WVHA Ran Auschwitz and Majdanek

SS-WVHA (SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt – SS Main Economic and Administrative Office) was created on February 1, 1942 (ten days after Wannsee Conference) to manage finances, supply systems and business projects of the SS).

It also ran the concentration camps and two death factories (Auschwitz and Majdanek) and thus was instrumental in the implementation of the Final Solution through Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS camp guards (SS-TV).

WVHA Chief Oswald Pohl worked with Walther Funk, Reich Minister of Economics, to oversee financial aspects of the Final Solution, Valuables such as gold watches, rings, even tooth fillings, glasses, and currency were taken from the inmates on arrival at the death factories and then sent to Berlin in WVHA-marked crates for processing at the Reichsbank (it was a major source of income for the Reich ultimately accounting for about 15% of financing of German war effort).

A major source of income for the SS was slave labor supplied to just about every major production facility in the Reich. The number of slave laborers the WVHA had available increased steadily from 21,400 in 1939, to 524,286 by August 1944.

WVHA created evaluation tables that calculated the value of labor camp inmates as farmed-out wage earners (minus the depreciation of food and clothing), their profit intake from valuables remaining after their deaths (minus crematoria expenses), and any costs recovered from selling their bones and ashes.

In total, the average labor camp inmate had a life-expectancy of nine months and was valued at 1,630 marks. WVHA was heavily involved in “extermination through labor” mass murder project (a part of the Holocaust).

Which meant that some labor camp inmates were deliberately worked to death, even when it conflicted with production. This practice was a compromise between Nazi ideological imperatives and the practical needs of German war effort.

Organizationally, the WVHA was made up of five main departments (Amtsgruppe). The key operational departments were Amts C, D and W. Amtsgruppe C, among other duties was tasked with construction and maintenance of concentration camps, killing centers (Auschwitz and Majdanek) and POW camps.

Amtsgruppe D, which prior to March 1942 was known as the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, was responsible for the administration of the concentration camps and of the death factories. Amtsgruppe W was responsible for the operation and maintenance of various industrial, manufacturing, and service enterprises throughout Germany and the occupied countries.