THE WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Yes. And now did you translate that curve into figures?
THE WITNESS: Well, from the curve -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Into numbers.
THE WITNESS: -- from the curve I couldn't actually recognize the total number of deaths.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, what would the curve mean to you if it were not translated into numbers? Looking at a bare curve would be of no significance unless it were translated into figures, isn't that right?
THE WITNESS: I do not quite understand the question. Would you repeat it?
(The question was repeated by the interpreter.)
THE WITNESS: That is quite correct. Of course, it does. From the curve I could see the percentage or the per mille of a thousand inmates, and then I could translate it into the total number of inmates. In other words, if it was stated that of a thousand inmates, fifteen had died, then I could figure it out for myself that was the total number of the death rate compared with the total number of inmates. Of course I could.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Then you did know how many people were dying in the concentration camps.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I did.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: And when you saw the number increasing, did you do anything about it?
THE WITNESS: Of course I did. That development was always dependent on the development of the diseases. I inquired what diseases actually prevailed there, what measures had been taken in order to eliminate a steady increase of these diseases. The diseases, epidemic diseases, were usually the reason for the deaths, and they depended on the time or on the epidemic that prevailed at that time. In these curves we could not see all the deaths which occurred through the measures of the Reich Security Main Office or the Reich Government.
I only dealt with the inmates who were in the camps according to plan, and who could be used for labor allocation.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: What Judge Phillips and I were endeavoring to ascertain, and I think now we have ascertained, is whether you knew the number of deaths occurring in the concentration camps, and from this long interrogation we now conclude that you did know.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well, you may carry on, Dr. Seidl. As far as we are concerned we have finished this phase.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a good place to stop. A luncheon has been arranged for some guests from Berlin for the judges, but their plane has been delayed and we cannot have the lunch until one o'clock, so we will recess until two o'clock.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION The hearing reconvened at 1430 hours.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
OSWALD POHL - Continued DIRECT EXAMINATION -- Resumed BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, before the recess we had come to the reports which the chief physician for concentration camps, Dr. Lolling, made to you about sickness conditions and mortality figures. We shall have to come back to this point once again, of course, but I want to ask you right now: Was this statistical report, which was in the form of graphs, subdivided according to individual concentration camps, or was this statistical picture given merely for the entirety of the camps?
A. It was not subdivided according to individual camps, but it gave the picture for all camps.
Q. Let me first of all pass by the fact that repeatedly epidemics broke out in various camps. Let me, however, put this question to you: Did the statistical pictures Dr. Lolling gave you as graphs give you cause for any particular qualms regarding the health conditions of prisoners and the death rate.
A. No, these graphs were compiled on the strength of casualty figures, and the death rate was within normal limits, so that I had no particular reason to take any particular steps.
Q. We know today that in certain camps extermination measures against certain groups were introduced, and I am thinking especially of the extermination of Jews. Were these groups of people represented in Dr. Lolling's statistics, or did he confine himself to covering only those cases which, on the strength of reports from medical offices, from individual camps, came to his knowledge?
A. The figures about exterminations were not reported to the Inspectorate at all, and consequently Dr. Lolling could not evaluate them for his statistics. He made his statistics on the strength of reports which the camp medical officers submitted to him.
Q. This morning I showed you an organization chart which the Prosecution had offered as Exhibit No. 38. It is an organizational chart for the period after 3 March 1942, which Himmler had approved. Before showing you a different organizational chart, I want to ask you about the principles which directed you in connection with the administration of the WVHA which was under your command, and I want you particularly in this connection to answer the question whether you at any regular intervals held conferences with department chiefs and individual departments.
A. In the WVHA I had no conferences where all department group chiefs were present or were present together with department chiefs. Such conferences were never held by me. The matters which I had to discuss with my officials were always brought up with the individuals concerned, whom I would ask to come in to see me. Questions affecting the chiefs in their entirety never arose, so that there was no reason for any collective conferences with everybody in attendance.
Q. In this connection I shall now submit to you this second organizational chart which the Prosecution has submitted to this Tribunal in evidence. That is the organizational plan which the Prosecution themselves have compiled and which has the Exhibit No. 36, under which it was submitted to this Tribunal. It is Document NO 2672. It is attached to the brief which the Prosecution has submitted to the Tribunal, which deals with principal statements regarding the SS and the WVHA. This organizational chart is different from the one we had originally discussed because here the individual departments are not put side by side but one below the other. You yourself, as well as the other accused department chiefs, have signed the plan. You now have it in your hand, and I want to ask you now whether this plan is a correct reproduction of the groups of the WVHA and for what period it can be considered as being correct.
A. When I signed this plan, I confined myself to certifying to the correctness of the spheres of influence for individual department groups and their staff. That is to say, to have it checked because both the material structure -- subject incidentally to occasional changes -- as well as the personnel which comprised the staff was no longer quite clear in my memory.
For that reason, I asked during the interrogation that the group chiefs concerned should be consulted in order to have them carry out a preliminary examination of the correctness of the plan. That was, in fact, done. Unfortunately, I did not concern myself with the type of drawing employed when this plan was made. In fact, it came to my attention only when I saw this plan here as a large wall chart. I must say in this connection that the drawing used for this plan, and therefore for the organization of the WVHA, does not correspond with my views. Our organizational chart was always made in such a manner that the independent jurisdiction of the individual department groups was clearly shown. Consequently, all the organizational charts which we ourselves compiled show department groups as blocks side by side, but not in this form, which gives the impression that all department groups and departments were interconnected, which is not true.
Q. Then it is your view that the putting of the department groups side by side, as was done in the plan passed by Himmler, Exhibit 38, is a more correct reproduction of the true organizational picture than the picture contained in Exhibit No. 36, where individual groups are one be love the other?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Then it would be correct to say in particular that instructions which, for instance, Department C was to get, would previously have to go through A and B; that, after all, is the impression which you might get if you assume that the organization is correct which the organization plan of the Prosecution contains?
A. Yes, but that is not so. Instructions which I gave to department groups went directly from me to the very group of departments concerned, without any other group of departments being affected.
Q. I shall now turn to some questions dealing with the legal position of the WVHA.
Was this department an authority of the Reich or of the National Socialist Party?
A. The WVHA was a department of the Reich.
Q. From whom did you and the chiefs of the department groups and departments receive your salaries?
A. I myself, as well as the others, was paid by the Reich.
Q. How much did you receive as the Chief of the WVHA at various times?
A. When I was transferred to the SS I started with 600 Marks per month, and then I rose according to my promotions to the corresponding salaries of the ranks I held, reaching the top of General's rank. This was paid together with the following special payments and reached eventually at the very end 2500 - the not amount of 2700 Marks, and it consisted of the following: My general salary or pay, about 1400 Marks; 300 Marks additional allowances as department chief; 375 Harks paid to me as Plenipotentiary for the German Red Cross; 300 Marks were paid to me as the Reich Treasurer and Administrator of the NSDAP, and for a certain period I had an allowance, quarters allowance, of 400 Marks. That was my total income from pay.
THE PRESIDENT: Is this permonth? Each month?
A. Yes, per month.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I shall now turn to discussing a number of documents submitted by the Prosecution. In order to facilitate the work of this Tribunal I shall quote the pages on which these documents can be found in both the German and English document books. The first document to which I shall refer is Document NO-019-A on page 43 in the German Document Book 2, which can be found on page 32 of the English Document Book. It is a letter from the Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler to the head of the SS-Sector Weichsel of 15 December 1939 which the Prosecution has submitted as Exhibit No. 24. It is stated at the end of the letter:
"Concentration camps can only be constructed with my permission. Concentration camps now in existence are immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the Inspector for concentration camps, who is at present Herr Oberfuehrer Gluecks. The business of the economic business of this is the responsibility of SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl." End of quotation.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Let me ask you then, did you, already in 1939, concern yourself with allocation of labor in concentration camps, or what does the statement mean with regard to the care of economic considerations for the allocation of labor?
A. In 1939 I was not yet working on the allocation of labor in concentration camps. This statement here made by the Reichsfuehrer Himmler is due to the fact that approximately one year before, at the end of 1938, the workshops which had been in existence up to then in concentration camps, due to their increase in size, had been transferred as economic enterprises to the supervision of the WVHA. And for the first time I came into contact with these business enterprises in concentration camps. Here, Himmler is referring to this procedure and he had given me the task that at Stutthof -- which is to say at the time I should ascertain whether the economic installation which was there would be suitable for the employment of prisoners.
This was my task in the case of Stutthof.
Q. On 21 February, 1940, the Inspector of concentration camps, SS-Oberfuehrer Gluecks, had written a report to Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler about inspections of camps. A copy of this report was passed on to you, and the Prosecution has submitted it as Exhibit No. 29. It is Document NO-034, on page 49, of German Document Book No. 2; page 38 in the English version. This report shows that the taking over of the camp at Stutthof near Danzig, as a concentration camp of the State, was approved by you. I want to ask you what reasons you had for doing so.
A. In connection with all such questions I always acted as the expert concerned, and I investigated the question of whether the installation might be suitable for the employment of prisoners. My answer had to be yes or no; and in this particular case the answer was in the affirmative. The reporter called it "Befuerwortung," a statement in favor of the step.
Q. Some of this document is a file note of Sturmbannfuehrer Maurer dated 17 December 1941, and the prosecution submitted it. Statements contained therein-or, rather, was this a decision which you, yourself, had made, or did you merely wish to ascertain -- the consequences of a decision made by Himmler? I want to draw your attention to Figure 1 of this report in this connection, dealing with an inspection carried out on 10 September 1941. It states:
"The camp is very clean and suitably installed. After the Reichsfuehrer-SS had ordered the taking over of the plant as a model concentration camp suitable for the accommodation of approximately 25,000 Russian prisoners of war, I considered the extension of existing workshops and the taking over by the German Equipment GMBH as possible." End of quotation.
A. In this case, I only dealt with the consequences of a decision made by Himmler which I ascertained because the actual transfer or foundation of a concentration camp could not be ordered by me.
Q. As Exhibit No. 37 of the Prosecution has presented Document NO-495. The subject is a letter from the Reichsfuehrer-SS dated 19 January 1942, which, however, you yourself have signed. It is Document Book 2, page 56 of the English version.
You have already described the development of the WVHA which at the beginning of January 1942 came to some sort of conclusion as the Budget & Construction Department, and the Administrative Department of the SS were dissolved, and the tasks of these three departments were transferred to the WVHA effective 1 February 1942. This circular letter states as follows:
"In this Main Office, all economic, administrative, and construction matters of the Reichsfuehrer-SS will be dealt with on a ministerial level."
What is the significance of this statement: "ministerial level," I mean?
A. It was a realization of a goal. Himmler apparently had the idea that the WVHA might one day represent for him the centralized department for all matters to be dealt with on a ministerial level. That is to say, in the first place, for his entire budget as Reichsfuehrer SS, and the Chief of the German Police; and in the second place, for all construction matters. This centralization was never achieved. The reason for this was that, for instance, men like Daluege and Heydrich refused to collaborate. They refused to give up their independent budgets. Buth had in fact had their own ministerial counselors in their chief departments to which they would address themselves and who were responsible for the budget of their construction matters of their Main departments. But other construction -or, rather, other Main departments, too, as time went on --went back to an independent basis; as, for instance, the Main Department of the Reichs Commissioner for the strengthening of German national interests had a construction office --or constructional organization - of its own.
These constructional matters, too, did not go through the WVHA. In fact this statement here is the representation of an aim which was never achieved.
Q. The next question deals with Document NO-1063-FPF, which the Prosecution have submitted as Exhibit No. 39. It is on page 69 of the German in the document book, and page 65 in the English version. It is a letter from the Chief of the SS Security Police and of 30 May 1942 addressed to the Security Police and the SD, and informing them that the orders from the Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police, dated 3 March 1942, referred to the Department Group D, which is made part of the WVHA. Literally I quote from this letter:
"This measure serves the direction of the war in the East as it regards manpower and does not affect the responsibilities of the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA, for arrest and releases of inmates, leaves, etx." End of quotation.
Now, let me ask you, after the incorporation of the Inspectorate of concentration camps, did you have to deal with matters for war employment of prisoners-negotiate with this department?
A. I , personally, as far as questions of labor allocation were conerned, did not have one single conference with the RSHA, nor do I believe that Maurer did so; because the RSHA had no jurisdiction over labor allocation, and no negotiations took place between the two Main departments.
Q This change of organization -- did that lead to a collaboration between the RSHA on the one side and the WVHA on the other?
A. No.
Q. I shall now turn to Document R-129, submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit No. 40, German text page 70, Document Book 2, page 66 in the English version. It is an order which, yourself, gave after the Inspectorate of concentration camps had been included in the WVHA, and which contains the instructions and information given to camp commanders during the conferences on the 24th and 25th of April.
What were the reasons which caused you to call the commanders before you, and did similar conferences take place subsequently?
A. After the Inspectorate for concentration camps had been transferred to us, I had a first conference on 24 or 25 April, 1942, when I called the camp commanders together with the workshop managers to my office in Berlin. On that occasion I explained to them the new plan of organization resulting from Himmler's orders regarding the jurisdiction of concentration camps which had been transferred to the WVHA. I pointed out to them that the only cause for this incorporation was the question of allocating labor, and that consequently this was moved into the very foreground of the tasks and duties, particularly those of the camp commanders.
As far as this labor allocation was concerned, the workshop managers of the economic enterprises in concentration camps weren't any less interested; and between these two, and right from the beginning, there were considerable discrepancies regarding the allocation of prisoners. The commanders were trying, as before, to get hold of experts without having to send them to the firms which came under the WVHA, but they were interested in starting their own workshops and black-market firms.
I tried, during this joint conference between the camp commanders and workshop managers, to do away with these discrepancies by drawing the attention of these two groups to the much higher aim of the armament tasks which we were facing.
I stated further in this order what my points of view were concerning general principles and directives regarding working hours. I said, in fact, "This employment must be truly exhaustive in order to achieve a maximum output." I would attach importance to an explanation particularly of the conception of "exhaustive". I believe it has been translated "exhaustive" in the English. The word "exhaustive" has a double meaning in German. On the one hand it means exhaustive from the point of view of exhausting all possibilities; and then it means exhaustive from the point of view of tiredness of getting exhausted. In English "exhaustive" has a very clear meaning, namely, the meaning of the exhausting of possibilities. What I was trying to say here was that there should be well-planned utilization of the proper labor allocation, and I was not thinking of the exhaustion of individual men. Likewise, in the case of the formulation contained under figure 5, which says "working hours should be without limits", we are concerned with the limits of time.
Up to that time, as far as I am informed, working hours, generally speaking, were subject to the hours from 0600 hours to 1700 or 1800 hours. Of course, it happened that working parties of prisoners, because of weather conditions such as fog, etc., either left or arrived late, or didn't even leave at all. For instance, as I have myself experienced on one occasion, it did happen that entire truck convoys, loaded with fresh herbs which had been collected in the fields along the road, simply had to be left standing over-night because they arrived at 1700,1500, or 1900 hours and the detainees or the prisoners had already fallen out, had already retired. Consequently, these fragile herbs perished, more or less, which of course, considering the tremendous quantity we were concerned with and the importance they had for products made from them, represented a very considerable damage.
Here, therefore, the labor allocation was to become more elastic, and in fact later on it did become essential that prisoners worked two shifts, in other words, even at night. There was a day shift which they worked one week, and a night shift which they would work the other.
That is what I was trying to say in this connection when I said that working hours had no limits because for the duration, as it said later on, the length of working hours as such, was, after all, to begin with, decided by the camp commanders alone.
Q. Figure 7 of this order deals with a better guarding system. Who had suggested this step?
A. This suggestion came from Himmler. It was connected with changes in the labor allocation, with the mandatory consequences of this new arrangement.
Q. Part of document R-129 is a letter written by you after the transfer of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps to the WVHA. The letter itself is not dated, but the contents show that it was written after 3 March 1942. The letter would seem to show that at the beginning of the war there was a total of six concentration camps.
Now let me ask you: By whose order were these camps constructed?
A. Up to the outbreak of war, the camps were constructed by Inspector Eicke, who had a construction department of his own. The order for this purpose was given by Himmler in every instance.
Q. The same letter shows that in the years 1940-1942 nine additional camps were constructed. Let me ask you: Who ordered the construction of these new concentration camps between 1940 and 1942, who built them, and who had jurisdiction over the so-called Youth Protection Camps?
A. The order for the installation and construction of all concentration camps always came from Himmler. This second series of the years 1940 to 1942 was initially built by this construction department which I have mentioned previously, of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. Approximately at the end of 1940, however, it was transferred or turned over to the WVHA, so that the camps built after 1941 were built through the construction department of the WVHA. The approval and planning for these camps, however, until the beginning of 1942, was still in the hands of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and up until that time we had in fact to obtain permission for the carrying out of such construction work from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, because we of the WVHA only had independence regarding construction work after the spring of 1942, which was the time when we ceased to be dependent upon the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
This, in fact, was the first success which Kammler who joined us at the time -- scored, who succeeded in becoming independent of the Reich Ministry of the Interior for construction purposes.
The Reich Youth Camps-- which I had included in this report of mine, since Himmler wanted me to compile a comprehensive report about the camps even when they didn't belong to the WVHA-- were subject to the jurisdiction of Group Leader Nebe of the Reich Criminal police Department.
Q. How is it possible that the RSHA and the Leadership Main Office, the FHA, established their own camps?
A. That I don't know myself. I had heard about it at the time; I had heard that in occupied territories--that is to say, in the East-- they had constructed their own camps; not many, though, I don't know how many there were. Presumably it was the Leadership Main Office, the FHA, in order to have workships directly behind the front. I heard about it, and I reported it to Himmler. I requested that here too, in order to prevent a splintering up of jurisdiction, he should withdraw this jurisdiction, this independent jurisdiction, from the other main departments.
Q. I shall now turn to document NO-504, which the Prosecution submitted as Exhibit No. 41. It is in the Germar document book II on page 75, and it is on page 70 in the English text. This is a report which you wrote on May 1942 to the Reichsfuehrer SS, the subject of which is the consultation of the WVHA with the Reich Ministry of Finance with regard to the budget of the Waffen SS.
I want to ask you, in connection with this document: How do you explain that only 11 concentration camps were recognized by the Reich Ministry of Finance?
A. The negotiations which are the subject of this report were negotiations regarding the peace-time budget, even if they took place in May 1942, because even during the war, and apart from budget questions of a war-time nature, we had a peace-time budget. That, of course, referred to all those positions which, after the war, would remain in the hands of the Army. That is the case here in this report which, for instance, deals with 11 concentration camps. What this means, or what it is saying, is that at the end of the war the concentration camps still in existence at that point would all have to be dissolved, with the exception of, first of all, eleven, since for those the peacetime budget means would not be set aside. In fact, one sentence below the figure says that the approved extent quoted in the peace-time budget of the Waffen-SS is such and such. And that, of course, also applies to the concentration camps.
Q. Figure 3 of this report states literally and I quote: "The Reich Ministry of Finance has expressed its special satisfaction regarding the reorganization of the WVHA, and recognizing this Main Office as the highest Reich Administration Department of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police has, after a short debate, approved the following leading positions."
My question to you is this: Did the WVHA, as an independent administrative body of the Reichsfuehrer SS, in fact carry out all the functions which it was to have?
A. No, it did not. I had already previously said this; I had said that ends had been visioned, or had been drawn up, which had not been reached, due to objections raised by the other main offices.
Q. The Reichsfuehrer SS, following your report dated 30 April 1942, answered to you on 29 May 1942. That is document NO-719, page 74 in the English and 79 in the German, Document Book and I quote from it verbatim:
"On the whole, I quite agree with all points. I think, however, that it should be stressed somehow that no change of policy took place regarding the questions of a reexamination of the custody orders. Otherwise, the opinion might arise that we arrest people, or keep them in custody after they have been arrested, in order to get workers. For this reason, the emphasis on and clarification of the fact that re-examination of custody order remains unchanged and stays independent from the labor allocation in the economy. Besides that, in giving 100 percent priority to the labor to be gotten out of them, I feel that the camp commanders have to care for the education of those fit for education."
In connection with the letter from Himmler to you, I want to ask you this:
Did you share, or did you communicate this view of Himmler's to the camp commanders?
A. After all, I did not call the camp commanders together myself or participate in the conferences, with the exception of the one which I have mentioned to you. I probably handed this letter over to Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks, as was my habit. That is Department Group D. I presume that he made it the subject of a conference; that is to say, the next time a meeting of commanders took place he probably talked about it.
Q. The letter also speaks of the re-examination of protective custody orders. Is it correct that even after the transfer of the concentration camp inspectorate all these matters were dealt with by the RSHA?
A. Yes, that is correct. The examination of protective custody orders was not a matter with which the WVHA occupied itself; it was a matter for the RSHA.
Q. Exhibit No. 44 of the Prosecution was a business plan of Department D of the WVHA for January 1943. It is Document No-1288, on page 82 in the German document book II, and on page 76 in the English version. There won't be any need to go into the details of this plan for the distribution of work, which is signed by the head of that Department Group, Dr. Kammler. Only Department C½ might be the cause of the remark "the department for the construction of concentration camps and the KGL." The KGL presumably means prisoner of war camps does it not?
A. Yes.
Q. Right now I want to ask you, did Amtsgruppe C generally occupy itself with the construction of prisoner of war camps?
A. I have no knowledge of the fact that Amtsgruppe C ever constructed prisoner of war camps.
At that time I did not see this, I did not see this plan. I presume that here we are concerned with one of Kammler's rather farreaching aims which he was in the habit of setting for himself and which, as I said this morning, at the beginning of 1945, he actually achieved by having Himmler -- who, after all, was Chief of the Reserve Army -- give him charge of the construction organization of the Army without my knowledge. Nothing is known to me about the fact that the WVHA ever planned or constructed prisoner of war camps.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, in Exhibit 36, which is the chart that we were discussing before --
A. I am sorry, but I did not understand, Your Honor.
Q. Exhibit 36, the chart; the organization chart of the WVHA which we were using before. Do you have it?
DR. DEIDL: I think I shall have to draw the attention of the witness to the fact that it is still the organization plan attached to the brief of the Prosecution regarding the organization of the SS.
THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, I have it.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. You have it?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, this paper bears your signature, does it not? That is, you certified that it was correct?
A. I am sorry, I cannot hear the German properly. There isn't sufficient volume.
Yes, I said earlier that, materially speaking and as far as it contains the tasks and the personnel question, this plan is correct.
Q. All right. You said more that that, but we will not discuss it.
Now, look at the paper, Amt C-1.
A. Yes.
Q. General construction.
A. Yes.
Q. What does it say right underneath that?
A. I still can't hear you properly.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you hear me, Mr. Frank?
MR. FRANK: Yes, I can indeed.
THE PRESIDENT: (To the Interpreter) Try again.
THE WITNESS: It says there, "Department C-1, General Construction Tasks."
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. And then what?
A. And then it says, "Construction work of the Waffen SS."
Q. And then what des it say?
A. "Construction of concentration camps and prisoner of war camps."
Q. Well ---
A. "Construction of the German Police and Construction of the Allgemeine or General SS." Those are the departments contained in this Department C-I.
Q. Well, then, isn't it true that Amt C-I did have something to do with building concentration camps and prisoner of war camps?
A. I cannot hear the question, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: See what is wrong with the witness's receiver. Perhaps the switch is not turned on.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. I will restate the question. It is true, isn't it, then, that Amt C-I had a good deal to do with building concentration camps and prisoner of war camps?