Despite the appearances of routine and normality that accompanied this visit, reflected in the preserved iconographic material, it had far-reaching effects and was not just a meeting between clerks and their boss. A small group of several people in uniforms with SS runes talked over a working breakfast about the life, work and death of the tens of thousands of prisoners who were to be sent to Stutthof camp in subsequent years. These two hours in November 1941, and the perpetrators' dialogue on the camp's bookkeeping and logistics aimed at making it more efficient, are also a discourse about the daily lives of the perpetrators and the classic 'banality of evil', in a very local and down-to-earth version of a small camp that soon became the state concentration camp of Stutthof.
The stories of Himmler's visit to Stutthof would not have existed if the album with photographs taken especially for this occasion had not survived until today. Several dozens of these photographs were taken by the famous Gdańsk photographer who took, among others, the iconic photo of the battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" that fired shells at Westerplatte on 1 September 1939. The name and fate of the prisoner is known, who at the commander's orders prepared and calligraphed captions under photographs with Himmler's image. Until the evacuation of the camp, the album was kept in the office of the commandant's office and was undoubtedly a valuable memory for the SS men throughout the years of Stutthof's existence.
Title page of the commemorative album made in Stutthof after H. Himmler's visit.
Source: AMS, file no. I-IF-1, p. 1