July 13, 1945, Broad handed this 75-page handwritten report on Auschwitz, which he affirmed in an affidavit on December 14 of the same year, to Sergeant Winter. Winter typed the report on 56 pages, made several copies and handed it over to Cornelis van het Kaar. According to Winter in the 1st Auschwitz Trial, the original came to the headquarters of the 2nd British Army, War Crimes Investigations Department.

Along with the report, Broad made a list of the names of the camp personnel that was about two large pages and contained "around fifty to sixty [people]." He also gave this list to Paul Winter. This list was also the subject of the hearing of witnesses in the 1st Auschwitz Trial.

content

Broad describes the events in the Auschwitz concentration camp, which he openly condemns, but without going into his own person or function.

In the Auschwitz trial, the witness Cornelis van het Kaar answers the question of the co-plaintiff Ormond “... when you read the report, you notice that the writer distances himself completely from the deeds of the SS people, that he is, so to speak, about the deeds of the SS in Auschwitz gives an objective report “that it is difficult to explain what motivation Broad had in writing the report and why he does not mention himself as the perpetrator.

After an introduction with general information on KL Auschwitz, Broad reports in detail on the following topics. The original Broad report is not divided into these chapters. The full text was printed in the publication Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, pp. 96-139. There it is noted: “The document, which is written in German, does not have a title in the original and is not divided into chapters. For the sake of clarity, the editor has divided it into titled sections. "

The report ends with a description of the evacuation of the camp in mid-January 1945. “All of the prisoners who were able to walk were dragged to concentration camps further in the interior of Germany, where they were liberated for the most part a third of a year later. The sick were left to their own devices in Auschwitz and its sub-camps. They would have liked to have shot her at the last minute, but fear was already in the knees of all the SS leaders, and no one dared to give this order. In front of the buildings of all Auschwitz offices, files burned and the structures that had been used to carry out the greatest mass murder in human history were blown up. Somewhere in the rubble was a dented tin bowl, from which an inmate probably once ate his water soup. With a clumsy hand a boat dancing on the raging sea was carved on him. Above it said: Don't forget the forlorn man! The back showed an airplane with the American star on the wings and a bomb that just released. The caption of this picture was called: Vox Dei . "

Exploitation of the content

The report was dealt with in more detail in the 1. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in the criminal case against Mulka et al., On October 1, 1964 (95th day of the hearing) during the interrogation of the witness Cornelis van het Kaar. The presiding judge Hans Hofmeyer finally asked "Mr. Witness, are you prepared to leave us this copy that you have in trust for a short time so that we can have a photocopy of it?", Cornelis van het Kaar agreed to and a copy was taken to the trial files. The report was also discussed in detail during the interrogation of Paul Winter. Winter testified, “Pery Broad [was] taken out of the camp and, after a brief consultation, he was transferred to our quarters, where myself and my colleague were quartered. There we gave him pencil and paper, and he wrote down everything he knew and what he could. And then I typed the report afterwards, on the only typewriter in the whole area. And that was an office that no one had access to, except for the intelligence department of our troops and of course we ourselves too. And then I spent days typing these 75 pages of typewriter. "

The knowledge gained from the Broad report was also used in the Bergen-Belsen trials . former SS personnel from Auschwitz was on trial.

The publication Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS (first published in 1973) of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau contains, in addition to the notes of Rudolf Höß and the diary of Johann Paul Kremer , the complete Broad report. The report has 76 comments which explain the text in more detail. Jadwiga Bezwińska and Danuta Czech wrote the comments . The translation of the foreword, notes, afterword and appendix was done by Herta Henschel. The publication appeared simultaneously in English, French, Polish and Russian.

The author of the foreword is the Auschwitz survivor Jerzy Rawicz (1914–1980), who had previously dealt critically with the people of Höß, Broad and Kremer and their writings. Rawicz does not classify the diary entries and the Broad report as being of equal importance to the entries of Höss, since Höss had a comprehensive overview of the events relating to Auschwitz due to his command post. Rawicz assesses Broad's writing as a truthful account of what happened in the camp, although the latter completely ignored his own involvement in the crimes committed there. He would only have admitted his involvement in the shootings at the Black Wall during the Auschwitz trial, after witnesses had confirmed his presence there. The court also had strong suspicions that he killed and tortured concentration camp inmates during the interrogations. Rawicz concludes his remarks as follows: “A comparison of Broad's notes with the findings of the court makes it possible to fill those gaps in the report which concern his person. But it should be emphasized once again that - even if Broad passes over his own role in Auschwitz in silence - his description of the events in the camp, which he witnessed or which he learned about, is true. This can be seen by comparing his report with the memories of former camp inmates and with the documents he received, which the SS could no longer destroy. In comparison with Höss's documentary notes, Broads' report naturally only concerns an excerpt; nevertheless, it expands our knowledge of the processes in Auschwitz. "

Reviews

“'As if from the off' [...] he describes atrocities and details that only insiders could know. The writer of the report gave the indifferent observer. Striving for accuracy, Broad completely ignored his own involvement in the action. Broad was one of the Nazis who 'partially suspended their awareness of injustice,' as historians write. "

- Bernd-Joachim Zimmer

“Broad's report, this record of a man who was there, on the 'other side', on the side of the henchmen, is still not a confession. It is rather the writing of a participant who wants to suppress his experiences, who abstracts the horror by describing something that he only saw, but in which he would not have participated himself. It is the report of a tour guide through the Chamber of Horrors at Auschwitz, a Baedeker of Hell, in which four million people were murdered. It is an authentic eyewitness account, to be sure. But is it also the testimony of a lie. Because Perry Broad does not speak of Perry Broad, the SS-Rottenführer and interrogation specialist, on these 56 pages, not a single word. "

- Dietrich Strothmann

literature

  • Wolfgang Scheffler: Auschwitz, warning and obligation: Memorial exhibition on the 40th anniversary of the so-called Wannsee Conference. Edited by the City of Oberhausen (Cultural Office) and the International Committee for Scientific Research into the Causes and Consequences of World War II, Luxembourg, 1982, DNB 830015213 , p. 38.
  • Sybille Steinbacher , Devin O. Pendas , Johannes Schmidt; Raphael Gross , Werner Renz (eds.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963-1965), Volume 2 (= Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute; 22). Campus Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) et al., 2013, ISBN 3-593-39960-1 , p. 811.
  • Bernd Naumann : Auschwitz. Report on the criminal case against Mulka et al. before the jury court in Frankfurt. Athenaeum, Frankfurt a. M./Bonn, 1965.
  • Ebbo Demant (Ed.): Auschwitz - “Right off the ramp… Kaduk, Erber, Klehr; 3 perpetrators put on record ”. Rowohlt-Verlag, Hamburg 1979, ISBN 3-499-14438-7 .
  • Fritz Bauer Institute (Ed.): The Auschwitz Trial. Tape recordings, minutes, documents. DVD-ROM, Directmedia Publishing, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-501-0 .
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS , Oświęcim 1998, ISBN 83-85047-35-2 . (Complete and annotated copy of the Broad report included)

English language publications

  • Pery Broad: Auschwitz concentration camp: reminiscences of Pery Broad, SS-man in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Translation: Krystyna Michalik 1965, Auschwitz, Poland. Editors: Kazimierz Smolen, Jadwiga Bezwińska, Jerzy Brandhuber, Danuta Czech.
  • Bernd Naumann, translator Jean Steinberg: Auschwitz: A Report on the Proceedings Against Robert Karl Ludwig Mulka and Others Before the Court at Frankfurt. Section: The Broad Report , pp. 162-324.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Criminal case against Mulka et al. 4 Ks 2/63 (December 20, 1963 - August 20, 1965) 1. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. Course of the main hearing. "Reading out the certificate: Broad report, 4 Ks 2/63, vol. 99, annex 3 to the minutes of June 5, 1964".
  2. ^ 1. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial Criminal case against Mulka et al. , 4 Ks 2/63 Regional Court Frankfurt am Main 95th day of the hearing, October 1, 1964 Examination of the witness Paul Winter.
  3. ^ Dietrich Strothmann : The protocol of Perry Broad. In: The time . No. 45/1964, November 6, 1964, archived from the original on November 7, 2016 ; accessed on March 27, 2021 .
  4. ↑ Questioning of witness Paul Winter by attorney Henry Ormond, attorney at law, on the 95th day of the hearing, October 1, 1964. (Criminal case against Mulka et al., 4 Ks 2/63 Regional Court Frankfurt am Main).
  5. ^ First printed in: Hefte von Auschwitz , Volume 9. Krakau, Muzeum w Oswiecimiu 1966.
  6. ^ 1. Frankfurter Auschwitz Trial Criminal case against Mulka et al. , 4 Ks 2/63, Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, 95th day of the hearing, October 1, 1964, questioning of the witness Cornelis van het Kaar, questions from the accessory prosecutor Ormond.
  7. ↑ State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS , Oświęcim 1998, p. 96, footnote 1.
  8. ^ Diary of Johann Paul Kremer (1940/1945): "6 women vaccinated from the Budyer revolt" ( Klehr ). [Note: "vaccinated" means murdered, presumably through conscious infection . Budy was a satellite camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp , in which 400 female prisoners from a penal company had to dig trenches in 1942.]
  9. ↑ From the diary of Johann Paul Kremer. It is mentioned in: Fritz Bauer Institute and State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): The Auschwitz Trial: Tape recordings, minutes and documents . CD-ROM. Digital library # 101. 2nd Edition. Directmedia Publishing , Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-501-0 ; under: Selected evidence in the diary of Johann Paul Kremer (1940/1945) p. 138.
  10. ↑ Dominik Reinle: January 27, 1945 - Liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. In: WDR-2 broadcast “Stichtag”. January 27, 2015, accessed March 21, 2021 .
  11. ↑ In the spring of 1942, the construction management of the Waffen-SS first converted two old farmhouses behind the new Birkenau camp into provisional gas chambers.
    Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Construction plans for the Auschwitz murder factory found. In: welt.de . November 8, 2008, accessed March 1, 2021 .
  12. ^ Nils Werner: Resistance in Auschwitz: Concentration Camp Prisoners in the Sonderkommando dare to rebel. In: MDR time travel . January 23, 2021, accessed March 1, 2021 .
  13. ↑ Court files of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court AZ 4 Ks 2/63, criminal case against Mulka and others, evidence on October 1, 1964, interrogation of the witness Cornelis van het Kaar.
  14. ^ 1. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial Criminal case against Mulka et al. , 4 Ks 2/63, Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, 95th day of the hearing, October 1, 1964, interrogation of the witness Paul Winter
  15. ↑ Jerzy Rawicz: Foreword . In: State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS , Oświęcim 1998, p. 20.
  16. ↑ Dr. Bernd Joachim Zimmer (1944–2018), historian from Bad Arolsen
    Armin Haß: Murderers acted out of conviction. In: HNA.de . January 29, 2014, accessed March 1, 2021 .