The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

I wasn’t in charge of the case anymore. I had problems with another man, not a camp officer but a Waffen-SS officer, a certain Dirlewanger. A raving lunatic, at the head of a unit of reprieved criminals and poachers. In 1941, I received information that he was conducting so-called scientific experiments, here in the GG, with his friends: he was killing girls with strychnine and watching them die while he smoked cigarettes. But when I wanted to prosecute him, he and his unit were transferred to Byelorussia. I can tell you that he benefits from protection at a very high level of the SS. Finally I was demoted, relieved of my functions, reduced to the rank of SS-Sturmmann, and sent to a field battalion, then to the SS-‘Wiking,’ in Russia.