page_title: Richard Glücks
section_title: Concentration Camps Inspector
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Glücks / Concentration Camps Inspector
caption_attribution_description: English: A can of Zyklon B lethal gas granules and original signed documents detailing ordering of such gas as "materials for Jewish resettlement" on display at Auschwitz.
context_page_description: Richard Glücks was a high-ranking German Nazi official in the SS. From November 1939 until the end of World War II, he was Concentration Camps Inspector, which became Amt D: Konzentrationslagerwesen under the WVHA in Nazi Germany. As a direct subordinate of Heinrich Himmler, he was responsible for the forced labour of the camp inmates, and was also the supervisor for the medical practices in the camps, ranging from human experimentation to the implementation of the "Final Solution", in particular the mass murder of inmates with Zyklon-B gas. After Germany capitulated, Glücks committed suicide by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule.
context_section_description: When Eicke became field commander of the SS Division Totenkopf during the summer of 1939, Glücks was promoted by Himmler on 15 November 1939 as Eicke's successor to the post of Concentration Camps Inspector. As the Concentration Camps Inspector, Glücks was directly subordinate to Himmler—as Eicke had been—but, in contrast with the warm relation between Himmler and the older Eicke, Glücks only rarely met with Himmler, who promoted him not for his leadership competencies but for his ability to "provide the administrative continuity" with Eicke's policies. Less a reflection of Glücks's energy and aptitude, his rise in power was more about Eicke's ineffectual managerial skill, according to historian Michael Thad Allen. Glücks made few changes once taking over, leaving the organizational structure intact as Eicke had set it up; the same uncompromising rigidity was carried out at the camps—there was no rehabilitation and no effort to exploit the working potential of inmates. Because Glücks never served inside a concentration camp, some senior camp members were suspicious and considered him nothing more than a desk-side bureaucrat. In terms of his leadership style, he preferred men of action and allowed them some autonomy in operating their respective camps. Historian Robert Lewis Koehl described Glücks as "unimaginative, lacking in energy if not lazy," and even "unperceptive," which may account to some extent for his hands-off approach.  
  Glücks's responsibilities at first mainly covered the use of concentration camp inmates for forced labour. In this phase, he urged camp commandants to lower the death rate in the camps, as it went counter to the economic objectives his department was to fulfill. Other orders of his were to ask for the inmates to be made to work continuously. At the same time, it was Glücks who recommended on 21 February 1940, Auschwitz, a former Austrian cavalry barracks, as a suitable site for a new concentration camp to Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Glücks accompanied Himmler and several chief directors of I.G. Farben on 1 March 1941 for a visit to Auschwitz, where it was decided that the camp would be expanded to accommodate up to 30,000 prisoners, an additional camp would be established at nearby Birkenau capable of housing 100,000 POWs, and that a factory would be constructed in proximity with the camp prisoners placed at I.G. Farben's disposal.
  On 20 April 1941 Glücks was promoted to the rank of an SS-Brigadeführer and in November 1943, Glücks was made SS-Gruppenführer and a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS. From 1942 on, Glücks was increasingly involved in the implementation of the "Final Solution", along with Oswald Pohl. To oversee the coordination of camp related activities, which varied from the medical concerns of personnel and prisoners, the status of construction projects, and the progress of extermination operations, Glücks, along with other senior SS camp managers, attended weekly meetings conducted by Pohl. Glücks never attempted to outshine his superior and was quite aware of his subordination to Pohl.
  Just a few days after the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, Himmler ordered Glücks to prepare the camps for the immediate arrival of 100,000 Jewish men and 50,000 women being evacuated from the Reich as labourers in lieu of the diminishing availability of Russian prisoners. In February 1942, the CCI became "Amt D" of the Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Economic and Administrative Department; WVHA) under SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl. Glücks continued to manage the camp administration until the end of the war. Therefore, the entire concentration camp system was placed under the authority of the WVHA with the Inspector of Concentration Camps now a subordinate to the Chief of the WVHA. By March 1942, Glücks was routinely receiving direct instructions from the head engineer and SS-General Hans Kammler, to meet the productivity demands of SS engineers.
  In July 1942, he participated in a planning meeting with Himmler on the topic of medical experiments on camp inmates. From several vi
caption: A can of Zyklon B with adsorbent granules and original signed documents detailing ordering of Zyklon B as "materials for Jewish resettlement" (on display at Auschwitz concentration camp museum)
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