One of these directives, set out in a letter to Pohl, involved establishing brothels at the male camps, in which Ravensbrück women would work as prostitutes. After visiting the quarries at Mauthausen men’s camp, where emaciated prisoners were dying like flies, Himmler had hit upon the idea of reinvigorating the slave labourers with the lure of coupons to visit a brothel. To Himmler’s mind, the availability of sex would ‘encourage the men to work better’.
