Page 198 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 185

dinary prison sentences.” in his report, adams claimed that none of them
were “persons in protective custody” for alleged political offenses, although
he acknowledged that until May 1934 one of the camps had been a con-
centration camp. the inmates worked on a project designed to reclaim the
“Moorland” and to make it arable. Once the land had been transformed, it
was expected to yield a “variety of good crops” of potatoes, beans, sweet
lupine, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and cauliflower.
adams described the barracks as rather comfortable: the prisoners had
access to a dispensary, laundry, kitchen, and shower room, all of them
“furnished with modern equipment.” the camp seemed to adams to be
“remarkably clean and comfortable for temporary quarters. the barracks
are all well aired and lighted, with high ceilings and many windows, even
the confinement barracks having a window of about 1 1/2 by 2 feet in each
cell.” the prisoners were permitted to visit a “hall where lectures were given
and religious services held.” the medical facilities were impressive, as were
the possibilities for entertainment: the Nazi band of “60 pieces” regularly
offered concerts. sports facilities, including a large swimming pool, were
abundant. all in all, the inmates “appeared to be well-nourished, healthy
and clean.” Most of them were skilled workers, and all were paid for their
work; they could buy goods from the camp canteen, including tobacco, but
they were not allowed to smoke in the barracks.
the visit, adams continued, had been arranged at the request of several
foreign delegates who had remained in Berlin after a recently concluded
meeting of the international Penal and Penitentiary Congress. the senior
officials at the German Ministry of Justice were initially split on whether to
permit foreigners into the penal colony, probably because a section of it had
been “a concentration camp for persons in protective custody.” the older
officials in the ministry feared that the camp would make an unfavorable
impression on foreigners, but Undersecretary roland Freisler—who a few
years later was the notorious judge in the trials of men accused of planning
to assassinate Hitler—argued that it would be “an opportunity to make a
favorable impression abroad.” and, as adams pointed out, Freisler proved
to be correct. 102
How this report passed muster at the american embassy is a mystery. it
was approved by douglas Jenkins, the american consul general, who was
an experienced diplomat and by 1936 should have known better than to be
taken in by adams’s account. it is also puzzling that adams did not realize
that he had been shown a “Potemkin village”; he himself reported that the
fifty-five hundred prisoners were guarded by no fewer than 770 men in sa