2) KL Auschwitz was established having in mind convenient railway connections with other parts of Europe and its location in the delta of the Soła and Vistula rivers was supposed to constitute natural barrier ensuring more efficient isolation of the camp.
At the decision-making stage leading to the establishment of a new concentration camp, only two factors were generally taken into consideration. The first of them consisted in the already existing infrastructure, which could be relatively quickly adapted to the needs of a new camp. The second factor consisted in convenient railway connection ensuring easy transport of prisoners as well as providing the camp with food, fuel, construction materials etc. At the decision-making stage, two locations were generally considered for the establishment of the central camp for conquered Polish territories. Auschwitz was the first of them and Stutthof, situated to the east from Gdańsk, the second. Without taking into account internal disputes between the staff of Concentration Camp Inspector Richard Glucks, Head of the Main Security Office of the Reich Reinhard Heydrich as well as senior SS and Police commanders for the Silesia and Gdańsk regions, the factor that made Reihsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler resign from Sztutowo consisted in the lack of convenient communication (the transport of prisoners from the railway station in Gdańsk to the camp by buses or optionally narrow-gauge railway was considered here). Nonetheless, at that time the fact of locating the camp in Auschwitz had nothing in common with a convenient railway connection in view of future deportations of prisoners from the conquered European countries, which took place by mid-1941. At that stage, the camp was intended exclusively for so called “citizens of former Polish state”. It is also an error to claim that the location of the camp in the delta of the Vistula and Soła rivers was intentional, as it created better isolation conditions. The rivers mentioned above had substantial influence only in the context of the creation of so called Camp Interest Zone, which took place only in late 1940. Upon Himmler’s order, agricultural experimental station for the conquered Eastern territories was supposed to be established. According to initial assumptions, the isolation of KL Auschwitz from the external world was to be ensured by a high wall surrounding the entire camp complex as well as additionally, barbed wire fencing.