THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q. Witness, before the recess you stated that you personally did not participate in these spot checks of the garrison treasuries or concentration camps treasuries. However, you were in charge of Amt-A-IV? In this capacity didn't you have a responsibility for this auditing?
A. Yes. If my auditors found any case for complaints, they would write then down in the auditing report. And then these remarks which had been drafted by my auditors were looked over by me, and then I would sign them. If any special cases had to be dealt with, then the files were submitted to me, and the case was presented to me, then I myself would examine this case.
JUDGE MASMANNO: Dr. Schmidt, I am wondering if you are not now going to go into a lot of details which perhaps does not give us any more information than what we already have in the way of ascertaining the methods by which his work was done. I think we have a fairly comprehensive view now of the machinery of his office.
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, Your Honor. I now want to ask the witness a question which is not directly connected with the machinery and the organization of the auditing system. It deals with the general matters and conclusions; in particular, so far as auditing of concentration camp bills is concerned. I believe that this point is very important in order to judge the case of the defendant Vogt. May I directly ask my next question of the witness. I now want to ask the witness whether he could see from spot checks of garrison treasury bills, of concentration camp treasury bills, just how conditions were in the concentration camps with regard to food, billeting, clothing, and the physical condition of the inmates.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Yes, that would be directly in point, yes.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q. Witness, will you please answer this question which I have just asked?
A. No, that was not possible at all. It would not have been possible either if precise preliminary checking had been made on these bills and not only on the spot checking. In order to gain an insight into the inner conditions of the concentration camps a longer stay would have been necessary in the particular camp. I have already stated that concentration camp accounts, and the accounts of the local treasures, were only checked in large intervals. This preliminary checking consisted of auditing work, which did not require individual auditing officials to be present in certain garrisons of the concentration camps for a longer period of time.
Q. Was it the task of the auditor, or was it a task of your office in the case of such preliminary auditing of concentration camps vouchers, to examine also whether the inmates of the concentration camp were supplied with sufficient food, clothing, and whether they had good billets?
A. This was not the business preliminary auditing of the Treasury and the bills but they were the tasks of the official supervisors. The local supervision was carried out by the Director of administration of Concentration Camps. This person was responsible for the procurement of food and clothing. He was also responsible for the billeting of the inmates. The official supervision on a ministerial level was the task of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps, that was Amtsgruppe-D. For the supervision of food, we also had a food inspector, that was Professor Dr. Schenck. I would like to describe briefly the organization of concentration camp administration.
Wherever a concentration camp was located there was some sort of an administration. It was directed by an administrative officer who was a Sturmbannfuehrer or a Senior Hauptsturmfuehrer. He was responsible for the treasury, for the procurement and maintenance of clothing and for the procurement and the preparation of food. He had to supervise the kitchen. He had to administer the stock in the camps. He had to procure and he had to request billets. He, furthermore, had to supervise the inmates' treasury which was subordinated to the Camp Commander. The next higher agency was the Office D-IV. It was called the administrative supervisory agency.
Q And if I have understood you correctly the AMT A-IV had nothing to do with it?
AAmt A -IV had nothing to do with the administration in the camp and the administrative supervision. We only dealt with the subsequent auditing of the expenditures which had accumulated there.
Q Witness, you know that in the affidavit of the defendant Frank this is affidavit NO-1576, Prosecution Exhibit 4 in Document Book I of the Prosecution, it is stated that the bills which resulted from the food which was procured in the concentration camps were submitted to Amtsgruppe D, Burger, by the administrative officials in the concentration camp. There they were compiled and then they were sent to you in order to be examined and it is alleged that it was your task to examine the expenditures and to see if they agreed with the funds that had been allotted for that purpose. In the cross-examination of the defendant Frank I have already asked that question and the defendant Frank has given us his view-point in the witness stand. However, I consider it appropriate if you also would give us your viewpoint - your own viewpoint in this matter. What can you tell us with respect to the auditing of food bills from the concentration camps from your own personal knowledge?
A It's impossible that on the part of the administration of concentration camps, the bills for food were sent separately to the Administrative Office of Amtsgruppe D. I believe that Burger still was thinking of the previous procedure.
Q Excuse me for interrupting you. Are you referring to Burger or are you referring to Frank in his affidavit?
A I am referring to Frank. Probably Frank was still thinking of the previous procedure which consisted of the following: the administrations of the concentration camps sent their bills on a monthly basis to the administration office of the Inspectorate. There these bills were examined and they remained there until the preliminary checking was carried out.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by "former procedure?" You mean before the WVHA?
A Yes, that was before the establishment of the WVHA and this new procedure was maintained until the fall of 1942 when the local garrison treasuries were established. Amongst these bills also were the bills for the food expenditures.
Q And what can you say with respect to the procedure which was adopted later on?
A I have already mentioned it at the establishment of garrison treasuries, this treasury made all cash payments and there the bills were kept.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, in this connection I would like to read the affidavit which I have already mentioned in the cross-examination of the defendant Frank. It is the affidavit of the former Chief of the Amt DIV. His name is Burger. This is Document Vogt No. 20. It is contained in my subsequent volume to the Document Book used by Vogt. It's on page 8. I want to submit it as Vogt's Exhibit 10. I now want to read part of it and I begin after the usual introduction to the affidavit. There it states and I quote: - that's Document No. 20. I quote:
"To the statements of the defendant Frank as laid down in his affidavit of 17/;/1947, which has been submitted to me, document of the Prosecution No. 1576, Exhibit No. 4, contained in Document Book I, which deals with the treatment and the examination of accounts for feeding concentration camp inmates (Document Book I, page 18), I state the following:
It is incorrect to say that the administrative of the divers concentration camps sent their bills for food, procured for the concentration camp inmates, to the administration of Amtsgruppe D (Burger ), to be classified and to be finally forwarded to Vogt for auditing. During my work with the Amtsgruppe D, I have never received such bills, nor forwarded them to Vogt. As far as I know, these bills, as well as other expenses of the concentration camp administration were paid either by the concentration camp administration itself or, if the concentration camp pay office in question was attached to the garrison pay office, the bills were forwarded to them, for payment. They were treated in the same way as the other cash vouchers of the administrations in question, and remained there, together with the other vouchers. I can not say what methods my predecessor Kaindl used."
DR. SCHMIDT: Witness, I now come to the point which deals with the allocation of inmate labor. This subject has already been discussed in the cross examination of the defendant Frank, in connection with your auditing activities. I now want to ask you the following question: Did your office A-IV have anything to do with the allocation of inmate labor of concentration camp inmates?
A No, the Amt A-IV did not participate at all in the labor allocation of inmates.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. That's enough. That answers the question.
Q Did your office have anything to do with the income which resulted from the labor allocation of inmates?
A The income from the labor allocation of inmates were solicited by the administration from books, and, of course, they were registered accordingly. Such bills were subjected to preliminary auditing. Then this income was also accepted. An examination of the bills themselves was not possible because the Office A-IV did not have any knowledge about the salaries which were paid.
THE PRESIDENT: You are referring, Dr. Schmidt, to the bills which were rendered to industries for labor furnished from the camps?
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, Your Honor, that's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: That is payrolls, wage earnings from the industries?
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, Your Honor, I now want to ask you, witness, was this income from the labor allocation of inmates - was this not also contained in the monthly reports of the agencies which dealt with these bills and did they not come in this way to the knowledge of the Office A-IV?
A Yes. This income was listed in the final report. However, these matters were not specified. Therefore, it could be not be seen whether among amounts of five million, three million had been received for the allocation of prisoners and two million for other matters. These monthlypayrolls only passed through my office in order to be audited. And then they were included in the annual account and turned over to the Amtgruppe A-II.
Q I now come to a document. This is your affidavit which has been presented by the Prosecution as Exhibit No. 8. The document is contained in Document Book 1 and it is document NO-1567. In this affidavit you have stated that you examined the income and the expenditures of Amtsgruppe A, B and D, in the WVHA, with the exception of C and W. Is this statement in your affidavit correct?
A The Amt A-IV had to deal with the preliminary auditing of the bills of the treasury of the WVHA: it had to deal with them in exactly the same way that it dealt with the examination of other agencies. It was not so that the Amtsgruppen first had to turn over their scheduled or current expenses to the Amt A-IV for approval before the money was spent. The expenditures of Amtsgruppen A, B, C appeared in the total balance --of the treasury of the WVHA. These expenses were also audited in the preliminary auditing of the treasury. However, as far as expenses were concerned for other agencies, for example the Main Economic Agency, these expenses appeared and were listed with these agencies, and there they were included in the balance.
Q Excuse me, witness, I want to interrupt you: With what agencies were these other expenses registered? Can you please repeat that once more very clearly?
A In the Main Economic Agency, And if they had to give some expenses, then these expenses were also listed with the Main Economic Agency. The expenses of Amtsgruppen E, D, W, were not paid by the Treasury of the WVHA. The Amtsgruppe D originally had its own office treasury. However, this treasury was discontinued when the garrison treasuries were established.
The expenses of Amtsgruppe D were dealt with by the garrison administration at Oranienburg and there they were listed in the balance.
I want to give an example now: Let us assume that Amtsgruppe D needed communications equipment. The chief of the Amtsgruppe D orders their procurement. And the proper authorities procured this equipment. The bill then is certified to be essential by the chief of the Amtsgruppe; that is to say, that the procurement of this equipment is essential. It then went to the Administrative Office of Amtsgruppe D. There an order for payment was issued. Then it was again turned over to the garrison treasury. Then the bill was paid there and it was registered there too. Then it remained in the balance, was included there. With regard to Amtsgruppe C, we can only consider those expenses which were not construction expenses, because the expenses which arose from the constructions, were already listed by the construction agencies themselves. The control of the income and the expenditure of Amtsgruppe W was the task of the Special Economic Auditing Agency with this Amtsgruppe itself. The office, A-IV, had nothing to do with that.
Q Witness, I want to refer once more to your affidavit in Document Book 1: In this affidavit you have stated that to the bills of Amtsgruppe D which were submitted to the auditor also attached to the order for payment was attached, and from that it could be seen just how high the credit was which was put at the disposal of Amtsgruppe D. Is this statement in your affidavit correct?
A This apparently is a mistake. It should not be D, but should be B. The interrogator asked me the following question: "What task did the auditing office have if the Chief of the Amtsgruppe B was given a credit of 20 million marks? Did you have to supervise that and to examine it?" By way of explanation I would like to say the following: If the Chief of Amtsgruppe B was given such a sum at his disposal, for example, for clothing, then the treasury of the WVHA was order to give the clothing plant a credit of 20,000,000. The clothing plant in the course of the year used the credit which had been approved and it would withdraw the required funds.
At the end of the year the credit was accounted for with Amt A-II. This office also had to exercise the control that the fund which had been allotted was not surpassed. Amt A-IV had nothing to do with this matter.
Q Witness, up to now you have spoken of the preliminary auditing work of Amt A-IV. Within this preliminary auditing work did you also have to carry out the auditing of treasuries?
A No. I have already mentioned that during my activity with the administrative office of the Waffen SS besides the preliminary auditing I also had to carry out the extraordinary treasury auditing with the garrison treasuries. With the establishment of the office, A-IV, in the WVHA the supervision of the treasuries was transferred to the agencies on medium level and as a ministerial agent I had to deal only with the preliminary auditing. It is possible that my officials whenever they carried out preliminary auditing, whenever it was necessary in the interests of the examination, also connected an examination of the treasury with it. However, this didn't change anything in the supervisory tasks of the agency itself.
Q In concluding the whole question of the preliminary auditing activity of the Amt A-IV, I would like to submit several documents. I would like to quote from Documents which have already been presented. I want to quote some important phrases from them. First of all, I want to quote from the affidavit of Haleck, which has already been presented; that is Document 9 -- Exhibit 9, and it is located on page 29 of the German text in the document book.
I would like to read paragraph I, and I quote: "Tasks and development of the office AIV". I would like to add that Arthur Haleck was Amtsrat with the Auditing Court of the German Reich, and he makes the following statement:
"The task of the office A IV was to make a preliminary audit of the accounts which had to be submitted by the different finance departments of the Waffen-SS offices. This did not apply to construction expenditures which had to be audited preliminarily by office C VI (Standartenfuehrer Eirenschmalz). according to the definition given in article 2 subparagraph 3 of regulation for preliminary audits for the constituent states, preliminary audit only means an audit of the material which is to be submitted to the Auditing Court after the payments have been made. The Auditing Office A IV was not entitled to exercise any control prior to the payments or to cooperate in the creation of the regulations and budgetary decrees of the WVHA? The sub sequent preliminary audit which according to article 13 of the regulation for preliminary audits for the constituent states had to be made with regard to form, arithmetic and to the facts represented the first of the two steps of the general audit. The second step was the final auditing of the accounts by the Auditing Court, which may also be called 'Superrevision' or superauditing.
"During the war it became impossible to maintain the normal extent of the preliminary auditing; that is to say, the preliminary auditing of all accounts of every Waffen-SS unit, because of the acute lack of qualified administrative officers. For this reason the preliminary auditing was with the approval of the Auditing Court (in accordance with article 92, subparagraph 3 of the Reich Budgetary Law) limited to tests on the spot. Because of the long duration of the war and the continues considerable increase of Waffen-SS units this lack of administrative personnel became increasingly serious. Due to this circumstance the Auditing Court waived in numerous cases the preliminary auditing the office A IV in its entirety. I was informed at that time of this waiver through the competent sub department chief of the Auditing Court, Ministerial Councillor Knebel. To which individual branch offices it applied I am unable to say at this time - with exception of the supply affairs of the Waffen-SS.
It will also be impossible to determine this in any other way, since Ministerial Councillor Knebel died in 1946. The principle was to waive the preliminary audit by the office A IV of field offices mainly in such cases where the Auditing Controlling Court itself carried out the auditing locally, that is to say at the seat of the particular office rendering its accounts. But in spite of all simplifications, the auditing on the spot by the office A IV became more and more complicated under the force of circumstances. In the course of time it became so insufficient that an actual preliminary auditing of any importance did no longer exist. It was therefore nothing but a natural development when during the last months of the war the preliminary auditing was entirely abolished."
I then continue to read another document on the subject, and I want to read the affidavit of a former auditor who worked under Vogt. It is a certain August Schaper. His affidavit is contained in the appendix to the document book; that is, Document Number 18. It will become Exhibit Number 11. In this affidavit Schaper gives the following statement: First, paragraph 1:
"Before the WVHA was established I had been employed at the pre-auditing office of Amt 1/1 attached to the Main Office for Budgets and Buildings. With the establishment of the WVHA on 1/2/1943, I was transferred, after the dissolution of the Main Office for Budgets and Buildings, to the Auditing Office A/IV, of which the defendant Josef Vogt was the director. There I was employed as an auditor. As such, I had to carry out preliminary examinations of the accounts, rendered by the competent account offices of the Waffen-SS, in the various military districts. As a rule, I carried out these preliminary examinations at the auditing office itself. The respective offices sent their bills there. Only insofar as it seemed necessary were preliminary examinations carried out on the spot. As during the course of the war, the personnel of the auditing office greatly decreased in number, preliminary examinations could no longer be carried out to the extent hitherto practiced. Preliminary examination were then limited to examine the submitted bills on the spot.
"2. I never carried out preliminary examinations of the Concentration Camp Dachau administration, which belonged to my district, neither in Dachau itself nor at the auditing office. This can be explained by the fact that for reasons of economy, only the garrison finance office was left to operate in garrisons with several SS-offices, where's the other finance offices were converted into pay offices.
Consequently, accounts were only rendered by the garrison finance office. Since, however, there were so many SS agencies in Dachau and therefore a great many bills had accumulated, the chief of the Amtsgruppe A, ordered them to be kept at the office of the garrison administration to be audited locally. I have never carried out such a local audit. As far as I can remember, the Auditing Court reserved for itself the auditing of the administrative offices in Dachau.
"3. If objections resulted from a pre-auditing of bills, then the auditor in question would make notes in writing. These were then submitted to the 'Amtschef' for his information and signature. In special cases, especially if there were reasons for suspecting punishable acts, that is, embezzlements on the part of the office, rendering the accounts, the auditing documents were submitted to the 'Amtschef' who in turn would report this fact to the Chief of Office group.
"4. Vogt frequently conferred with his auditors concerning the manner in which these preliminary examinations were carrier out. In the course of these conferences, Vogt would again and again point out to his coworkers that any infractions of the law were to be dealt with ruthlessly, and regardless of the person concerned. I have carried out my auditing duties in accordance with Vogt's severe, but just instructions. I remember two instances, where I found discrepancies in the settlement of the accounts of two highly placed SS-officers. In these cases, Vogt fell in with my objections and supported me, and subsequently forwarded them to Chief of the Main Office for further consideration, or, in the one case, directly to the administrative office to which the SS-general in question was subordinated.
"5. All those pay offices of these departments of the Waffen-SS" -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Is it necessary to read this entire affidavit? Can't you summarize in a few words, what it tells, and then we have the affidavit and we can read it ourselves. If there is one particular sentence or paragraph which you think is of great vital importance, then it would be in order to read it, but to spend time reading what we have already heard from the witness seems to me an unnecessary expenditure of time.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, I was of the opinion that the statements contained in this affidavit would be of special importance in the case of Vogt because this auditor who has given this affidavit, Schaper, is the only witness whom I could obtain for his testimony, and he happened to be working in the office of the defendant. However, if the Tribunal is of the opinion that it would be sufficient to present this affidavit and that it would take judicial notice of it, then of course, I agree with the opinion of the Tribunal Q: (By Dr. Schmidt) Witness, in your affidavit of the 16th of January 1947 to which I have already referred several times, you have also mentioned this man Schaper, who was an auditor.
You mentioned him in connection with the auditing of the bills of Amtsgruppe D. Can you still remember that? will you please answer my question with yes or no?
A: Yes.
Q: In what connection and in what manner did you mention Schaper with regard to the examination of Amtsgruppe D?
A: This statement was a mistake on my part. In the interrogation I just happened to recall this name without considering that he was not even dealing with this particular field of work in that region. Schaper could not possibly audit Amtsgruppe D because he was not dealing at all with this sphere of work.
DR. SCHMIDT: With regard to this statement made by the witness I would like to point out in particular -- paragraph 6 of the Schaper affidavit which I have just read. In this paragraph 6 the witness Schaper states that he actually never audited the expenditures of Amtsgruppe D. Amtsgruppe D was located at Oranienburg as is known.
However, Oranienburg did not belong to the region in which Schaper carried out his auditing work. In concluding the question of the preliminary auditing, I want to submit another document. This is an excerpt from some literature which is called Financial Legal Questions of Our Time. This document is contained in Document Book 1 and it is Document Number 8. It is on page 27 of the German text. This essay was written by the former Minister of State and President of the Auditing Court, Dr. Saemisch.
Court No. II, Case No. IV
THE PRESIDENT: Exhibit 12?
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, Your Honor. It is Exhibit No. 12. This literature shows the difference between preliminary auditing and final auditing, and it describes in detail the nature of preliminary auditing. In order to save time I shall not read this document.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Schmidt, please don't think that I am trying to interfere with the manner in which you desire to present your case, but I would like to point out -- and I am speaking only for myself in this instance -- that I gain the impression you are endeavoring to establish that Vogt was a good auditor; he lived up to the laws of auditing; that he was efficient and that he ran his office smoothly, but that isn't what is before the Tribunal for determination. He is charged with participating in a criminal conspiracy of knowing that criminal things occurred and he didn't lift a hand to prevent their occurrence.
Now you haven't told us about the fact that he went to Lublin, that he saw what took place in the concentration camp. He saw the ill-gotten returns of the Reinhardt action. What did he do about that? That is what I would like to know about, not whether he followed subparagraph C of law 13 passed by the Reich with regard to auditing.
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, Your Honor. I now intend to go into these points. Of course, we understand that the Tribunal has placed the greatest emphasis on these particular points. I, therefore, shall go over to the count of the conspiracy, and I shall ask the witness questions on that particular subject.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q Witness, from the statements of the Prosecution you know that in the question of the conspiracy the establishment of the WVHA and membership in that office has played a very considerable part. I, therefore, want to ask you the following question. At the time when the WVHA was established, did you become director of the auditing office voluntarily or by order? That was office A-IV.
A I was ordered to take over this office.
Q With regard to the conspiracy count, it is also of importance whether your fields of tasks were so closely connected with the other offices and agencies of the WVHA that from this we could conclude a coordination between the activities of your office and the activities of the remaining offices in the WVHA. Will you please give us your point of view on that subject?
A I have already stated that my office worked as a preliminary auditing agency for the auditing courts. It had no influence on the administrative activity of the other offices in the WVHA. I could only exercise a subsequent control of the income and expenditures. However, I could not exercise any administrative control. That the preliminary auditing was not included in the administration in any way is already shown by the fact that my office at the end of the War, as I have already mentioned, was dissolved and it was classified as being dispensable.
Q During your membership in the WVHA did you ever attend any official conferences which dealt with other tasks and assignments than preliminary auditing?
A My discussions with the chief of Amtsgruppe-A only dealt with my activity in the auditing work, and with the official connections which I had with the representatives of the auditing court. I never attended any other conferences about other fields of tasks and assignments.
My official contact with the other offices of the WVHA was limited only to the things which were of the utmost necessity. With the chief of the Main Office Pohl, during my entire membership in the SS I only had three conferences, and they were of an official nature. The first conference took place in the year 1937. That was on the occasion of my introduction when I joined the SS. The second conference took place in the year 1943 when Pohl ordered me to audit the Treasury of Globocnik because Pohl had received a letter in which it was alleged that embezzle ments had taken place.
The third conference took place after my evacuation to Fuerstenberg. In the course of this conference Pohl ordered me to establish a post office at Fuerstenberg for my mail and not to route my mail anymore through the mail-receiving point or the WVHA at Berlin.
Q You have just talked about the evacuation of your office? When did this evacuation take place?
A That was in the middle or the end of June, 1943.
Q Witness, didn't you ever participate in conferences which, for example, dealt with the financing of the Waffen-SS, with the preparation of the establishment of budgets or which dealt with reports of personnel strength or the financial suppliesor things of that nature?
A No; this was not part of my field of tasks.
Q Did you ever participate in any conference which dealt with the so--called final solution of the Jewish problem?
A No.
Q Did you know what was meant by "final solution of the Jewish question"?
A In the final solution of the Jewish question I saw the settlement of the way of life of the Jews in Germany, That this solution would be carried out by force as Hitler wanted to carry it out and in which he has carried it out, I did not have any knowledge.
Q Were you ever consulted for conferences with other office groups?
A No.
Q Did you ever discuss with other office chiefs or chiefs of the office groups of the WVHA or with Pohl himself, or did you make any official trips with him?
A No.
Q Did you have with the SS leaders in the WVHA or any of the abovementioned persons any close personal contact?
A No. I didn't have any close contact with the chief of the Main Office, nor did I have any with the SS officers outside of my official contact with I had with them.
I never knew them socially. I socially only was in contact with circles which were outside of the SS.
Q In Count I of the indictment the Prosecution alleges that the Defendants had not only conspired with each other but that they had also conspired with other persons. I, therefore, ask you did you ever meet officers from other SS Main Offices and did you have any conferences with them which, for example, referred to the war crimes which are meant in the indictment or crimes against humanity?
A No.
Q Witness, you know that on the first of April, 1942, the agency of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps was incorporated into the WVHA as Amtsgruppe-D. As a result of this did anything change in your field of tasks?
A The change was only of a very minor nature. The increase in the number of treasuries by taking in the concentration camps only amounted up to only about four percent.
Q Did you in any manner participate in the conferences which proceeded the incorporation of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps into the WVHA?
A No.
Q Did you deal with any other tasks of the administration of the concentration camps in connection with Amtsgruppe-D?
A No. I have already stated that my control of the income and expenditures had nothing to do with an administrative control of the agency which rendered the bills.
Q Did you ever participate in a meeting of the concentration camp commanders?
A No.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, in this connection I would like to present an affidavit by Hermann Pister who was the concentration camp commander of Buchenwald. It is listed in Document Book I, and it is Court No. II, Case No. IV Document No. 12, and it will become Exhibit No. 13.
I shall not read this affidavit, but I only want to state that Pister has declared that Vogt did not participate in a meeting of the concentration camp commanders at that time, but that he only saw him at the dinner which was held in the officers' mess of the WVHA at Berlin after the conference had already taken place.
Your Honor, with this, would it now be suitable for you to call a recess?
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1:45.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1350 hours, 16 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Take your seat, please.
Tribunal No. II is again in session.
JOSEF VOGT- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION(Continued)
DR. SCHMIDT: About the indictment of the conspiracy, I would like to ask a few small questions to the defendant.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q. Witness, did you have any thing to do with the medical experiments or with the euthanasia program which is being charged against you by the Prosecution?
A. No.
Q. The Prosecution introduced as Document 1919-PS, Exhibit 49, in Document Book No. III an excerpt from Himmler's Posen speech of the 4th of October, 1942, in which Himmler at the time spoke about the extermination of the Jews. I ask you now, Witness, were you a participant in that meeting or did you only find out about the contents of the speech at a later date?
A. Neither did I participate in that meeting nor did I hear anything about this speech at a later date. It was only by the introduction of the documents here in this trial that I learned about that speech.
Q. The Prosecution repeatedly also mentioned Himmler's speech at Cracowicze of April,- 1943, in which Himmler at the time also dealt with the Jews, and he compared the Jews with lice. Did you have any knowledge about that speech, or did you gain knowledge of that speech at a later date?
A. No, the same applies to that. As I said before, I learned about it from the documents introduced in this court.
Q. Before I deal with the complex of questions, namely, the Reinhard Action question, I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would permit that I introduce two additional documents which are contained in my document book.