There was always somebody above you.
Q. Did you ever have any correspondence with an office in Berlin?
A. At this point I can no longer say this that I ever wrote to Berlin. We wrote to the RSHA which originally was in Berlin, later on in Prague. We wrote direct letters to them. It is equally proper that we wrote letters to some office in Berlin but I don't recall it.
Q. Excuse me. What I am interested in only is an office of the WVHA. Did you have any correspondence with an office of the WVHA in Berlin?
A. I am unable to say that today.
Q. Then there is another question, Herr Ackermann. You said before in your cross-examination by Dr. Seidl roughly this - it is almost verbatim: The WVHA should know what money was made through the cinema in Buchenwald.
A. That is correct, yes.
Q Now my question is, do you know where these takings from the cinema were directed to?
A. I know that the takings went to Hauptsturmfuehrer Barnewald who was in charge of economic matters and was under the WVHA, and I assume handed the money over to it, and we discussed that quite often with the doctor that it was sent to the WVHA in Berlin. I assure - I cannot say so definitely - but I assume that the takings of the cinema performances were sent to Berlin.
It was once pointed out to me that a brisk money business was being done here for the SS. The film came from somewhere, and when thousands of inmates paid twenty pfennige a performance quite a sum would result. If I am not very much mistaken, the question of the brothel we also discussed by correspondence with an office of the WVHA but I cannot again state it definitely.
Here again the people there were giving fifty pfennige and, since the WVHA was responsible for all economic matters in the camp, we would assume that that money would go there, too. I am not quite certain on that point, though.
Q May I ask you this now: Before we were speaking of various groups and if I understood you correctly, about some of which you are not practically well informed.
A No, I am not informed about details here. I couldn't have been interested in it either.
Q Do you know who Barnewald was subordinated to, by any chance?
A We in the camp thought that Barnewald was not under the commandant as were the other SS officers, but that he was under the WVHA directly. That became clear to us, because Barnewald, the economic leader had a position apart from the commandant, and in economic matters the commandant had nothing to say or rather that Barnewald also spoke the decisive word there.
Q Now, my precise question is, whether you know what department or group within the WVHA Barnewald was under?
A No, I do not know. No, I cannot say that.
DR. FRITSCH: Thank you very much.
BY DR. GAWLIK (for Defendants Volk and Bobermin):
Q Witness, you spoke of the fire which burned in Dora. From what time was the fire burning?
A The fire was established, roughly, in the autumn of 1944, when the corpses piled up from the many camps and the evens of the crematorium were not big enough to cope with all the corpses which had been gathered in the camp.
Q But you agree with me, Witness, that surely the population who saw the fire could not know what the fire was all about.
A The population of the villages around us knew very quickly and very precisely what was going on. Can you imagine the SS men? They would see their girl friends in the evening and give them all the latest news from the camp, and these people did not bother about the secrecy orders. Anything that went on in the camp become public outside, and people very soon heard what the fire was about, because they would ask questions.
The fire was half-way up the mountain and they saw it over a great distance, and people would let their imagination play and they would smell this particular stench, and I myself, for instance --- many concerned -- I smelled corpses for about six years.
Q Did you yourself talk with a large number of people about the fire?
A Yes, I talked to people about the fire.
Q I mean, with a large part of the population.
A Well, I was not in a position to hold mass meetings in Nordhausen, but I had a certain amount of contact with people. I went to Nordhausen and talked to all sorts of people there.
Q And you told the population what the fire was about. I ask you, did you discuss the fire with the population?
A I talked to the population about it. The population asked me questions -- people would ask me, "Do you still have so many corpses that the fire has to go on?" and I answered, "We receive more and more corpses every day."
Q And it never happened that because of that you got into trouble with the Gestapo on account of these expressions?
A No, that did not happen.
Q Now, another point: You told the Court that the camp doctor, Dr. Hoven, had stated, "That skull I would like to have on my desk." When did that happen?
A That happened in about 1943.
Q The beginning of 1943 or the end of 1943?
A I am unable to give you the date.
Q Where?
A In the pathological department.
Q You heard that expression, did you?
A Yes, he told me.
Q To you personally?
A Yes.
Q And the next day, you said, the man was dead?
A Yes.
Q What did you do after that one time that he told you this thing?
A I did nothing, because corpses were not my task. I was only the clerk.
Q But why did he tell you this?
A Only because quite often he talked to me.
Q But it was a desire which he expressed?
A Yes, a wish.
Q Why did he express this wish to you?
A So that I would make a note of it. I was a clerk, and as a clerk I had connections with the people in the autopsy room.
Q But they knew already that Dr. Hoven wished to have a skull.
A When I went in the autopsy room the next day the clerk, Roeder, knew that was the same man who gave Hoven the skull.
Q So it is correct, is it, witness, that Dr. Hoven expressed this wish to you so that you would pass on that wish. Can you answer that question yes or no?
A I can answer it neither with yes or no.
Q How would you answer it?
A I would answer it to the effect that either in his enthusiasm he just expressed his feelings, as a private communication, as it were; but I can also imagine that he wished to draw my attention to the fact that when this man comes along he wished to have the skull, and as a clerk I should give orders to the assistant, and therefore I went there next day and I said, "This is the inmate whose skull Hoven said he wanted." So probably he also expressed the wish to the assistant.
Q Now, how can you as a clerk give an order? What sort of an order should you give as a clerk to an assistant?
A I should draw his attention to the fact that Dr. Hoven had given orders that that skull must be set aside next day and handed over to him.
Q Before that happened, surely other orders had to be given?
A How do you mean that?
Q If Hoven expressed that wish, the man was still alive when the wish was expressed.
A Dr. Hoven, of course, was of the opinion that when the corpse comes along, "I wish to have the skull." I could hardly give him the skull before the man is dead. The killing was the task of the doctors.
Q Then you said, witness, that the illegal camp leadership has its hand in it.
A What I said was, "It might have been done." I am not sure of this. The illegal camp leadership might have told somebody that the liquidation of that man might be desirable.
Q Perhaps you could describe to us who was the illegal camp leadership.
A I must tell you here in Buchenwald I had nothing to do with the illegal camp leadership. I knew the illegal camp leadership in Dora; but in Buchenwald I remained very passive; I did my work as a clerk, and today I am not a member of a political party. I did not have the reputation of -- let's say -- toeing the line, which was demanded by the illegal camp leaders, and for that reason I was not taken into their confidence. I did not take part in their decisions or consultations, nor in their recommendations to the camp doctor.
Q But perhaps you can tell us very briefly who was the illegal camp leaders, what were their tasks, and if you don't know, tell us, "I don't know."
A I have not sufficient concrete information for me to make statements here. The camp leaders were surrounded by various figures. You can imagine this person might or might have been an illegal camp leader; otherwise he would not have been a kapp.
It was conceivable that several functions would be distributed, for instance, by the illegal camp leadership, but I wasn't informed on that. I was never invited by them.
Q Perhaps you can answer this question: There was a commission of inmates which opposed the SS leaders.
A It was a committee of inmates who not only opposed the SS leaders. We all opposed the SS leadership. They had put themselves a definite political aim and in particular that once the camp would be dissolved none of us thought that the camp would continue to exist, we believed that the war was lost and then the most critical moments of their lives would come. For that reason the illegal camp commission was meant as a preparatory commission so to speak. Their tasks was to prevent anything which might be disadvantageous to the inmates. And in the end they really saw to it that the committee of inmates could not by some trick or other of the SS be smashed to pieces, that on the contrary in that moment the illegal camp management should take over the management themselves.
Q Then you said the possibility existed that that inmate was killed through the illegal camp leadership.
A I can imagine that Dr. Hoven had received information on this particular innate and that the wish had been expressed to Dr. Hoven that this inmate, perhaps because he had relations with the SS or perhaps because there is some suspicion that he spied on the inmates, should be eliminated.
Q With this particular killing, therefore, the SS leadership had nothing to do.
A Well, the SS leadership had certainly nothing to do with it but the SS doctor did.
Q Then you said, Witness, regarding visits, when he gave lectures in the pathological department, then the camp commandant stayed outside the door -
THE PRESIDENT: Will there be other cross-examination?
(Response in the affirmative)
Then we will recess until one-thirty.
(A recess was taken to 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1340 hours, 24 April 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
CROSS EXAMINATION -- Continued JOSEF ACKERMANN -- Resumed BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. Witness, is it then correct to say that the illegal camp administration was a secret organization of the prisoners?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Did trustees of non-German nationalities also belong to this illegal administration?
A. Yes, non-German prisoners belonged to it.
Q. I now come to another point. In the course of the lectures which you gave in the pathological section, what SS leaders were present when you gave those lectures?
A. Usually either the first camp leader or the second camp leader was present.
Q. And did not these SS leaders have objections to the contents of your lectures?
A. They probably had certain misgivings. However, they never expressed these misgivings. Sometimes the camp leader seemed to be rather annoyed, but I always kept on, and he never took me to account for it.
Court No. 11 - Case No. 4
Q. Not even when you actually made a liar out of him?
A. Not even then, because he could not know that I had listened at the door, and when I showed that previously he had told the people the camp had a mortality rate of eight or ten people a month, he could not accuse me of having made a liar out of him because he had not lied in my presence.
Q. Yes, but the listeners must have had the impression. Can you answer this question yes or no?
A. Yes.
Q. Therefore, it would have been easy to state that the number was not known to him.
Q. Therefore, it would have been easy to state that the number was not known him.
A. Yes, he had reason to say that. Yes, there would have been a reason for him to say that. He could have said that, but he didn't. He failed to do so. Apparently he did not want to make his lie any more public.
Q. Yes, but would it not have been easiest for him that he would have issued such instructions to you for the future? Can you answer me this question with yes or no?
A. If he had been an intelligent camp leader then he would have taken me aside and he probably would have said, "Well, this is none of the peoples' business so many people are dying here." But this camp leader was constantly drunk. He furthermore was extremely stupid. He was a former locksmith from Munich, and he did not get very excited about the whole matter. It was very embarrassing to him, but he did not refer to the matter any more afterwards.
Q. Was not the camp administration trying to keep Court No. 11 - Case No. 4 conditions in the camp secret?
Can you answer me this question with yes or no?
A. That cannot be answered with yes or no. They wanted it to be known on the outside that things in the camp were handled very strictly, and it would be a punishment to be sent to the camp, because they wanted people outside to feel being sent to the camp was a punishment.
Q. Is it not correct that every prisoner upon his release had to sign a form where, under a threat of the most severe penalties, he was prohibited from saying anything about the conditions in the camp? Can you answer me this question with yes or no?
A. This also varied. I was released from Dachau, and I did not have to sign anything there whatsoever, but I was brought to the Gestapo in Munich. There I had to sign a certain form according to which I was not even to say I had been in protective custody, and less that I had been in a camp. I had to sign that I was obligating myself to state towards everybody that I had been sick throughout the period of time, and I pointed out to the Commissioner there that this excuse would be ridiculous in my case because my arrest had taken place in 1933, and when the German newspapers had brought an article about my arrest and it was a great success of the Gestapo that I had been arrested, together with an English journalist. In spite of this the commissioner told me that I was obligated to tell everybody that I had been sick, and he told me "If they find out you were in protective custody or were at Dachau you will immediately be brought back into the camp."
Court No. 11 - Case No. 4
Q. Yes, but you will have to agree that you were also forced to refrain from saying anything about the conditions in the camp. Will you answer me this question with yes or no?
A. No, I was not forced to do that, but I was forced to do it in the form that I was not allowed to make any statement about it whatsoever.
Q. But there you were also forced not to say anything about conditions in the camp.
A. After my statement went to the effect that I could not say anything about the fact that I had been arrested, I certainly could not say anything about conditions in the camp.
Q. Is it also agreed you were forced not to say anything about the conditions in the camp?
THE PRESIDENT: He has answered that. He says yes.
THE WITNESS: Yes. May I say something in addition? In spite of this on the second day I went to the German National Socialist faction of the Bavarian Landtag, Dr. Guttmann, who at that time was General Director of the Bavarian State Library, and for two hours, I told him everything that had happened in Dachau, for two hours. I told him that I had been in chains. I told him about the murders I had witnessed, and I not only told Dr. Guttmann as Chairman of the Landtag --
Q. (By Dr. Gawlik) Excuse me, please, but this is not of any importance here. I only have the following question. After you have admitted that you were also forced not to say anything about conditions in the camp, I am now asking you the following question: In your testimony that you could tell all the visitors details about Court No. 11 - Case No. 4 conditions in the camp, I am now asking you the following question:
In your testimony that you could tell all the visitors details about conditions in the camp, does your testimony not contrast with that?
A. I have not told the people about conditions in the camp. I did not tell them that twelve people would be shot in the course of one morning, but I only told them indirectly that a large number of people were dying here. If I had said, "Gentlemen, today there is already six persons who have been shot," or also again, "In the autopsy room there is a corpse who was killed in the bunker," then that would have been what I would call telling about conditions in the camp. I could only point out the various diseases which occurred, and I could only give a hint to these people just how big our mortality rate was in the camp and just how people were being treated in the camp.
Q. Have I understood you correctly, you did not give any details?
A. I was unable to give any details.
DR. GAWLIK: No further questions.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN (For Defendant Mummenthey):
Q. Witness, you were asked this morning about the Actions 14 F 13. Do you still remember when the order was issued?
A. I cannot tell you that any more today, but it was in the year 1944.
Q. 1944?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you not hear anything about it before?
A. In Buchenwald I did not get any such orders into my hands because the pathology section was geograph ically separated from the hospital.
To the contrary at Dora I was directly subordinate to the Camp physician, and I was in charge of the entire correspondence of the camp physician. There I received all orders as far as the medical section was concerned into my own hands.
Q. And have I understood you correctly to say that the list about the prisoners who were selected went to Amtsgruppe D?
A. Yes.
Q. Herr Ackermann, at the time you were in the concentration camps, you certainly could form a judgment about the quality of the guards, and I would like now to ask you did you know from what classes of the population these guards came?
A. During the war the guards in the Buchenwald camp, as well as at Dora, mainly came from foreign countries. It was grotesque that it happened that a high bearer of the Knight's Cross, together with the camp leader, Roedl, walked around the guards and inspected the posts, and he asked the first man there, "Where are you from and how long have you been here?" This man replied "I cannot understand you. I am a Dutchman." And he came to the second guard, and the second one said, "I am not a German. I am Ukrainian," and the third one said,"I am a Roumanian." When he had made the rounds and he did not meet a single German there, they conversed, and he asked the camp leader, "Don't you have any Germans here?" The camp leader said, "Yes, they are in there, in the enclosure."
Q. And the SS men who were in the camp, from what class of the population did they come?
Court No. 11 - Case No. 4
A. The SS guards in the camp mostly came from the German personnel, and although these men were big and strong they were never sent to the front. They remained there as permanent personnel within the camp, because Himmler considered them as necessary to form a front from the outside. These people came for the most part from circles of agriculture, and they also came from the working class. However, most prominent among them, and most of them were those who were hardly able to read and write. They were hardly able to write their own names, and could carry out the brutal dominations.
Q. That was the brutal type of SS men up to the Hauptscharfuehrer you had in the camp?
A. Yes.
Q. Did it come to your knowledge in the case of these SS guards they were also partly guards who had been criminally punished before?
A. That did not come to my knowledge. However, I do know that a number of higher SS leaders had received considerable punishment before as criminals.
Q. Do you have the impression that the treatment of the concentration camp prisoners in the camp had its origin in instructions which had been issued from higher agencies?
A. Yes.
Q What agency do you believe that these orders came from?
A I am unable to give you that information.
Q Do you believe that this structure which went up already ended with the camp commander, or in excess of that, that other personalities were included?
A Yes, it went very far beyond the camp commander.
Q Where do you think that structure led to?
A I can not give you that information.
Q Is the name of Heydrich known to you?
A The name of Heydrich is not only known to me, but I have personally known him, and my first arrest was ordered by Heydrich.
Q Please tell the Tribunal who Heydrich was.
A Heydrich was a very ambitious, man, originally from Munich. There he was a small official with the Gestapo. He joined the National Socialist Party at a late period of time; he only became a member in 1930. But he had employed a certain tactic of pushing his way up, and he further knew that with big drinking feasts with other leaders one could advance more quickly than by achievements. Very quickly he became the duputy of Himmler in Bavaria and, when Himmler was appointed to a Reich position, he became the deputy of Himmler for the entire Reich. Himmler was a very brutal man who did not mind walking over corpses, and he
Q I believe you have made a mistake. You were talking about Heydrich.
A Yes, I was talking about Heydrich.
Q What organization was Heydrich in charge of? Do you know that the Gestapo was subordinated to him?
A Yes, the Gestapo was subordinated to Heydrich.
Q Do you know of any further organization that was subordinated to Heydrich?
A Yes, the SD.
Q Do you believe that Heydrich gave indirectly the previously mentioned instructions, and that he had an influence in issuing them?
A Yes, I believe that.
DR. FROESCHMANN: I don't have any further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other cross-examination? This witness may be excused
MR. ROBBINS: Your Honors, I have one question I would like to ask the witness.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Mr. Ackermann, did conditions worsen at Dora after Kahr was relieved of his position as camp doctor?
A The conditions did not become worse because his deputy, Dr. Kurzke, already had been told by camp physician Kahr upon his arrival at Dora, and they had already been influenced in such a way that Dr. Kurzke continued in exactly the same work which had been done by Dr. Kahr. And he continued whatever Dr. Kahr had tried to achieve for the prisoners. Of course, things became worse with regard to food. The difficulties became larger and as a result of the over-crowding of the camp by the dissolution of the camps at Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen, the over-crowding took on a catastrophic extent. We were not able to provide the prisoners with a straw bag; they had to sleep on the bare floor. And the medical care became difficult because drugs did not arrive any more from Berlin. We did not have any dressings anymore. We did not have any more drugs. We, ourselves, tried to lessen the pains of the people who were dying in numbers.
MR. ROBBINS: That is all the questions I have.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q You spoke of children being inmates in Buchenwald; were there any children inmates at Dora?
A There were children at Buchenwald and also at Dora. At Dora we had a lot of Gypsy children. They were boys who were six and seven years old. They had hundreds of children who were below the age of fourteen. The children had to work just like all the grown-ups. The practice, however, was such that we prisoners took care of the children and we prevented them being used for practical work by giving them small jobs to do, and by taking care of them otherwise.
Q Were any of the children killed in the same manner that adults were killed?
AAt Dora this did not happen. At Dora not a single child was killed.
Q Well, you have told us about the children in Buchenwald. You mentioned that there was a brothel kept at one of these camps. Which camp was that?
A From 1943 on, brothels were kept at Buchenwald and also, later on, at the camp Dora.
Q How many inmates did they have at these brothels?
A In the brothel at Buchenwald there were approximately twenty-one women. They were female prisoners from the women's concentration camp Ravensbrueck, and the inmates of the brothel at Dora also came from the concentration camp Ravensbrueck. Things were handled in such a way that they had the possibility to voluntarily report, to volunteer for work in a concentration camp brothel. In the case of the female prisoners of the concentration camp Dora, women volunteered who did not meet the preliminary requirements for work.
Upon examining these young women I found a Dutch student of law who was among the women who came there. I asked her if she realized what fate was in store for her because she volunteered for this. Thereupon, this Dutch student, who was approximately 24 years of age, told me that she had to do so much construction work, which was so hard, at Ravensbrueck that she could figure out mathematically when, as a result of the physical work she was doing, and as a result of the bad food, she would have to die there. She calculated that the war could not go on much longer and that in the brothel where the food was supposed to be very good, the time until the end of the war would pass under very dishonorable conditions - but that she would be able to survive.
Q Were these brothels maintained for the benefit of the inmates of the concentration camp or were they there for the guards and the higher-ups?
A No. These brothels were for the exclusive use of the prisoners. Usually the SS, beginning with the camp leader and including all the SS officers and the guards, would also visit these brothels at night and they used to be there quite frequently. But, fundamentally, the brothels were an institution for the use of the prisoners.
Q The money would go to the camp - or where would the money go to?
AAs far as we were informed, the money just like all other economic matters went to the Economic Leader of the camp.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Witness, what happened to the English correspondent that was arrested at the time you were?
A Mr. Panther was first of all kept in confinement and then on the next day the British government lodged a protest through the then Foreign Minister, Lord Simon. The English generals stated that English ships would sail against Germany if Panther was not released within 48 hours. As a result of the diplomatic pressure which was exerted, the Gestapo was very embarrassed. Also, so was the Foreign Office. The Gestapo tried to move me to sign the statement which was presented to me in its entirety. In this record, against better knowledge and contrary to the truth, I was to give testimony about Mr. Panther which would have made it possible for the Gestapo to accuse Mr. Panther of espionage and to have him tried. I refused to do that. First of all I was tried with "kid gloves" and later on with whips. They tried to force me to sign this record. When I continued to refuse, Mr. Panther had to be released - while I was sent to Dachau as punishment.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Mr. Ackermann, do you know whether the brothels were used as an incentive for harder work among the prisoners, used as a premium for the workers? Or was everyone permitted to go?
A I did not understand this question entirely.
Q Were the brothels used as a premium for hard work in the concentration camps, or were all of the prisoners permitted to visit the brothels?
A First of all it was left up to the individual if a prisoner wanted to go to the brothel. The prisoner in question had to sign a note on the night before where the following was stated: "Prisoner Number such and Such requests to be allowed to visit the special building tonight." This usually was approved if no special objections in the form of punishment was imposed by the camp administration of the prisoner. However, it was discovered that the political prisoners fundamentally refused to go into the brothel as a demonstration against the thoroughly unmoral institution of the concentration camp life. The political prisoners expressed to the camp administration, "Let us go home for two weeks every year so that we can see our wives at home." In any case, we refuse to go into a brothel where women are located who more or less are being forced in their capacity as prisoners to carry out this sort of work." Then the camp administration stated that was an organized form of resistance which was equal to a political demonstration; then the camp administration tried to exert a certain amount of pressure. I know that at the beginning of the brothel the camp eldest who also was a political prisoner was forced by the commander to be the example in opening the brothel and to be one of the first to go there to one of the women. In spite of this, the camp administration did not succeed and the political prisoners imposed a boycott on the brothel. At Dora things went on similarly. I was able to sabotage the brothel by postponing the physical examination of the female inmates. The SS now illegally opened this house for its own use and when I took the first Wasserman tests, when I was able to examine them, and when I was able to carry out the physical examination of these women, of these women I discovered three of them were suspected of syphillis and two of them had acute gonorrhea. In accordance with the result of this Wassermann blood test, then SS men began to report sick to the camp hospital until the end of the camp, Dora, the political prisoners did not enter the brothel.
MR. ROBBINS: I have no further questions.