Were the cigarettes provided by the Germans? I was under the impression that cigarettes were provided as part of Red Cross packages. Is this correct? The only source I have seen is the Red Cross website here

I remember reading Imre Kertész's book Fatelessness (Nobel Prize winner in 2002) and I never understood why the Germans had a hospital in the concentration camp, why they treated injured and ill prisoners. For example, Kertész was sent to a hospital facility in a concentration camp until the war ended, he spent weeks there. Why didn't the Germans just let him die? Weird.

Could you reference the section of the book that refers to this?

A couple of things:

First, Auschwitz was a set of camps, not a single camp. The death camp, Auschwit II Birkenau, was the one most people think about when they hear the term Auschwitz, but that is not the location that many of the famous prisoners like Levy and Wiesel were imprisoned. They were imprisoned in Auschwitz III Monowitz. Monowitz was a labor camp - a really shitty one, but not a death factory where inmates were immediately sent to the gas chambers like Birkenau.

Second, in Auschwitz III Monowitz, there was a pretty substantial black market among the prisoners, much of the goods for which were stolen from "Canada" the portion of the camp where inmate's good were collected for processing (i.e. the black market goods were "restolen" by the inmates from the German guards who had originally stolen the goods from inmates upon arrival). Other goods were regularly smuggled in from the outside, as the workers at Monowitz were mostly used as slave laborers in the IG Farben factory in the town.

Third, the only section Levy speaks of tobacco distribution was for "Reichsdeutsche" and Kapos. Reichsdeutsche are Germans who were imprisoned for various reasons, including political crimes or being "asocial" (i.e. a vague term that could mean anything from being a career criminal to an alcoholic). It's important to note that these are crimes; these people were not imprisoned because of who they were (i.e. they weren't imprisoned simply because they were Jewish, or Slavic, or what have you.) Kapos, as most people know, were the prisoners used by the SS to maintain order within the camp system. When you recognize that Levy is speaking about a very select camp elite, it makes more sense that tobacco was available. (As an aside, there were lots of conveniences for the camp elite, including brothels!!) Only very rarely were Jews or other so-called sub-humans actually elevated to the status of Kapo, and because of Nazi racial laws, could never be considered a Reichsdeutsche.

As for it being a waste of wartime resources, the Nazis, on multiple occasions, did things that might be considered counter-productive for their war effort but that could be understood as furthering their genocidal goals (the death marches in the face of advancing allied armies are the most famous example, or the killing of Jews instead of holding them as slave laborers for munitions factories is another). This would be a third such example. By allowing the camp elites to have tobacco, it would foster a sense of (fucked up) loyalty which would, at least in theory, make the maintenance of the camp easier. Every German (or allied peoples) who did not have to guard inmates could be sent to the front.