A. In this Main Department with auditing of the Construction planning and also setting up of preliminary sketches, it is also stated that the plans for framework should be preserved in building regulations. That was the thing which I mentioned before. I should like to state the following about this; that this document, if it were to be used as a basis was not present at the time when the SS established that office. It was a task, actually a task in itself to set it up. As far as the estimates were concerned, estimates were not made for the duration of the open budget during the war. It was a peacetime matter, a peacetime budget. It can also be seen from this organizational chart that in this department in the examination of the estimates there were certain vacancies and furthermore that no such plans had been taken into consideration.
Q. Would you tell us about all the other departments contained in this organizational chart or all the other departments from your Department C II and add how and how far these fields of tasks were dealt with here? What did the title mean over those sub-departments, for instance C II/1? What did it mean, "Supply and Clothing Department"? What was your task there?
A. My task was to carry out the basic planning for a clothing office of the Waffen SS just according to the example of all the other SS agencies. When I got there and joined that office, I found a project which was ready, a project dealing with the construction of a clothing office for the Waffen SS. It had ceased during the war; and I was ordered by Dr. Kammler to complete it, that is, to complete the plans for the framework, and also was ordered not to forget the space rate and all those other things that play a certain part in it.
However, the work was already started in 1942 upon Dr. Kammler's orders. He stated as the reason that according to the air-raids all the bases for such construction projects were changed and other principles and other regulations were to be used after the war if the whole thing should be destroyed.
In the field of food it was in the following way. When I was working in the construction administration, I received the order to set up those plants. They gave them to me in 1942. They received a special rate according to the architect's rate; and I carried out the planning. Space rate was set up; and thus I had completed my job. It was then in 1942, towards the end of 19421943, that the work in the Main Department C II/1 was completed as such.
I should like to refer to the personnel structure of that Main Department, which speaks for itself. While we are speaking of one chief and two collaborators, including a man who drafts the plans, according to the personnel strength, not very much could have happened in such an office.
Q. Under C II/2, you will find Arms, Ammunition, and Communications. Would you tell me what the connection was among all of them?
A. In those three departments which I just mentioned, the communications department could have been eliminated ever since the beginning because it was not dealt with since in the operational main office those things were dealt with in a special, technical department. Communication constructions were not dealt with during the war in this office. Arms and ammunitions constructions were dealt with in their bases, that is to say, we can point out all the regulations of the counties and of the cities concerning the Luftwaffe and particularly concerning the precautions to be taken when building such constructions, dealing with constructions now taken care of in our department upon Dr. Kammler's order.
The Main Department Chief is the same Main Department Chief whom I mentioned before, Froese. At the same time he was in charge of all the departments and only one expert, a technical expert drawing the plans, is also contained as a collaborator. I believe that also speaks for itself and for the work that was not carried out by that department.
Toward the end of 1942, I suggested to Dr. Kammler the dissolution of those two main offices. Dr. Kammler did not agree with my proposal by saying that on the basis of that organizational chart which had been approved by the Reichsfuehrer, dated March 1942, there was no working plan. It was a competency defined by the Reichsfuehrer in the field of construction. He told me at that time explicitly even if the military situation should compel us to include all the various departments into one main department, nothing in his competence would change; therefore, nothing would change according to that organizational chart. The main departments, therefore, had to exist at least formally on paper until the end of the war without anything of importance actually occurring there.
Q. From document Book 12, please take Document 3032, Exhibit Number 329. It is on page 11 of the German Document Book. Unfortunately, I could not find out the page of the English Document Book.
THE PRESIDENT: Seven.
Q. Thank you. It is a letter by Pohl to the Reichsfuehrer-SS. It is dated 1942. It concerns the construction of a rifle factory. I ask you now, witness, did you in any way participate in that project?
A. No.
Q. Would such a project have been constructed by C II/2?
A. No. The project was unknown to me at the time. And the letter is also unknown to me. It contains a file note of Office C-V. That is the file note of Dr. Kammler personally. A rifle factory does not come under the Department of Arms and Ammunition of the Waffen-SS and it stated under Paragraph 2 that the planning will be carried out by the firm itself.
Q. Now, then, coming back to the Main Department D II/3, hospitals and dispensaries, what waste be done there.
A. I would like to tell you here that the word hospital must not be misunderstood. It can be considered only for the Army.
It is an Army hospital. You have a hospital which can be considered a hospital for civilians, for communities in the cities, then you have the clinics for the universities. The way I mean it, it is more of a station hospital or field hospital for the Armies. When you speak of a Laxarett in Germany, you just mean a hospital for the Army. I understood from the documents submitted by the Prosecution that the hospitals in the concentration camps were not called hospitals. They were called sick bays or sick barracks. That is not only in connection with the term as such, but according to my opinion, it is also in connection with the fact that various and different regulations esisted for both installations, that is the civilian hospital and the Army hospital. On the one hand you have the Army Administration and on the other hand the Justice Administration.
My task was to carry out the planning for the construction of hospitals for the Luftwaffe. Every branch of the Wehrmacht had those regulations. For instance, the administration of the Waffen-SS did not have that at the time. Therefore, it had to be set up at first. I received the order to work out the plans for the following hospital installations of the Waffen-SS:
First of all, war hospitals, hospitals with 150 beds, 300 beds, 400 beds, and 1,000 beds; In other words, four types of hospitals. In peacetime, 300 beds, 400 beds, and also hospitals for special purposes. Those were the tasks that were dealt with by me.
The work in April 1945 had not been completed as yet. The main reason for that were bombing raids. The attacks on the WVHA, which housed part of the basic documents which had been worked out, destroyed these, and we had to start all over again.
Here also, the Main Department C-II 3, according to the tasks on the ministerial level, the construction plants as I said before were carried out in the following way: By using the plants for framework and service of cubic footage and space rate.
There was a difference made. In 1942 I received the order to construct on the site of the University of Wuerzburg, a hospital department for people who had been wounded in the brain or spinal cord. That project was so different from all the other construction projects that Dr. Kammler did not transfer the planning of the construction to the medium level, but he transferred that task to Office C II. That was the only construction planning which was set up by C II. Otherwise, C-II only took care of plants for the framework.
Q. Under plans for framework for hospitals and dispensaries or experimental stations for concentration camps in connection with that?
I would like to read to you from Document Book No. 9, Document 987, Exhibit No. 223. This is contained on Page 42 of the English and Page 45 of the German Document Book. It is a letter from the Chief of the Ahnenerbe, and it deals with experiments or rather war scientific research in connection with the Concentration Camp Natzweiler. What do you have to say about that. Did your office have any connection with that?
A. No. In Office C-II, I never drew up plans for Concentration camps or any concentration camp installation. Office C-II only dealt with matters pertaining to the Armies. Construction of concentration camps were in a different office. They had been compiled there. As far as the document is concerned, I would like to say that under Paragraph 5 on Page 2 of the document, under the construction department, Natzweiler is also mentioned. From the point of view of size, this is only an object which is a small size. It will be taken care of by a construction department and not by us.
Q. Furthermore, I would like to show you from document Book 9, Document No. NO-265, Exhibit No. 219, which is contained on Page 7 of both the English and German Document Books, a document which contains the diary for virus and typhus research of the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen-SS.
On Page 4 of this document, the English Copy, the establishment of a hospital in Buchenwald is mentioned. That is a stone building. I ask you, now, witness did that field of task in any way relate to your field of task?
A. No. This was not to be a hospital. The hospital was not for the Army, but it was for the inmates. Apart from that, the Defendant Pohl declared here in the witness dock that the order was not given at all. Should it have been given, and should it have been executed, it would have been the task of the construction inspectorate. That is also correct according to the regulations concerning those matters.
Q. Before I turn to the following department, I would like to ask Your Honors if you do not think this is an opportune moment to have the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: I quite agree with you. We will resume tomorrow morning at 9:30.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal recessed at 16:30 to reconvene, 25 June 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 25 June 1947, 0945-1630, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will 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.
MAX KIEFER*--Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION --Continued
DR. MAYER (Counsel for the defendant Max Kiefer): Your Honor, I can continue if you wish. Yesterday we stopped while discussing Document 1288 from Document Book No. 2, Exhibit 44. We discussed the main departments of Office C-2 and, to be exact, the installations for feeding and clothing, weapons and munitions, and communications installations, hospitals and dispensaries.
I shall now proceed to the Main Department C-2-4, Industrial and Economic Constructions.
BY DR. MAYER:
Q. Witness, may I remind you again to please speak into the microphone; speak clearly and distinctly and, this above all, pronounce your special terms slowly so that the interpretation can follow.
THE PRESIDENT: May I add something on behalf of the interpreters? A good many technical, special terms are being used which are difficult to translate, and will you please not hurry either the question or the answer. Take it a little more slowly so that the interpreters can give a little thought to these special words and terms. Just take it a little more slowly, please, both questions and answers.
DR. MAYER: Thank you very much, Your Honor, and we shall certainly comply with it.
WITNESS: May I tell you that I can't hear very well. I can hardly understand anything at all with my earphones.
DR. MAYER: The witness just said, Your Honor, that he doesn't understand very well.
THE PRESIDENT: Test his earphones.
BY DR. MAYER:
Q. Witness, I would now like to ask you which plans you carried out in the Main Department C-2-4?
A. In the organizational chart it says here Industrial and Economic Constructions as one single term. The Industrial Constructions can be considered as big constructions and the Economic Constructions can be considered medium and small constructions, that is small work shops, as they are necessary for the economic life of settlements. That is the reason why they are compiled here into one single task in that department, namely to carry out those industrial and economic constructions. That field of task--Industrial and Economic Constructions toward the end of 1942 was added instead of the main department Napolas and schools.
It could be seen from advance what the tasks were that were to be dealt with. In this connection I would like to refer to the personnel strength of that main department--which actually amounted to just one person: the chief of that main department was Birkicht, and the chief of all three departments was the same person.
I would like to add here that this man, Untersturmfuehrer Birkicht was a specialist in the construction of hospitals and almost his entire activity and time in Office C-2 was used in the construction of hospitals. Early in 1943, when the civilian construction manager, Georgi, who was in charge of that main department hospital construction, resigned, the man I mentioned before took over that department. In the main department only one project was dealt with; that was in 1943. I received the order to make the preliminary sketches for a large construction which was to manufacture dehydrated egg powder and dried vo getables for the army.
That planning, however, was stopped upon Dr. Kammler's orders prior to completion because, as he said, the economic prerequisites for such at construction were not there. By economic constructions, and in this connection with the chief of the labor chamber, certain settlements were planned for after the war. However, those tasks also were stopped towards the middle of 1943 as it could be seen at the time that the construction of settlements and dwellings probably were not an urgent task due to the war situation at the time. Those were the tasks which were dealt with by Office C-2-4, and actually dealt with actively by that office.
Q. Witness, from Document Book No. 11, please take Document NI-034, Exhibit 297. It deals with the affidavit of Ferdinand Rudolf Hoess and is dated the 21st of May, 1946. A series of industrial constructions are mentioned here.
I would like to ask you if you participated in any of those in any way?
A. Actually, the affidavit speaks for itself. I would, therefore, prefer not to repeat several things contained in that affidavit. However, I would only like to point to page 6 of the document where it is stated--it is on page four of the English, really; I shall quote "Shortly after that the concentration camp of Auschwitz was visited by a commission of the I. G. Farben, which commission had plans for the construction of the Buna factory."
Similar statements about the independent working-out and execution of the industrial construction works in Auschwitz is dealt with on page 8 and 12 of this document.
Q. It is on page 7 of the English.
A. --Office C-2 had no connection whatsoever with any of this work.
Q. Within the framework of that field, did you draw any plans for Amtsgruppe W?
A. No, never.
Q. Take Document Book No. 16--take a look at Document 1032, Exhibit 427. It is on page 1 of the English, and it is on page 1 of the German text. It contains a list of all the privileges which the DEST received on the basis of their special position in the economy. I would like to ask you with reference to that: who was it that actually planned the construction of the W factories? Who drew the plans; who carried it out, and who maintained those plans?
A. I have no knowledge of my own concerning that. Those things had no connection with the work dealt with by Office C-2. However, on page 12 and on page 13 of this document.-
Q. Sixteen and 17 of the English-
A. I can see from this document here that the DEST (The German Earth and Stone Works) had a construction office of their own for the clinker works; and they had a special construction office for granite where the supervision of the planning calculations, and maintenance of the buildings was carried out. C-2 had no connection whatso ever with those construction offices; as I said before, I had no knowledge at the time of the existence of those construction offices.
Q. I shall now come to the following main department: the Main Department C-2-5, which is the maintenance of buildings. What were the tasks which you dealt with in that main department, and particularly did you use any inmates--or how was this construction carried out?
A. In Office C-2 no constructions were carried out. The knowledge of labor assignment of inmates couldn't possible be derived in that main department C as far as the other tasks were concerned herewhich are being mentioned here. I referred to it before when I was talking about my tasks with the Reich Air Ministry which tasks were the same as they applied to the Waffen-SS now. I had the task in connection with the Reich Building Commission to carry out, to plan the building project for the SS, and then for the period after the war, and particularly for the Allgemeine SS, the dwellings for the Allgemeine SS.
I don't believe I have to refer to the various smaller tasks in that field, that main field of tasks. I believe they are irrelevant for the case. Therefore, I would like to stress, however, that main department next at the Main Department Hospital Construction was the actual field of tasks of Office C-2, though all the other Main Departments were far in the background. Those tasks in connection with the Reich Dwelling Commissioner lasted until 1943. Then the project of the so-called War Buildings, or War Dwellings started for those families who had been bombed out of their buildings, and that was part of the field of tasks of the Reich Dwelling Commissioner. However, the whole matter did not come through because the Plenipotentiary General for construction of Economy refused to put at our disposal the necessary quantity of construction material. Then we had the so called Behelfsheim - Works, which were the so called buildings and small dwellings for families that had been bombed out, and that was part of the activity of the Reich Dwelling Commissioners also. I myself carried out the negotiations for a request of construction quotas and material quotas, and I finally got through and I received five-hundred coupons for auxiliary homes. I believe it was early in 1944. Those construction coupons for the auxilliary homes according to my opinion were sent to Office C-5, Construction Inspectorate, which then took care of the necessary steps. The Main Department C-5 Dwelling Constructions towards the end of 1944, and/or 1945, early in '45 was dissolved due to unusual conditions at the time. I would like to stress that it was not a task of that Main Department to procure buildings which were already completed, or to put them at the disposal of people, that was never the tasks of that Main Department, nor was it my task.
Q: The last Main Department of your office is C-2-VI, and it is entitled Agriculture Special Construction Tasks. What is to be understood by that, and what was done here?
A: This Main Department again has one term which it uses, which is the Agriculture Constructions and Agriculture Special Constructions.
They were also dealt with in Departments A and D. So far as the Agriculture Constructions were concerned, we did the basic planning for Agriculture Constructions, and that is to say, to parallel those constructions for the home coming soldiers, and also we had to carry out the basic planning for the barns and farms which were necessary for the agriculture activities in the pacade grounds or certain army installations. Apart from that for the preparation for this construction project after the war, all the basic construction principles for agriculture construction were compiled in one book, which was given to the medium levels and to the lower levels as a basis for the purpose of construction work in Department C-2-VI-B. In one of the Main Departments of the SS two projects were dealt with. One of them was the plans for the framework for a horse hospital, and the second one was the plans for the framework of a horse breeding installation. There again the personnel strength is very remarkable, and the man in charge, Hauser, at the same time was the man in charge of all the other two departments. He resigned early in 1943, exactly as did Luemkemann, because they were drafted into the army, and a civilian employee Rass, who had only been transferred to that Main Department at that time, returned to his original Office C-4. From that moment on that Main Department was absolutely vacant, and only existed on paper.
Q: By Special Constructions in this connection, is it to be understood that the construction of crematories and gas chambers are also included in that?
A: No, apart from the fact that in Office C-2 there was no concentration camp tasks included, as I said before, it is clearly shown in the organizational chart, and it is stated there what construction work is dealt with. As I said, all the agriculture construction work was carried out by Agriculture Special Constructions on the horse breeding farms of the SS.
Q: You just stated that the various tasks of your field of tasks were not dealt with regularly.
Would you tell me then what happened to the personnel of these Departments referred to?
A: When certain experts were not absolutely busy they were transferred within the offices, that is to say, they were assigned to those special tasks where they were urgently needed. However, when the work was stopped, then they were either transferred to other agencies, at least part of them, and civilian employees also lost their jobs, or resigned, and they went over to the war plants, which they did very gladly, because they were paid much more there. Sometimes, however, Dr. Kammler simply transferred my personnel for other purposes.
Q: That Office, C-2, did you think it was strong enough to take care of construction work for Amtsgruppe C, or rather, did it seem important to you during the war, or would you say that your office could have been eliminated during the war?
A: During the war Office C-2 as such was not necessary actually. A dissolution probably would not have been noticed at all, because the questions dealt with by Office C-2 generally speaking could not have been carried out according to the regulations concerning construction projects; that does not mean, however, that Office C-2 was absolutely unnecessary or superfluous, that was not the case, because the tasks dealt with here would have become of great importance at the end of the war when the blocked peacetime budget would have started again. From that moment on all these tasks dealt with here would have become the basis for the normal construction projects of the constructions compiled in Office C-2.
THE PRESIDENT: We do not seem to have a diagram of the subdivisions of C-2. Have they been furnished in a diagram form? We have the original chart attached to the basic information document, is that all we are to have?
MR. ROBBINS: In the chart form, yes, and there is a table -- you have a table there.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh.
MR. ROBBINS:NO-1288 is the document and it gives all the subdivisions in Book II.
THE PRESIDENT: Alright, that is what I am looking for. Then there is another table which gives the subdivisions of Office-C, and that is on page 117 of the same Document Book No. II, Document NO-498. A more complete one is on page -
MR. ROBBINS: Seventy-six.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
MR. ROBBINS: Yes.
BY DR. MAYER:
Q: Will you, witness, continue with your answer?
A: All I want to say in conclusion on this subject was that Dr. Kammler had asked that this normal construction work called peacetime work would be started, and should start without any difficulties, and without any bottlenecks, and, that was why we were carrying out this preliminary task of Office C-2.
Q: Apart from the personality of Kamler, which we will refer to later on anyway as one of my questions, was it possible for him to give a task to some member of Amtsgruppe C, which was not part of the regular task that was to be carried out by the Amtsgruppe or by the man referred to? I ask you now, witness, did Dr. Kammler ever issue an order to you which was outside of your sphere of activity?
A. No. During my short stay in the Main Office Construction and Budget, and during my entire activity in Amtsgruppe C, I never received an order which was outside my sphere of activities. Nor did I ever carry out any such work. However, I would like to stress explicitely at this moment that I never at any time dealt with any work orders which were somehow connected with the planning or establishment of crematories or gas chambers. In the course of this trial, it has repeatedly been mentioned that gas chambers were also used for de-lousing purposes. I would therefore like to state under oath that I had nothing to do with the planning or establishment of the de-lousing installations. I think this statement is rather important because the Defendant Pohl testified here in the witness dock directly when he was asked by the Tribunal if the gas chambers or crematories were planned or established by Office C-2.
Q. In the sphere of your activities, did you have any contact with Kammler? That is to say, did you have to see Kammler regularly in his capacity as Chief in order to report to him? Or did you only have to see him when that was actually necessary?
A. There was no such thing as reporting to Kammler on certain days. I only went to see him when it was actually necessary. That resulted sometimes while we were working on some project. For instance, if I needed Dr. Kammler's decision, if we were to deal with that task according to an economical or optimal point of view, we would see him when the special task was concluded in order to get his signature. He did not want to put his signature on all the preparatory statements. As my work took up quite a bit of time, those conferences were not frequent. As a rule, I would say that I reported to him approximately once or twice a month. Occasionally, I reported to him less frequently.
Q. Did you have the authority to issue orders or to sign?
A. No. I said before that Dr. Kammler was the one who wanted to sign all the approvals himself, and all the certificates himself with the exception of the Essential Construction Special Office C-V. Thus also, C-II had no authority to issue orders to construction agencies.
I, myself, did not have any disciplinary authority because I had not been approved as Chief of the Office during my entire activity.
Q. Did you have any other official contact with Kammler apart from that mentioned now?
A. Yes, indeed, so-called Chief of Office or Experts' Conferences. What I mean by that is at the beginning of an activity, Dr. Kammler once in a while had such conferences. When he dealt with conditions concerning the organization of the construction administration itself, which was just in its early stages, he had these conferences then. However, in such cases he would not call in all the chiefs of offices to that conference; but he would state specifically who the Amt Chief was who was important and who should be there for either of the conferences. The conferences were irregular and seldom.
However, as of 1943 or rather the end of 1943, Dr. Kammler called in experts more frequently for conferences. This was in connection with the fact that in October or November Dr. Kammler transferred his offices from the WVHA Building to the suburb of Grunewald, Taunusstrasse where he established a new office. At the time I heard it that probably was in connection with the establishment of a reserve staff which was outside of the WVHA, of which Dr. Kammler was the chief.
Dr. Kammler had ordered that those Chief of Offices Conferences should take place, generally speaking, every Saturday. I, myself, actually participated in few such conferences. The reason was that Dr. Kammler was absent from Berlin quite frequently and the conferences, therefore, did not occur very regularly. I, myself, in March and April, 1944, spent two months in a hospital and as of June or July, 1944, I had the order which I mentioned before, namely to give lectures in the leadership school of Ardsen concerning special construction codes. That lasted until March of 1945 with short interruptions.
Q. Why was it that Dr. Kammler thought it necessary to call in regular conferences on Saturday?
A. He selected Saturday for that particular purpose. I do not know why.
Q. I don't want to know why he did call them in on Saturday. Why did he call them regularly? Before they were absolutely irregular.
A. Yes. I said before he moved his offices from the WVHA Building and thus the contact between him and his collaborators in Amtsgruppe C actually became lost. In some offices, he did have his steady deputy, Professor Schleif, but he did not give the necessary authority to that deputy. That was his character. I know that by the fact that Dr. Schleif told me personally one day that in that position he feels as if he were a so-called butler in uniform of a good family.
Q. The was it that was to participate in those conferences?
A. The chiefs of offices were to participate, also experts of Amtsgruppe C who had been designated by Dr. Kammler. It all depended on the questions which he wanted to ask some of those people. Sometimes experts were selected by the chief of the office himself.
Q. What was the number of persons participating?
A. By calling in those experts also, I would give you an average figure of approximately 10 to 14 men; 14 being the highest number and 10 the lowest.
Q. What did they talk about in those conferences?
A. Today, after a period of three years, it is not very easy for me to tell you in detail just what the contents of those conversations in which I participated were. However, it occurred approximately the following way. In October, 1943, the offices of Amtsgruppe C were damaged for the second time by an air-raid. They were almost destroyed entirely. Then, again, part of it was badly damaged. The Amtsgruppe, so to speak, was out in the street with all its main departments. The idea now was to put the Amtsgruppe back on a working basis because it was not only the offices that had been destroyed by those bombs, but also all our technical equipment which we needed for our work. At the time the question was being dealt with, as to whether the Amtsgruppe was to be transferred entirely from Berlin. In some of these conferences we discussed whether this transfer would actually be carried out or not.
However, this turned out to be a measure which did not seem too appropriate because the connection between this ministerial level with all the other Reich agencies of which the Construction Department of the Waffen-SS was part, would be interrupted. They would depend on each other. Dr. Kammler then decided that only part of Amtsgruppe C was to be transferred, that is to say, in case there should not be any space where it could be located in Berlin. Those offices were C-IV and C-VI. They were transferred to Oranienburg approximately 40 kilometers from Berlin. Furthermore, the collaboration of the offices with the Reich Agency was discussed in those conferences.
As I said before, the construction administration was absolutely dependant on the agencies just mentioned, that was first of all the plenipotentiary general for the Construction Economy, he was in charge of all the quota allocations.
That agency was of extreme importance. During the war it changed its regulations and its organization several times. Very often very unfortunate disturbances occurred due to those changes. They actually hampered the construction.
For instance, sometimes by simply changing the term of delivery or then by changing the regulations certain approvals which had been given were withdrawn or became completely void. In 1942 that agency was entirely dissolved and replaced by an entirely different organization. That was the Office Construction Organization Todt. There was a special Fuehrer Order that all construction agencies of the Reich including the construction agencies of the Wehrmacht were subordinated to that Office OT, Organization Todt. It can be understood that such measures were of great importance for the construction administration of the Waffen SS and that was the reason why the conferences contained quite a little bit of that material. The third subject that was treated with were personnel questions. As the tasks increased due to Dr. Kammler receiving more and more tasks there was a definite lack of good technical personnel and Dr. Kammler had a certain procedure by which he selected these people. He simply transferred those technicians and those specialists over-night, so to speak, to his agency.
It was natural that the Chiefs of Office first of all would try to make him change his decision by objecting to the procedure as such because actually most of the time it would hamper their own work and it actually caused disagreements between Dr. Kammler and those Chiefs of Office in those conferences. I would like to say at the same time that the relationship between Dr. Kammler and his Chiefs of Offices became worse and worse, because he was absolutely ruthless in those things and because those conferences with reference to the personnel questions due to Dr. Kammler's personality became rather full of arguments. I would like to say the following thing, namely: all of those things that were treated as secret were not discussed in those expert conferences because, after all, those things were not to be discussed according to regulations in front of such a board. Furthermore, specific construction tasks were not discussed either to which Dr. Kammler had issued special orders and the authority which he kept entirely to the very end.
The duration of those expert conferences was rather short at all times. Dr. Kammler never did have the time to stay very long and most of the time he wouldn't even take off his coat when he walked into those conferences. I can really say that the longest conference I participated in lasted approximately 15 minutes. That, generally speaking, were the contents of those conferences in which I participated.
Q. Didn't you hear of any social happenings or of the official incidents which occurred at Amtsgruppe C?
A. Yes. Well, the things we were generally speaking of were official matters dealt with by other offices. All war economic questions which were connected with the Plenipotentiary General for the Construction Economics were dealt with the Plenipotentiary for Wood. All of those questions in connection with those two people I mentioned were discussed there. However, those actual construction matters were not dealt with in those conferences nor were those the actual aim of those conferences.
Q. What was it that actually happened with the results of the work carried out in your office?
A. When a basic plan or plans for frame-work were completed in my office I had to submit them to Dr. Kammler for his signature. I, myself, as Chief of his Office did not even have the right to sign for my own work. Then when Dr. Kammler had approved them by signing them they were sent to the planning department which is on the organizational chart of Amtsgruppe C. That document is Document No. 1288, Exhibit 44 and in Document Book No. 2 and that department is in the Staff of Dr. Kammler and the Staff is C-B. They were at the disposal of Dr. Kammler there and he was actually in charge of them. He could do anything he wanted with it. For instance, in the case where such plans for frame-work where such plans or preliminary sketches could be used for some sort of a job he would probably send it to some agency interested in those things or then he would refer them to the competent office in Amtsgruppe C which is the Central Construction Inspectorate C-5.