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The following week, I put together a small team for the Einsatz in Hungary. I appointed a specialist, Obersturmführer Elias; a few clerks, orderlies, and administrative assistants; and of course Piontek. I left my office under Asbach’s responsibility, with precise instructions. On Brandt’s orders, on March 17, I set out for the KL Mauthausen, where a Sondereinsatzgruppe of the SP and the SD was assembling, under the command of Oberführer Dr. Achamer-Pifrader, the former BdS of the Ostland. Eichma
I must have dozed off a little: Piontek shook me awake around midnight. I had lain down fully dressed, with my kit ready; I went out to take the air while they checked the vehicles. I ate a sandwich and drank some coffee that Fischer, an orderly, had brewed for me. It was late winter, bitter cold out, and I gladly inhaled the pure mountain air. A little farther on, I heard the sound of engines: the Vorkommando, led by a deputy of Eichma
Crossing the border took place without incident: by the roadside, customs officials or soldiers of the Honvéd, glum or indifferent, watched us pass, showing nothing. The morning turned into a luminous one. The column paused in a village to breakfast on coffee, rum, white bread, and Hungarian wine bought on the spot. Then it started up again. We now drove much more slowly, the road was congested with German vehicles, troop trucks and tanks, which we had to follow at a crawl for kilometers before we could pass them. But it didn’t look like an invasion, everything happened in a calm, orderly way; the civilians by the side of the road lined up to watch us pass, some even made friendly gestures at us.