“On Auschwitz” (4): Transformation of Auschwitz concentration camp into an extermination center

On Auschwitz.

The history of Auschwitz is exceptionally complex. It combined two functions in one place: a concentration camp and an extermination center with gas chambers. Nazi Germany persecuted various groups there, and the camp complex continually expanded and transformed. In the podcast **“On Auschwitz”**, we discuss both the detailed history of the camp and our contemporary memory of this unique site.

When planning the construction of Auschwitz, the Germans originally assumed that the camp would hold up to **30,000 prisoners**. As late as early 1941, nothing suggested that within a few months both the planned number of prisoners and the usage of their slave labor—as well as the very function of the camp—would change dramatically. Why the Auschwitz concentration camp expanded and why it simultaneously became an extermination center is something I discussed with **Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz**, head of the Memorial Research Center.

Auschwitz was initially planned as a kind of **quarantine camp**, a temporary holding place before sending prisoners on to other concentration camps in Germany. Very quickly, however, in the eyes of the SS it was transformed into a regular concentration camp. From **June 14th, 1940**, the Germans began regular transports of prisoners to the camp, and from the beginning it was clear that every prisoner had to perform slave labor.

At the very beginning of Auschwitz’s existence, it was obvious that prisoners would be used primarily to expand the camp itself. They built fences, repaired blocks, and installed all necessary infrastructure in the camp. But for commandant **Rudolf Höss**, it soon became clear that after these construction tasks were completed, it would be necessary to find some permanent form of labor for the prisoners, as in camps like **Mauthausen** or **Gross-Rosen**, where prisoners worked in stone quarries.

The problem was that prewar **Oświęcim**—the Polish town where Auschwitz was located—was only a moderately sized town with limited industry: just a few small factories. In Höss’s eyes, the future of Auschwitz lay not in industry but in **agriculture**. He imagined that prisoners would work on agricultural farms belonging to the SS, turning the surrounding area into a network of SS-run estates.

To make that plan possible, Höss believed that local Polish farmers living in eight nearby villages between the **Soła** and **Vistula** rivers could be expelled. Their land and buildings would be confiscated and converted into SS farms. This was a unique case in the history of German concentration camps—unlike **Dachau** or **Sachsenhausen** inside prewar Germany, where the mass expulsion of local farmers was not possible, in occupied Poland it could be done with a single administrative decision by **Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler**.

So, at the end of 1940, this agricultural vision was the official plan for Auschwitz’s future. However, at the beginning of the following year, everything changed with the arrival of German specialists from the large chemical conglomerate **IG Farbenindustrie**. Suddenly, a camp imagined as an agricultural center was confronted with the demands of heavy industry.

This was a turning point in Auschwitz’s history. If Auschwitz were to remain just an agricultural complex, the number of prisoners required would have been limited—perhaps around **5,000** men. But with the arrival of IG Farben and its demands for slave labor at a new industrial site, most prisoners would now be needed for construction work on the factory. From that moment, the number of prisoners considered necessary increased dramatically.

IG Farben initially estimated that they would need about **4,000 prisoners**. Soon, their demand rose to **8,000** and then to as many as **12,000**. The existing Auschwitz camp was far too small to provide such numbers, especially considering that some prisoners had to remain inside the camp for various tasks—work in the kitchens, maintenance, and agricultural labor on SS farms. It quickly became clear to Höss and the higher SS leadership that Auschwitz would have to **expand**.

Why was IG Farben interested in the Auschwitz area in the first place? The answer lies in Nazi Germany’s broader war plans. The Wehrmacht wanted to secure reliable supplies of crucial materials for the war effort, particularly **synthetic rubber** and certain types of specialized fuel for the **Luftwaffe**. IG Farben was central to these production efforts.

Most of IG Farben’s existing plants were located in central or western Germany. After the failure of the Luftwaffe’s air offensive against Britain, it became obvious that these facilities were vulnerable to British bombing. The German high command wanted new factories built further east, beyond the range of British bombers at that time, and they targeted **Upper Silesia** for this purpose.

Upper Silesia had two major advantages: its distance from Britain and its huge **coal deposits**, which were essential for producing synthetic rubber. IG Farben specialists first appeared in the region in **December 1940**, and the final decision to build a plant there was most likely taken in **January 1941**. The Auschwitz area was chosen because it offered several practical advantages.

The site near Auschwitz was not far from the **Vistula River**, which could supply the large quantities of fresh water needed to cool industrial installations. There was also a convenient **railway station**, enabling easy transport of materials. But one of the most important reasons was that there was already a **concentration camp** nearby—only six or seven kilometers from the planned construction site.

Germany faced a **manpower shortage**. Many German workers had been conscripted into the army, while local Poles were being deported to Germany as forced laborers. In this context, the Auschwitz camp represented the most promising and controllable source of cheap labor.

Thus, very early in their planning, IG Farben representatives initiated negotiations with the camp leadership and with SS offices in Berlin. From the company’s perspective, the labor of concentration camp prisoners was extremely cheap, and prisoners could be brought to the construction site on foot or by train with minimal logistical difficulty. The arrangement looked highly profitable.

For the SS, the cooperation with IG Farben was equally attractive. Himmler and the SS leadership could point to Auschwitz as proof of the SS’s importance in developing Germany’s war industry. IG Farben also promised to donate significant quantities of construction materials to the SS: bricks, cement, reinforcing steel—everything needed to expand the Auschwitz camp.

In this way, the SS obtained the resources necessary to build new barracks and blocks in Auschwitz. They could also manufacture various products in their own workshops—prefabricated barrack elements, furniture, wooden boxes—and sell them back to IG Farben. Both sides repeatedly described the arrangement as mutually beneficial in their official documents.

However, there was one major problem. The demand for slave labor from IG Farben was enormous, and Auschwitz did not yet have enough prisoners to meet that demand. During one meeting between IG Farben representatives and SS officers, someone directly asked how Auschwitz planned to supply so many workers.

Rudolf Höss admitted that this was indeed a problem. But he also said that he had spoken with **Obergruppenführer Krüger**, head of all SS and police forces in central occupied Poland, and Krüger had promised that all necessary prisoners would be provided in the near future. He assured IG Farben that prisoners could be transferred from various Polish jails and that new arrests could simply be made on the streets of Polish cities.

We have good reason to believe that Krüger intended to keep this promise. If we look at the pace of deportations of Polish prisoners to Auschwitz in late spring and early summer 1941, the number of new arrivals increases rapidly. Yet, at the same time, camp statistics show a dramatic rise in prisoner mortality.

After a few months in Auschwitz—doing heavy manual labor, suffering from hunger, disease, and abuse—many prisoners died. With death rates rising, the daily prisoner count remained more or less stable despite continuous transports. This meant that even with large numbers of new Polish prisoners, Auschwitz still could not supply enough labor for IG Farben’s needs.

This problem was taken very seriously, not only by the camp leadership but also by **Heinrich Himmler** himself. In **September 1941**, he believed he had found a solution. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, the Wehrmacht held **hundreds of thousands** of Soviet prisoners of war in appalling conditions. Mortality in these POW camps was extremely high.

Himmler made an agreement with the army leadership. They promised to send initially **100,000**, and later even **200,000**, Soviet prisoners of war to concentration camps. From the end of September, urgent telegrams and letters flowed from Berlin to Auschwitz, instructing the camp to find ways to accommodate these Soviet POWs as quickly as possible.

It was clear that the Soviets could not simply be mixed with the regular Auschwitz prisoner population. A **separate camp** would have to be built. German architects in Berlin produced initial plans for this new camp, which was to be located near the original Auschwitz camp, close to the railway line leading from Auschwitz to Vienna.

After a few days, however, those involved decided that there was not enough space in that area. They considered moving the new camp to a large meadow on the other side of the railway line. A few days later, Höss himself visited the site and objected again. He pointed out that the soil there was valuable for agriculture and suggested moving the camp about **700 meters** further, closer to the village of **Brzezinka**—known by its German name, **Birkenau**.

This is how the SS finally settled on the location for the new camp, which would later become **Auschwitz II-Birkenau**. Officially, it was first designated a **POW camp** for Soviet prisoners, but in practice it was administered and run by the Auschwitz concentration camp command.

Soviet soldiers began to arrive. At first, they were housed in a separate section of Auschwitz I, and later they were used to build the new camp in Birkenau. When we look at the early blueprints for Birkenau, what do they tell us about the SS’s plans and their attitude toward the prisoners?

These early designs, which were repeatedly changed and adapted, show that the main principle behind Birkenau’s layout was to **accommodate as many prisoners as possible at the lowest possible cost**. On the first plans, covering over a hundred barracks, only **two** were designated as prisoner hospitals. Sanitary installations were rudimentary and severely inadequate.

Birkenau was divided into **two main sections**: a smaller part intended as a kind of quarantine camp, and a larger main camp on the other side of where the ramp and platform later stood. Toilets, washing facilities, and other basic infrastructure were limited and primitive, partly because of constant shortages of construction materials.

When the construction office of Auschwitz (the **Bauleitung**) learned it would be responsible for building the new camp, they were told they had to somehow obtain all the necessary materials themselves. Wooden beams, posts, and especially barbed wire were difficult to acquire. As a result, the planners decided to reuse bricks from demolished Polish villages in the area—another sign of how improvised the process was.

Everything about Birkenau’s construction was done with little to no concern for basic prisoner welfare. It seems likely that, at this early stage, the SS did not fully grasp what would soon happen in this camp—how many people would be brought there, under what conditions, and what the consequences would be.

Once the first Soviet POW transports arrived, reality hit hard. These men had spent months in primitive army camps, suffering malnutrition, disease, and exposure. Many were extremely weak and sick; perhaps only half could be used for any productive labor. Combined with very limited food supplies and terrible conditions, mortality among Soviet POWs became catastrophic.

On the construction drawings, we begin to see more and more **morgues** added to Birkenau. Some of these morgues were later replaced by **incineration ovens**, supplied by the firm **Topf und Söhne** of Erfurt. This evolution underlines how the camp was adapting not to the needs of living prisoners, but to the reality of mass death.

At this stage—late 1941, early 1942—we begin to see several crucial elements converging at Auschwitz. On one side, IG Farben is demanding more and more slave labor, first supplied by Poles and then by Soviet POWs. On another side, Soviet prisoners are arriving in dire condition and dying in large numbers. And a third development appears: the **first experiments with killing people by poisonous gas**.

From the autumn of 1941, Auschwitz becomes a site where **Zyklon B** is used to kill Soviet POWs, especially those classified as political commissars. A provisional gas chamber is set up in the crematorium building in Auschwitz I for this purpose. At first, this is seen as a temporary solution, but it has enormous consequences.

In **January 1942**, Himmler makes one of the most important decisions in Auschwitz’s history. He concludes that Soviet POWs will probably not be available in sufficient numbers in the near future. They are dying too quickly and cannot meet labor demands. Therefore, they should be **replaced by Jews**.

By this time, the deportation of Jews from **Western Europe**—especially from Germany—to extermination sites like **Sobibór** and **Bełżec** has already begun. In Himmler’s view, a portion of these Jews should be selected for slave labor rather than immediate extermination. Specifically, he orders that **100,000 men and 50,000 women** who are strong and healthy be sent to Auschwitz to work, particularly in IG Farben’s factory.

This is the moment when large numbers of Jews are first directed to Auschwitz, officially only those deemed “fit for work.” The first transports, mostly from **Slovakia** and **France**, follow this pattern. Deportees are registered in the camp, sent to barracks, and put to work.

After the first four Slovak transports, however, something changes. The deportations are paused, and when they resume, the composition of the transports is different. The new transports are **“family transports”**—they include not just able-bodied men and women, but also mothers, children, the elderly, and the sick.

It is likely that, from a logistical standpoint, it seemed simpler to the SS to deport entire families together. But this created a new “problem”: a large number of people in each transport were **not suitable for forced labor**.

The solution, from the SS perspective, was systematic **selection** and expanded use of gas chambers. In Auschwitz, selections now took place where arriving Jews were divided: those able to work were registered and sent to the camp; the rest—primarily the elderly, mothers with small children, the sick—were killed.

Because the existing gas chamber in Auschwitz I was too small to cope with the growing numbers, the SS opened a new gas chamber at Birkenau, in a building later known as **Bunker 1**, the “little red house,” on the edge of the forest. This marks the moment when Auschwitz truly becomes a **dual-function camp**: both a traditional concentration camp and an **extermination center**, like the Operation Reinhard camps in eastern Poland.

At this point, we must ask: why did the SS need so many prisoners in Auschwitz? IG Farben’s demands were large, but a camp for **100,000** people was far bigger than one company needed. It seems that Himmler had a broader vision.

He imagined a huge **SS-controlled labor center** in the heart of an industrial region. He hoped that other major German companies would follow IG Farben’s example, moving parts of their production eastward to places like Auschwitz. In that scenario, the SS would have the advantage of controlling a massive pool of up to **100,000 workers**, ready to be leased out to industry.

This model—where the SS provided prisoners and collected money for their labor—had already proven profitable elsewhere. Himmler wanted to replicate and expand it in Auschwitz. However, by the spring of 1942, it became evident that this plan was not working as expected.

Despite SS efforts, **few companies** were willing to transfer their factories from western Germany to Auschwitz. The logistical difficulties, technical demands, and risks were simply too high. Himmler then turned to the army, making the Wehrmacht responsible for finding potential investors in the Auschwitz region.

The new idea was that the SS would build the factory buildings and installations, with the **state** providing funding and equipment. Companies would contribute engineers, skilled workers, and the necessary technology and know-how. The SS would then lease these factories back to the companies, and in return the SS would gain a steady income and an expanded power base.

Again, this seemed promising on paper. In practice, the army managed to attract only one significant investor: the **Krupp** company, which promised to build a factory producing anti-aircraft guns near Auschwitz. Himmler’s plans, however, were much grander.

By mid-1942, he began to consider something even more radical: taking over existing factories across the Silesian industrial region and replacing the civilian workforce with Auschwitz prisoners. He estimated that about **50,000 prisoners** could be sent to work in such factories, with another **100,000** kept in Birkenau as a reserve to replace those who died or became too weak to work.

This was an extremely ambitious and, in many ways, unrealistic idea. Business leaders resisted strongly, and local authorities were also skeptical. Everything changed, however, with the outbreak of a major **typhus epidemic** in Birkenau.

The epidemic made it clear that concentrating huge numbers of prisoners in such dire conditions, without basic sanitary measures, was dangerous not only for the prisoners but also for the surrounding civilian population. Auschwitz began to be seen as a potential **public health threat** for all of Silesia.

For IG Farben, the epidemic created a serious crisis. From **July 1942**, deliveries of prisoners from Auschwitz to their construction site were stopped. In response, IG Farben proposed building its own camp to **isolate prisoners** from the main Auschwitz complex and reduce the risk of infection spreading into the factory area.

This proposal led to the creation of a **third main component** of the Auschwitz system: the camp later known as **Auschwitz III-Monowitz** (or Buna-Monowitz), located near the IG Farben plant. Today, when visitors think of Auschwitz, they usually know only **Auschwitz I** (the original camp) and **Birkenau**. But historically, the development in this period produced a **three-part system**: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz.

At the time, IG Farben’s initiative was driven by practical concerns, not by any broader concept of the Auschwitz system. They wanted a solution to their labor supply problem that minimized the risk of typhus. Their idea was that prisoners should be sent directly to Monowitz, bypassing Auschwitz I and Birkenau altogether.

IG Farben paid for the construction of the Monowitz camp. However, the SS insisted that, for bureaucratic reasons, all prisoners had to be registered in Auschwitz first. Only after spending some time there could they be sent on to Monowitz, even though this increased the risk of infection.

Despite this compromise, the first prisoners began arriving in the **Auschwitz III-Monowitz** camp at the end of **October 1942**. It took another four months to persuade other German companies that similar cooperation with the SS was feasible. Under such agreements, the SS undertook to maintain prisoner numbers at agreed levels, while companies promised to provide accommodation, basic provisions, and work facilities.

These contracts marked the beginning of a **new chapter** in Auschwitz’s history. Birkenau and, to a lesser extent, Auschwitz I became central **distribution points** for slave labor across a growing network of subcamps serving German industry. For business leaders, the main concern was a steady supply of workers. They trusted the SS to “refresh” the workforce as needed.

They did not trouble themselves with what happened to sick or exhausted prisoners sent back from factories to Birkenau. It is unlikely that they were unaware of the fate awaiting such inmates. But in practical terms, they accepted the system: the SS would dispose of those no longer able to work and replace them with new arrivals.

In this way, Auschwitz evolved into what it is remembered as today: a **concentration camp** built on slave labor, and at the same time an **extermination center** where those considered unfit for work—including countless Jews, Roma, Soviet POWs, and others—were systematically murdered.