SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt - WVHA
The SS Economic & Administrative Department and the Nazi Concentration camps
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Himmler inspects buildings constructed by concentration camp prisoners |
The SS Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA; Economic and Administrative Main Office) was established in March 1942, with Oswald Pohl as its chief. It took the place of several previous offices, including the Administrative Department (Verwaltungsamt) of the SS Central Office (SS Hauptamt), the Department of Budget and Buildings (Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten), and the Inspector of Concentration Camps (Inspekteur der Konzentrationslager).
On February 1, 1942, Himmler ordered another reorganization, and both main offices were fused into one large SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA).
Himmler order, dated April 20th, 1939, establishing the [Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft] "Main Office for Administration and Economy" which would later become the WVHA:
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Berlin, 20 April 1939
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The WVHA was organized into the following divisions and offices:
Division A Chief: SS Brigadefuehrer and Brigadier General of the Waffen SS Frank with offices:
A I Budget office, Budget of the Waffen SS and of the General SS (Reich cashier of the SS).
A II Cash and salary matters.
A III Legal office.
A IV Auditors' office.
A V Personnel office.
Division B Chief: SS Brigadefuehrer and Brigadier General of the Waffen SS Loerner with offices:
B I Food.
B II Clothing.
B III Housing.
B IV Raw materials, price control, foreign currencies, and purchases.
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Division C Chief: SS Oberfuehrer Dr. Ing. Kammler with offices:
C I General construction tasks.
C II Special construction tasks.
C III Special technical spheres.
C IV Special artistic spheres.
C V Central inspectorate for constructions.
C VI Maintenance of building and business economy.
Division W Chief: SS Gruppenfuehrer Pohl
W I Stones and soil (Reich).
W II Stones and soil (East).
W III Food enterprises.
W IV Timber enterprise.
W V Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.
W VI Utilization of textiles and leather.
W VII Books and pictures.
W VIII Special tasks.
The WVHA role in the German economy increased dramatically as a result of the military setbacks suffered by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in the winter battles of 1941 and 1942. Heavy material losses led to Hitler's decision to increase armaments production. Always ready to increase the influence of the SS, Himmler received the Fuehrer's permission to begin the building of armaments plants on the site of some of the SS's concentration camps.
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In March 1942, Himmler put Glucks' office of the Inspector of Concentration Camps under the authority of Pohl's WVHA and ordered him to provide thousands of slave laborers for the new armament projects. With control of concentration camp system now fell under the remit of the WVHA which now controlled the concentration camps and was now inextricably tied to the operation of both the concentration camps and the death camps of Eastern Europe and would oversee all financial aspects of Final Solution
The WVHA administered the camps, directing everything from such mundane chores as supply and sanitation to the grisly accounting of the gold the SS procured from the teeth of its dead victims. Through its administration of the concentration camps and extermination centers such as Auschwitz, direction of slave labor, procurement of victims for medical experiments and the Nazi euthanasia program, and managing the accounting of confiscated Jewish property, the WVHA was an essential link in the chain of genocide
Letter from Georg Loerner, September 23, 1940 concerning the the establishment of branch offices at the concentration camps to handler labor allocation of prisoners:
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[handwritten]
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In its role as the administrative department of the SS, the WVHA had an important function in both the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS. During the pre-war years Pohl's Verwaltungsamt handled the administrative functions of the Allgemeine SS, including controlling the funds raised from members of the Allgemeine SS, developing an administrative organization for all the branches of the Allgemeine SS, and training the personnel for this administrative system
The WVHA also created a subsidiary organizations known as the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe (German Economic Enterprises), generally abbreviated DWB as a project to profit from the use of Nazi concentration camp inmates as slaves, engaging primarily in the following types of commercial ventures:
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Brick factories
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Stone quarries
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Fine porcelain and pottery factories
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Building materials factories
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Cement factory
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Mineral water extraction and bottling
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Meat processing
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Bakeries
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Small arms manufacturing and repair
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Wooden furniture design and production
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Military clothing and accessories
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Herbal medicine
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Fish processing
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Publishing of books and magazines on Germanic culture and history
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Art acquisition and restoration
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