Thread by @ShriramKMurthi

1/ CW: Holocaust. Since most of you will never visit Erfurt, a short thread on how engineering prowess devoid of humanity can lead to the most evil kinds of technological progress. A warning for all techies. I'll start in the next tweet for those for whom this is too much. ↵

2/ If you've visited concentration camps crematoria, you may have seen a brand name proudly advertised. It stands out: it's close to the ONLY brand you really see. The biggest crematorium supplier: Topf & Söhne, Erfurt. I first saw it in Buchenwald ~25y ago. Always wondered. ↵

3/ After the Allies liberated the camps, the Americans tried to pursue the Topf company. But Erfurt ended up in the former GDR, so the trail mostly went dry. (It's actually very complicated, not relevant here.) Erfurt was happy to bury the association. ↵

4/ Indeed, when brought up, they made various arguments. They didn't know how it was used! It was no different from making parts of an airplane! They had no choice! Etc., etc. The company was nationalized by GDR; after Unification, family even tried to claim it back. ↵

5/ The memory of what happened was kept alive by one family descendant, historians, and actually a local squatter group that ran events in the old factory (the company shut down in the 1990s). Even the mayor was evasive. Only in the past decade has the city taken ownership. ↵

6/ They have converted an old factory building of Topf & Söhne into a memorial. It is gut-wrenchingly powerful. Here are some photographs and excerpts. Pardon the quality of some photos; that's obviously not the point. ↵

7/ This is the building. The quote on the outside, "Stets gern für Sie beschäftigt", is chilling: "happy to be of service to you". That was the company's standard sign-off in their letters … to the SS. This installation pulls no punches. ↵

8/ Here are family members and workers. The company is proud to work with "Erfindungsgeist, Schaffensfreude und Tüchtigkeit": "inventiveness, industry and efficiency". This is especially chilling when we know what is coming next. ↵

9/ People are herded from their homes in towns in the area, watched by neighbors and friends. There are whole panels of this with locations and dates. So nobody who lived in the area was unaware over time about the expulsions. ↵

10/ Topf was in many businesses, only one of which was cremation. (There's a whole section of the history of cremation in Germany and its relationship to the Catholic church.) There are rules, of course. Needless to say, these would be violated in the extreme. ↵

11/ In nearby Buchenwald, dead prisoners were bought into town to be cremated. But these got to be so frequent, questions were raised. So the SS decided to build its own crematoria (violating rules). Topf was in the next town over. ↵

12/ This chilling image is of the drafting table where some of the crematoria were designed. There are whole rows of them. But this brings us to a very critical point, especially with regards to Topf's "defense". ↵

13/ Topf had a VERY small number of workers on crematoria. In fact, their head designer quit over low wages; they chose to retain him with a raise. Crematoria were a tiny % of business, and the SS didn't pay on time(!). The point being: they could have passed! ↵

14/ Which brings us to those engineers. Karl Prüfer was the main Topf engineer on this project. We will return to him. He worked with Fritz Sander and Karl Schultze. May all their names live in infamy. You can read more here. ↵

15/ Buchenwald was the start, and forged the relationship. From there, the SS ordered Topf ovens for a whole bunch of places. 40% of Prüfer's dept sales were to the SS; Prüfer got a 2% commission. For making these ovens. ↵

16/ Like other German Holocaust-related sites, the memorial very carefully documents the facts. Here is the Topf letter addressed to the SS-Neubauleitung in…Auschwitz. Details. Paperwork. Documentation. Signed with a Heil. All in black and white (and red). ↵

17/ Maybe people at Topf didn't know what was actually happening? No, like good engineers, they visited the site and SAW how their products were being used. So they could design them better. ↵

18/ They visited Auschwitz. They saw the very process that the world has now heard of so many times. They saw it with their own eyes. And they recollected it after the war. They were very aware. ↵

19/ Could it still be that they didn't know *exactly* what was going on? No, it was not. They said so themselves. (I believe both quotes are from Karl Prüfer, who was interrogated. Others who were claimed to not remember many things.) ↵

20/ It didn't end in '45. Messing had been a communist, who was hired by Topf. He worked as a fitter at Auschwitz for Topf. His communist status, and early persecution by the Nazis, made him too convenient for the GDR to villify. They promoted and lionized him. ↵

21/ But 2 things haunted me more than anything else.

This is one of the PATENTS that Fritz Sander filed for MORE EFFICIENT FURNACES. (Yes, I'm skipping pictures. Even the text is unnecessary. It's as bad as you can guess, or worse.) Remember: Wansee was 1/42, this is 10/42. ↵

22/ They filed patents. The engineers filed patents. To improve throughput and efficiency.

They spent all that time thinking of clever ways to deliver what their leader wanted.

Please pause and think about this for a moment before you go on. ↵

23/ The other is this image. On the left is that drafting table. In the background a hill is visible in the distance through the window. That hill is the Ettersberg, by Weimar. On the Ettersberg is … Buchenwald. ↵

24/ The memorial does not pull punches. A few individuals got bonuses. But perhaps most of all, "the related technical challenges […] spurred the ambitions of the engineers" with the "absence of a sense of humanity". ↵

25/ I have nothing to add to the above. I'm just a tech nerd who worries about tech nerds getting too excited about tech and forgetting about humans. But I have a bit of an addendum about this whole display. ↵

26/ I have visited many Holocaust monuments, and find Germany's acknowledgment of its past remarkable. It was not always so, and there is dissent, etc., but overall it seems (to this outsider) largely admirable. Now to put this in context. ↵

27/ As I mentioned, Erfurt was late to acknowledge this role. I was in Buchenwald ~25 years ago, and also Erfurt, and there was not a whimper. I found it odd given how prominent the name was on the crematoria. Now I'm back and it's all very different. ↵

28/ In that sense, very admirable. Erfurt also has one of the oldest synagogues in Europe, and a newer one. And it discovered a medieval mikveh mid-town, which now has a viewing window above it. There's a Jewish tour. All very good, I guess. ↵

29/ Of course, Erfurt also expelled its Jews in the middle ages. Multiple times. There's some documentation in English Wikipedia. Probably more elsewhere. There just weren't that many left to torment. ↵
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_ma…

30/ So I've been scratching my head trying to make sense of Erfurt's sudden embrace of its Jewish history (which is a pretty unpleasant one, when you think about it). And then I saw a mention somewhere, and then the penny dropped. ↵

31/ Erfurt has applied to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its…Jewish heritage. It has seen the spoils this has brought to neighboring rival Weimar (remember, you can see it from here…). Think about the tourism euros! ↵
whc.unesco.org/en/tentativeli…

32/ Given that "Topf & Söhne, Erfurt" was widely viewed (eg, in the tapes Americans made when liberating Buchenwald), the city couldn't possibly ignore this aspect of it. To their credit, though, the people who have made this memorial have really done their job. ↵

33/ So am I a bit cynical? Yes. Grateful? Also yes. The memorial is terrific: somber, detailed, informative, chilling, and doesn't mince words. You can ignore the World Heritage nonsense and this is still an admirable thing to visit, especially if you also visit Buchenwald. •