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Protective Prisoner No. 303 by
Outline by Karl Germer.
The record of the author's seven months imprisonment in Nazi Concentration Camps, "Columbia House", and "Esterwegen" (the latter in the "Moor" at the Dutch frontier.)
Personality of author: 51 years old; good education; University studies at Grenoble and Sorbonne. Has lived and traveled for 20 years in most European countries, North America, North Africa. 4 years' war record as adjutant and machine gun officer: Belgium, France, Russia, Serbia. Highest war decorations.
Police Prisons: After return from England, author was arrested Feb. 2, 1935 in Leipzig while visiting relative without any reason given. Handcuffed and transferred to station. For 10 days in Berlin pol prison in same cell with lowest criminals. Gestapo (Secret State Police) Feb. 11 first hearing. 5 hours' cross questioning, yet no definite charge made. Reason for arrest given. Feb. 18 at last: for being in touch with high grade Freemasons abroad. Gestapo methods. Brutalities.
Thence taken to: "Columbia House" the Berlin Concentration Camp. Atmosphere of terror. Atrocious treatment. Methods. Solitary confinement. Life in cell. No reading permitted for 4 1/2 months! S.S. guards and their mentality. Once for six weeks not let out into the open air.
Work in Architect's office. For 6 weeks I had permit to work there; this gave me exceptional freedom and chance to see the run of the prison, get into personal contact with all the prisoners and S.S. guards and officers. Permitted me to get deeper insight. Contact with many prominent people who were imprisoned. In Strict Solitary Confinement. From April 10 to July 7. Cruelty of the treatment. Punishment, because my wife had sent me a cable from New York with reply prepaid, and I had filled out the blank and sent it to Gestapo for censure. (I was forbidden to attempt to communicate with anybody outside Germany.)
Rigorous Arrest. 8 days on water and bread on hard boards, because I had dared to complain about S.S. guard. April 30; I am accused of having secret net of agents all over Germany. To have factory for false passports. Etc. etc. Sodomites and Transvestites at Columbia House, arrested wholesale after the Rohm Putsch.
July 7th, intervention of American Consul, thereafter transferred to Esterwegen Camp in the "Moor", the bogs near the Dutch frontier. One of the worst of the worst Camps in Nazi Germany. Transportation there in prison vans. Handcuffed; three days' journey. Reception at Esterwagen. Unbelievable terror. 1200 prisoners there. The "Scheiss-Kuhle," work there the worst in the whole Camp. I am detailed to it with a gang of 5 (amongst them Dr. Leber, the Socialist member of the Reichstag, a wealthy "race pollutor", and a "witness of Jehovah". I was included for "obstinately refusing to tell the truth," i.e. for denying that I was a Mason (which I am not!).
Epilogue. I see the American Consul in Berlin. My Escape from Germany into Belgium.
The book has 60-65,000 words and is written in English
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