Schindler’s List

In fact, Brinnlitz produces nothing, not even a single shell. Schindler uses the excuse of “start-up difficulties” to explain the shortfalls. At one point, he has to ship a truckful of munitions parts (which had arrived at Brinnlitz half-completed) in order to avoid raising suspicion, but that’s the extent of it.

Schindler’s lack of productivity earns him a bad reputation with the Armaments Ministry. Because of the fragmented nature of manufacturing there, his nonproductivity causes problems for other factories too. Schindler simply laughs the complaint letters away.

One such complaint letter arrives on April 28, 1945, Schindler’s 37th birthday. He is overjoyed to find that his antitank shells fail all quality-control tests (because that means they can’t actually kill anyone). Still, it is a dangerous time for the prisoners whom Hassebroeck has condemned to death.

The birthday telegram raises the question of how Schindler’s Brinnlitz factory managed to survive the seven months before his birthday. Schindler deals with inspectors by offering them big, boozy lunches and dinners. Legend has it that one resistant inspector boasted that he wouldn’t let Schindler charm him, so Schindler tripped him down a flight of stairs, splitting his head and breaking his leg. (Schindler himself never told this story.)

Schindler also uses tricks, like a gauge on furnaces that shows the right temperature even when it’s hundreds of degrees too cool. Schindler reacts with indignation, and some inspectors even feel sympathy toward him. Stern and Pfefferberg claim Schindler sometimes bought shells from other manufacturers to present as his own at inspections. Schindler also holds tours and grand dinners to impress skeptical local officials.

In winter, Schindler begins stockpiling weapons, pretending that he’s using them to protect his factory. To get them, he bribes the wife of the police chief of Moravia, Rasch, with a diamond ring. Uri Bejski is put in charge of watching the weapons. Bejski begins taking a small group of prisoners out to train, some of whom are “Budzyn people” (who survived the liquidation of the Budzyn labor camp, which had been under Liepold). The Budzyn people are highly political, with many of them being Marxists.