A Both of us had the rank of Oberfuehrer, but even if I had had a higher rank, I still could not have given any orders to Gluecks. Even Pohl at the time could not issue any orders to Gluecks. Gluecks had an independent agency. He was subordinated to Himmler, and nobody else could give him any orders.
Q If in a bureaucratically organized office two chiefs of the same rank are assigned fields of tasks which overlap, can this condition continue for a very long period of time?
A No.
Q Then one or the other has to turn over his field of tasks to the other?
A Yes, one of the two has to relinquish some of the tasks or one must be subordinated to the other. Otherwise the work can't be carried out.
Q How was this problem solved in your case?
A It was solved in the way which I suggested. I/5 was subordinated to Gluecks.
Q Can you still recall what decisive incident took place in the middle of the year 1941?
AAre you referring to the campaign in Russia?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q In the whole policy of the concentration camps and Labor Allocation there was one big incident, the beginning of a new phase. What was it?
A The only thing I can think of is Sauckel's assignment with regard to the Labor Allocation in 1941.
Q Can you tell us something about the figures. You have told us that as far as you can recall up to the Spring of Summer of 1941, between 20,000 and 30,000 inmates were in the few concentration camps, which were shown to have existed then in the document presented today. From what time on did this increase to a very big number? Was it later on?
A That happened from the Fall of 1941 on. I can recall that from that time on the clothing requirements increased.
Q Do you believe that this has anything to do with the campaign in Russia?
A Yes, that is quite possible.
Q Therefore, the work of Office 1-5, which we have discussed, falls within the period which was prior to the incident which I called as the beginning of a new phase?
A Yes, sir, that is correct.
DR. HAENSEL: That is all, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further cross examination by defense counsel? If none, the Marshal will conduct the witness to the dock.
(Witness excused)
DR. HAENSEL: May I present an additional document book in my case. I have compiled another document book which has not been translated yet, and I would like to present it whenever the translation has been completed. I further request that I can submit some documents subsequently.
THE PRESIDENT: You may submit any further documents whenever they are available.
DR. PRIBILLA: Dr. Pribilla for the defendant Ervin Court No. II, Case No. 4.Tschentscher.
Your Honors, with the permission of the Tribunal I would like to begin the presentation of the case of the defendant Tschentscher by calling him as a witness on his own behalf.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you ready to have him called now?
DR. PRIBILLA: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshall will conduct the defendant Tschentscher to the witness stand.
ERWIN OSKAR RUDOLF TSCHENTSCHER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: The witness, will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q Please tell the Tribunal your name and your date and place of birth.
A My name is Erwin Oskar Rudolf Tschentscher. My first name is Erwin. I was born on 11 February 1903 at Berlin.
Q Please describe to the Tribunal your life history and your family status.
A I was the only son of the sculptor Rudolf Tschentscher. My father died in 1910. My further education and training seemed secure from the financial point of view. However, as a result of the inflation which followed the first World War, we lost our entire property. Therefore, after having finished secondary school and junior college, I had to give up my desire to study in order to become a teacher in the higher schools of learning.
In the year of 1928 I married Helene Eckart, the daughter of a Berlin businessman, Johannes Eckart, and from that marriage two sons and two daughters were born. Now they are between the ages of nine and fifteen. In the year 1935 I was transferred to another station Court No. II, Case No. 4.at Arolsen near Kassel, where my family is still living today.
Q Please describe to the Tribunal briefly your professional training and career?
A I learned the profession of a banker, and I worked in the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. In this position I became acquainted with the important and disadvantageous effects, and also the moral effects which the inflation had caused. I learned my profession at the Berlin Stock Exchange. After the first big collapse of banks in Germany in 1929, and an economic depression prevailed, much personnel was dismissed and I myself became unemployed for about three-quarters of a year. I should like to state here that I was not dismissed among the first ones, because I was not a very capable official, but my work and my efficiency rating were rather good. Pretty soon I found a position as a secretary in the Berlin Director's office of a German Machine Construction Company. However, as the result of the depression the company was also dissolved in 1932, and again I was unemployed. Sometime later I found another position with the Reich Bank in Berlin. However, I only had the position of a temporary bank official and I could always be dismissed at short notice. Since the Reich Bank in the year of 1934 for formal reasons refused my request to take the necessary examinations as to receive a permanent appointment as an official revisor there, I now accepted an offer by the SS, and I became a revisor in the Administration of the SS Sector at Berlin for the area of the Berlin-Brandenburg district. In the year of 1934 I was appointed Chief of Administration of the SS Sector Rhine, and I was transferred to Koblenz. Towards the end of the year I was transferred to Arolsen near Kassel, where my office was also transferred. I remained there until the outbreak of the war. During the war I was used as an officer of the Administrative Service in the Police and in the Waffen-SS. During the most part of the war I was at the front as an Administrative officer of the Supply Troops, and as divisional Administrative officer. I was also Supply Officer of an Armored Division, and in the year 1943 I was recalled and transferred to the WVHA as Chief of an office.
There I remained until the end of the war.
Q What rank did you have in the General-SS and what rank did you have in the Waffen-SS?
A In the General-SS I was Standartenfuehrer. In the Police and in the Waffen-SS, at the outbreak of the war I had the rank of a captain, and at the end of the war I was Standartenfuehrer in the Waffen-SS. That is to say, I had the rank of a Colonel.
Q When did you join the NSDAP?
A I joined the NSDAP on 1 November 1928.
Q What caused you to enter the Party?
A It was not because I was looking for adventure. I must explain here how I looked at things at that time. May I further state that I came from a decidedly social democratic family. For example, one of my ancestors was even an active Socialist, and he was banned from Prussia under Bismarck. I was rather interested in politics, and even my father was also an active Socialist, and I was also brought up along these lines. However, the Social Democratic Party after the revolution of 1918, when it was the leading party in Germany, disappointed me because of some corruption scandals which were rather bad, and leading personalities of the Socialist Democratic Party, and a large number of its members were involved in them. In addition to that, Democracy in Germany at that time showed itself to have degenated to some extent, and that was not only my concept but this concept was shared by politicians abroad and they admitted it later on. Democracy in Germany was not sufficiently encouraged. There were at least three dozen parties in Germany. They promised much but as a result of the disunity and as a result of their constant sighting with each other, they were not powerful enough to adhere to a certain Party line. The governments changed in very quick successions, and the want increased together with the number of the unemployed. The danger of Germany becoming a Bolshevist State increased accordingly. The thought Court No. II, Case No. 4.of a National and at the same time a Socialist Party even without a close reference to the NSDAP, which was practically contained in the very atmosphere, and people tried to realize this idea in some smaller predecessors of the NSDAP.
Above all we did not want to be dependent on aid from foreign countries anymore in the form of loans. Also the so-called "International" did not appeal to us. We finally wanted to be able to help ourselves. We wanted a government which would mobilize all forces for the realization of these aims, and which would again improve our economic situation.
The program of the new party promised the realization of these expectations. The want and the need were so great that everybody was looking for some action. It was considered quite natural that even within the Party there were certain differences of opinion and that diversions were made from the expectations of some individuals. After all, it is quite clear that the more points there are in a program, the more the individual must disagree with some of the points. That the NSDAP in the year 1923 tried to bring about a change in the government by force can be considered which it had committed in its youth. Officially, the Party was again permitted, and Hitler maintained the point of view that he could take over the government through legal means.
I personally had a very critical point of view toward Hitler, and I had many doubts with regard to his person. However, afterwards, I always discovered that the policy which he was following at the time seemed to be justified. At least, he kept his promises at the time, and he took the action which seemed necessary in the situation, even if things seemed to be against him for a while. The result of this was that we would reproach ourselves and would be ashamed of having distrusted him. Then we would decide to stand at his side much more firmly and to give him more of our confidence. That is the way I saw it at the time, and that is the reason why I entered the Party.
Q. When did you enter the SS?
A. I entered the General SS on 1 May 1930. On 1 October 1939 -that is, after the outbreak of the war--- I was transferred into the Waffen SS.
Q. Why did you enter the SS?
A. The reasons were so unimportant that it would be superfluous for me to explain them in detail here, and it would be grotesque and absurd if I were to tell the story. It is really ridiculous. It was accidentally, and it was unimportant. I joined the SS only because of my physical size, and since I had not accepted any office in the Party up to that time, I wanted to do some more work there.
Therefore, on 1 May 1930, during a demonstration when Hitler spoke in the Sportspalast in Berlin, I for the first time did duty as an SS man. On this occasion, I also saw Himmler for the first time. However, I did not have any knowledge of any special assignments or aims of the SS which went beyond the personal protection of leading personalities at Party rallies. Nothing was known about these things at that time. When I joined the SS at Berlin, there were about 30 or 40 men, and amongst them there were some former officers who were businessmen now. We had a senior counsellor of the government, an Oberregierungsrat; we had a painter; we had a number of students, and about half of them were workers who previously had belonged to the utmost variety of parties. In looking back on the matter today, I would like to say that all these men were normal men. They were bourgeois. I never heard of any excesses, and I was never able to observe any crimes being committed within that circle.
Q. If you were an old Party and SS member, did you have any personal relationship to Himmler or Hitler?
A. I never had any personal contact with either of them.
Q. While you were a member of the General SS or later on, did you ever make any observations about the character and the activities of the SS to the effect that it was criminal?
A. I don't think that they were criminal within the sense of the Indictment. However, very soon after 1933, after the so-called seizure of power, I actually did not like it there any more, and I would like to explain this somewhat more in detail.
I have already referred to our disappointment which we had lived through at that time with regard to the other parties, and I have referred to our expectations and hopes. Very soon after 30 January 1933 and afterwards I realized that the people, unfortunately, had remained the same. Before, we had refuted the so-called policy of living off the party. We had been forbidden to apply for official positions, especially by referring to our membership in the Party and SS. Now all of a sudden, we began to see just how people were rushing at the good positions and offices.
These in particular were people who came and joined the Party at a later time. In many cases, they had joined it after the decision had already been made in 1933.
More and more I also began to dislike the intolerance and the incapability and the dishonesty of certain leading personalities. Sometimes it was such that these people considered decency, honesty and simplicity as a lack of personality, and to them these traits were just a type of inferiority complex.
I also disliked the fact that leading personalities of the Party and even agencies quite openly violated points of the program of their Party.
I disliked particularly, and I had misgivings about the fact that members of the Party of all grades and positions who had shown themselves to be incapable or who had shown themselves to be corrupt were not severely punished and removed from their positions. In some cases these people could do a lot of dirty work, and they were hurting the reputation of the Party and the State to a very considerable degree.
Q. If you recognized these deficiencies very early, did you ever try to have changes made?
A. Yes, of course. I tried it repeatedly. I frequently discussed these matters with my superiors, and I discussed these matters with other comrades, and I voiced my indignation very loudly and very heartily. In part, my superiors agreed with my opinion. However, they were also unable to change any thing; they did not have the necessary power, or it was again pointed out that these persons in question had gained particular merit during the time when the Party was struggling. Furthermore, with reference to Hitler's lack of severity towards his collaborators, it was stated that he could not be severe enough toward them. It was also stated that, on 30 January 1933 a certain type of revolution had actually taken place, and these people would never forget to add that it was a revolution where no blood had been shed and that this factor would have to be acknowledged. Therefore, we should not demand too much all of a sudden and be so narrow-minded.
These were individual cases, which were regrettable but which had been caused by individuals and that we should overlook such things. However, we were told that the Party administration and Hitler himself had been exactly informed and at the appropriate time they would pay more attention to all these things but that at the moment, more important things had to be done. First of all, we were told the foreign policy had to be established, and after all there were enough tasks to be carried out at the moment. It was stated that all these tasks demanded so much time from the persons in the government that for the time being they did not have sufficient time to carry out all the other things. However, sometime later order would finally be established inside the Party. We were promised that. After all, we had to see that point, and the Party had always had certain successes. We were told to acknowledge all these things.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until Monday morning at 9:30.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 0930 hours Monday.
(20 June 1947 the Tribunal recessed until 0930 hours, 23 June 1947.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al., defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 23 June 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Court room will please find their seats. The Honorable, the judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Marshal, you will please ascertain if all of the defendants are present in the Court.
ERVIN OSKAR RUDOLF TSCHENTSCHER - Resumed.
DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued.
BY DR. PRIBILLA: Dr. Pribilla for the defendant Tschentscher.
Q With Your Honors permission I would like to continue to examine the defendant Tschentscher on his own behalf. Witness, on Friday we began our interrogation, and you had an opportunity of tolling the Court you personal history, also describe to the Tribunal what your idealogy was on account of which you went to the SS and the Party and, there is only one question left of a personal aspect in your life which is this. As you told us you were a bank clerk, and I know that these bank clerks are extremely conscientious people. Now you have described to us how good many things in the SS and the Party were against your liking already when you were a member without having functions to fulfilling the organization of the WVHA. I would like you to tell us why if you were not satisfied with a good many things, you did not attempt to retire into a civilian profession?
A It is quite correct, as I said before, that my activity as an administrative leader of the General-SS did no longer satisfy me altogether, nor did it really fill out my time completely. The inadequacies which I believed to see at that time were more even of a personal and human character, and I did not recognize any criminal activities or ten dencies.
I also decrived that my official office was located at Arolsen, which was a small town, a small country town with about 2,500 inhabitants. I should therefore, be clear that in a small town like that were hardly any big political intrigues or conflicts. We were rather isolated from the big difficulties of the day, and its conflicts. I can well imagine that had I remained in Berlin, or any other big city where inevitable you would have been involved in conflicts and intrigues, and where I would have had more immediate impressions of the disadvantageous nature, I would most probably have taken the decisive step, although this is easily said after the event, and it may quite easily sound funny when I say so now. But apart from that there was a personal angle. I regarded myself as a city man, and I was quite happy in a small country town, and for that personal reason I decided to remain, and in that small city I would hardly have had the possibility to choose another job in civilian life.
Q Now during the war until the end of 1943 you were with the WaffenSS. Did you during your time of service there see anything of atrocities, or heard anything about that. I think particularly of the activities of the so-called Special Task Troops?
A No. I may say that during my whole time of service at the front with the Waffen-SS, and also with the Police I saw nothing which indicated in any sense of the word from a human soldier, or an international point of view anything that would have been illegal. Individual offenses which happen in all armies of the World after all, so far as I could see at the time, were prosecuted legally whereby justice was done.
Q Before you were transferred to the WVHA, what had you heard about the task of that organization and, in particular, the activity that you were to take over?
A While I was serving at the front I had hardly any contact with the WVHA. I was given my direct factual orders by the administrative officials of the Wehrmacht. That is to say, I was just an administrative official, like anybody else, and I was merely in the SS uniform, as it so happened. I was under the WVHA from the point of view of personnel policy, and from there I would receive my general orders. My contacts with the WVHA were, therefore, were only a matter of correspondence, particularly in matters appertaining to clothing, because it was said once before that we were supplied with our clothing by the WVHA.
As far as the various sub-departments of the WVHA were concerned and the organizational changes therein, especially during the war, we were informed about these things by letters and organizational charts, but that did concern us to a comparatively small degree, because it is quite obvious that our official contact with the Wehrmacht went on without any interference from anybody else. Therefore, as to the form which these organizational changes took, I could form a certain impression on the basis of an organizational chart and letters, but these impressions were not too profound, and I regarded this additional organization in the shape of Office Group D as a relatively insignificant organization.
When the concentration camps were added in war time, we were told very little about this, because it was well known that at that time six concentration camps existed with about 20,000 inmates, that is to say as we hear now. We had heard nothing at all about an increase in the number of concentration camps and were unable to make any observations of our own.
In July 1943 I was withdraw from my police division and was called into the WVHA. I was told that I had been at the front long enough and that somebody else should go out in my stead.
That was a reason against which I could not object, as far as anybody cared for my opinion at all. That was how I was put in charge of Office B-1 in the WVHA.
The field of tasks which I found there was entirely familiar to me from my previous activity at the front. It was really a continuation of my activities at the highest agency of troop administration. That was how I had to understand it at the time, so there I as at a central agency, just as the administrative officials of the army were also. I worked just as I did at the front, together with the gentlemen of the army administrative office, in the same manner, and they would continue to give me my special orders concerning food and food supplies, and I was entirely committed to carrying out these orders, just as I was at the front. Thus it was that I regarded my duties throughout my term of service with the WVHA, and I never came across anything which would have shaken me in this belief.
Q Now, witness, on 1 October 1943 you joined the WVHA. The Prosecution maintains that you were one of the oldest and closest collaborators of Pohl. I should therefore ask you whether previous to that date you had a special activity you did for Pohl or whether you had any personal contacts with him. What were your relations with Pohl prior to 1 October 1943?
A Pohl was the administrative chief of the SS. He was thereby my highest superior officer, whereas otherwise the other superiors I had were with the General-SS or my commanding officer with the Task Troop and the Waffen-SS were above me. Pohl was my superior officer, just as much - to use a comparison - as the chief of the army administrative office was the highest superior officer of all administrative officers in the army. When I was with the Allgemeine SS I was in charge of an administrative office of a district, as we called it at the time. There were twelve such agencies at that time who became more and more insignificant as time went on, as compared to the growing importance of the special task troops. The personal contact, therefore, was such that in peace time we would meet for an expert conference once a year.
There matters of a purely administrative nature of the Allgemeine SS were discussed. Sometimes it would happen that we would not have any personal contact for a long period of time. For a certain reason I remember that I did not go to Munich for over a year. Any other immediate and official or personal contact I did not have at the time.
Q What was the position you were given in the WVHA?
AAs I said before, on 1 October 1943, I became Chief of Office B-1 in the WVHA within the Office Group B.
Q What were the main duties there? What was your competence?
A In the Office B-1 all matters pertaining to food concerning the Waffen-SS and the police at home were looked after, roughly, for about 1,000,000 men. That duty comprised also the negotiations with the army administrative office in order to fix the food rations for the troops and any additions which might occur. My office also worked on the planning and the actual deliveries of the food, the ear-marking of the rations and their supply to 30 troop storage camps which were scattered all over the Reich. These troops storage camps were directly under my office. The essential task, therefore, of my office was to have the food ready so that it could be collected by the troops.
Then, a supplementary duty was one which was not actually connected with my office itself, but which kept me busy for a considerable period of time. At that time I was an air raid precaution office of the WVHA, although it was a somewhat inferior activity - I should like to say a task which an ordinary captain could well cope with, but the main office chief insisted that that task should be taken care of by a staff officer in accordance with the importance of the WVHA. Therefore, I had to do this took, and as at that time the air raids had a tendency to intensify, it kept me busy quite a bit. We said here once before that our office building had three direct hits, and that of course disorganized the whole office work and our contacts with other agencies.
Although I did not have to take care of this in every detail, it did concern me.
Q Your Office B-1 within Office Group B did. have three subdepartments under you, did it not?
A Yes.
Q You said that your main task had been to have the food supplies ready for the SS troops. Did you not also have to see to it that these food supplies would be collected, that they would be prepared properly when they reached the troops, and would be distributed properly?
A No. The collecting of supplies and anything else beyond that how they were cooked for instance, or the proper and fair distribution - was out of the hands of my office. That was entirely up to the troops. No commanding officer of the troops would have allowed an administrative office to tell him what was what. I have to say that this duty was not even within my competence when I was a troop administrative officer. I was not allowed to look into these things. That was entirely in the hands of the commanding officer.
Q What agency within the Wehrmacht could be compared to your agency in the WVHA?
A My last agency could be compared possibly with that of an administrative official in the Army Administrative Office.
Q And the duties were roughly the same as those of any army administrative office?
A Yes, it was entirely the same.
Q Did you, in your position with the WVHA, have any contact with the parallel agencies of the Wehrmacht.
A Yes, I and my colleagues were in almost daily contact with the Army Administrative Office, particularly with Department V-III, which, I think, was the agency for food supplies in the Army Administrative Office, and we also were in contact with the administrative centers of other branches of the Wehrmacht, the Navy, the Luftwaffe, and also of the Todt organization and the Reich Labor Service.
I said that I was entirely committed by the orders of the Army Administrative Office. I was not allowed to decide to increase the rations to the advantage of the Waffen-SS, nor was I allowed to make certain dispositions about the distribution other than by army orders. I am therefore bound to say that apart from the Army Administrative Office I was only equally and immediately connected with the other distributing centers under me, which was the direct channel from above to below.
Q Could you say, therefore, that you had contact with the Army Administrative Office and the other agencies under you, more so even than with the other agencies in the WVHA?
A Yes. Well, that was a matter of course. It could not be otherwise.
Q Now, did your office, B-I, exist until the end of the war and work in the same manner?
A No, Office B-I at the end of March of 1945, that is to say six weeks before the war was over, was dissolved.
Lengthy negotiations had preceded that. That was connected with the task to simplify the army administration which as been discussed here before. Also our troop warehouse camps were, most of them, dissolved. Some of them survived, and, looked after by SS personnel, joined the army administration. They supplied the entire Wehrmacht, not only the SS.
Q If I understand you correctly, you had the same tasks as the army agencies. You worked in very close contact with those agencies of the Wehrmacht, and when the emergency had reached its highest peak, your office was completely taken over and swallowed by the various departments of the Wehrmacht?
A Yes, that is quite correct.
Q Now, was among your duties any part of the concentration-camp affairs?
A No. I can only confirm here what people have said before me, other witnesses, that we had nothing to do with it. We had to look after roughly one million men, and about twenty or thirty thousand of those men were concentration-camp guards who were fed by us. That particular aspect of our feeding policy was done by the troop camp stores in the area where the concentration camp was located. Those twenty or thirty thousand sentries and guards amounted to about two or three percent of our entire strength to be fed. Therefore it should be clear that did not matter too much, and these troops were not a complete whole as far as that is concerned.
Q Did your office have anything to do with feeding and supplying with food concentration-camp inmates such as the Prosecution alleged some time ago?
A No. There again I must repeat that we had nothing to do with it.
Q Now, in your opinion, was the feeding of the concentrationcamp inmates secured, and what was the organizational background to this?
AAll I knew was the same as Georg Loerner told us in such detail here as a witness, namely, that concentration camps did receive and buy their food from firms of the wholesale market for which they received vouchers from the civilian food offices. Apart from that I can say one more thing, because there seems to be an element of doubt here. The feeding on this civilian channel was entirely secured because the civilian food offices supplied in their districts hundreds of thousands of men and people. For instance, the food office in Greater Berlin could supply about four and a half million people. It therefore, could not, and was not allowed to happen that inmates could arrive in a camp without notice being given, even if they be 50,000, and not be supplied with food thereby. Therefore, no difficulties should arise ever.
Q Now, Witness, are these deliberations which you made now, or did you have any insight at the time?
A No, I had no insight at that time into these things, but ordinary reasoning can tell you this immediately.
Q Now, under your troop warehouse camps, did they have any duties to supply concentration-camp inmates with food?
A No. The warehouse camps were not involved in any sense of the word in the process of distributing food. They only supplied the troops.
Q You were in charge of Office B-I. Were you not even given statistics of food supplies, strengthen reports or current reports about the concentration-camp administrations and the food supplies for the inmates?
A No, such reports never reached me, and I am quite sure they were never sent to me.
Q Were you ever shown applications or complaints concerning the food situation in a certain concentration camp?
A No, that never happened either, because it was not within my competence. I must admit, however, that Burger, Chief of Office D-IV, throughout my term of service, came to see me three or four times.
Burger asked me on those occasions to help him out. No large quantities were involved actually, but he told me that he granted to leave special diets for sick inmates, for instance, fruit and canned vegetables, red wine for strengthening, in small quantities, of course, which I let him have from my troop warehouse camps. As things stood Burger had to realize at the time that he had no claim for me to do so. It was merely that we obliged him, and, of course, on those three or four occasions I was only too glad to help him out.
THE PRESIDENT: You say, was it Burger?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Burger, B-u-r-g-e-r-, of D-IV.
Q (By Dr. Pribilla) Witness, did it not strike you as a bit peculiar that Burger of D-IV would come to see you and express such requests to give him special food, did that not strike you as very peculiar and give you food for thought?
A No. These three or four visits over a period of one year and a half were in no way particularly striking because I had hundreds of similar approaches which reached me from the Waffen-SS, from the police, which had every right to ask me, and also from offices of the party, civilian offices, including even the Wehrmacht or the Reich Labor Service or any other organization.
I would like to say, without wishing to boast, that our readiness to help was well known, and in some cases was exploited in an almost disagreeable fashion.
Q Therefore, other visitors came to see you just as Burger did and had just the same wishes, namely, to get special rations?
A Yes, yes. That is how it happened.
Q Did you, when there were conferences concerning the food situation and the food supplies for concentration-camp inmates, within or outside your office, were you called in; did you take part in such conferences?
A No such conferences concerning concentration-camp affairs or food supplies there ever took place, nor did I take part in them.