This training course lasted for approximately one year. The teachers, who were not working on a fulltime basis, were furnished to me from circles of the chief administrative corps at Munich and the technical high school there, and they were not members of the SS. Furthermore, part-time instruction was given by experts of the administrative office. The main subjects which were taught were the accounting system, and the personnel system, the payment system, the travel expenses and expenses arising out of transfers, the billeting service, clothing service, the food supply system, and the budgetary system.
In order to increase their general knowledge and education there, civil and public law were taught, and social science, taxation law, the stock exchange system and commercial bookkeeping. In later training courses and particularly during the war, the Wehrmacht pay law was added, that is, it is E.W.G.G. in the abbreviated form, and the welfare law. The non-administrative subjects during the war were discontinued.
Q Witness, what instruction did you give personally?
A During peacetime, and as long as no full-time teachers were available, I gave instruction in the law with regard to the compensation of travelling and transfers and taxation law and commercial bookkeeping. Furthermore, in accordance with my own tendency, and in particular with the young replacements who came there during the war, I gave general lectures and instruction. Among other things I lectured about Goethe and Napoleon and also about the classic Greek history.
Q Witness, I shall now show you Document Book 11 of the Prosecution. This is Document 2126, Exhibit 298, on page 24 of the German Document Book, and on Page 20 of the English text. This is an affidavit by Philipp Grimm of the 19th of February 1947. Grimm states here that he had participated in an administrative training course of the Waffen-SS, and he says literally, and I quote - It is on page 20 of the English text, Your Honor.
Correction, Your Honor, it is on page 11 of the English text, and I quote. "This school was subordinated to --"
THE PRESIDENT: What document book?
DR. FRITSCH: I beg your pardon, Your Honor, do you want to know the page or the document number? It is in Document Book 11.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q "This school was subordinated to the SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Hans Baier. There the fundamentals of administration were taught for the Waffen-SS. Amongst other things everything was taught there which concerned troop administration in a concentration camp. However the administration of inmates was not taught there." Witness, I now want to ask you, is that statement correct, did you know Grimm?
A No. In view of the large number of students there it was not possible for me to know everyone of them, and it was impossible for me to still remember today. With reference to this statement, I must say that it is correct. However, it might be misunderstood. I want to make the following statement. At the beginning of the war the operation of the school at Dachau was discontinued and sometime later I received the order to give speedy training courses which took place at Berlin-Lichterfelde-West, and I was to train the administrative officers in administrative subjects, that is to say, to give, them further and advanced training. Altogether three training courses took place there. Every training course only lasted for ten to fourteen days, and the number of students there was approximately sixty to eighty students. Here we taught exactly the same administrative subjects which I have already described before. However, they were given very speedy and brief training. With the concentration camp these administrative training courses did not have anything to do The concentration camps were never mentioned there with even one word.
There was no reason for it. I did not know where the various students went after they had once completed their training. I could only have the idea that they were sent to the front. If one or the other, as far as his activity in the Waffen-SS was concerned, was sent to any administrative agency in a concentration camp, I did not have any knowledge of that, and, of course, I did not have any authority to direct this. I did not even hear of such cases. The case of Grimm he has only come to my knowledge as a result of his affidavit.
Q Witness, in these training courses, and at the school at Dachau, no special training was given with regard to the behavior of the SS in the concentration camps. Is that correct?
A No. As I have already stated, there was no reason for it. The administrative officers who were to be trained were soldiers. I have never received any instruction to give them any special training with regard to their behavior towards inmates.
Q Witness, did the students in the administrative school receive any training in the National Socialist ideology, did they receive any special training in that subject?
A No. I want to state once more that the training there only limited itself to the technical administrative questions. Whether one or the other teachers there touched upon ideological things during the professional training. I don't know. However, in the teaching curriculum such training was not included and was not planned in my time. I myself never issued any orders to give such training, and I never noticed anything that such subjects were taught when I examined the progress of the students. As far as the non-professional training of these young people was concerned. I, above all, intended that they should become decent and moral people, and to teach them the fundamentals of a decent and correct attitude and behavior. I tried to achieve this aim that in peacetime. I, in turn, invited my students to my house during the training courses at Dachau, and to actually treat them like members of my family.
During the war, of course, I was not able to issue any such invitations. With particular reference to my oath I can state that never at the school or in my family the persecution of Jews or the pogroms of Jews was propagated. Above all I wanted to have strict discipline in the case of the students, and I can proudly state today that during my activity in the school there never was any reason for me to take any action because of any actions which could be considered as not being moral.
Q Witness, you trained the students to become administrative officers; that is to say, you trained them to become officers in a unit of the Wehrmacht, i. e. Waffen-SS. What became of these students once they had completed their training?
A They were sent to the front -- in peacetime they were sent to troop units with the task of carrying out the administration there of larger or smaller units. They had to choose the finance service or the administrative service. The best students in peacetime -- and even during the war -- were sent to study at a university so that they could prepare themselves for a higher administrative career in accordance with the institutions and customs that existed in the army.
The school was located at Dachau, however at Dachau there was also a concentration camp -- even though it was some distance away from the training school.
Q What contacts did you have with the concentration camps and the administration of the concentration camp?
A Between the school and the concentration camp there was no contact whatsoever in any administrative respect, nor in any factual respect. The same applies to the contact between me and the officers of the concentration camps and the men who were assigned to the concentration camp. I would start my duty punctually in the morning to begin with my work, and I would leave my work punctually at night, and then I would remain during my entire time within the circle of my family, or for the most part I would make the necessary preparations for the training of the next day. Outside of my family I did not have any social contact, and I did not want any because being together with my family was quite sufficient for me, aside from the visits of my students in peacetime -which, of course, was only done in order to help in their education.
Q Witness, did you enter the concentration camp Dachau on one occasion? And just what brought about this visit? Did the Prosecution interrogate you about that once before?
A I have not yet been interrogated on this subject, as far as I can recall.
Approximately in the year 1938 or early in 1939 the students had approached me with a request that they be allowed to carry out an inspection of the concentration camp. It was well known that occasionally inspection tours were carried out by members of the Army, members of the Party, and also by civilians. There was no reason for me not to comply with their request, and with the administrative office at Munich I made a request that I should be permitted to carry out this tour throughout the camp with my students. The administrative office then, as far as I know, had to turn the matter over to a higher agency, but, in any case, some time later I received the permission to enter the camp and to look at the camp together with my students.
The camp had also been informed of our visit and this visit took place with approximately thirty people going through the camp. We were admitted to the protective custody camp, and a Hauptsturmfuehrer was assigned to us to show us the camp.
First of all, he showed us the billets of the inmates, which were clean, and they were kept in immaculate order. There were barracks which had been constructed to withstand the weather, and there were approximately twenty to twenty-five inmates assigned to each barrack; each one of them had his own bed with a mattress, pillow, and blankets. Everything was equipped with bed sheets which were also in a very clean condition. The beds were on top of each other in a double-deck manner, just as had been done for many years in army barracks. Every inmate had his own closet and, furthermore, every group which consisted, as I said before, of twenty to twenty-five men, had their own day room so they could stay there during the daytime. It was equipped with tables and chairs.
I can also remember the existence of a radio there. The hygiene installations were clean, and they corresponded to the purposes they were used for. I can recall that shower facilities also were available. We were then taken to the kitchen. It could be quite easily compared with the kitchen in an army unit, and here also everything was immaculate clean and in order; and the work, for the most part, was carried out by inmates.
We were then taken to the camp dispensary which also was equipped very well, and it met all the requirements of a hospital, as far as we could judge that from what we saw. Here, the bed sheets were white; the nurses, the inmates were dressed just like the medical personnel.
We were then taken to the storage room and here the civilian clothing of the inmates was stored. Above all, it was clothing. And the protective covers had been placed around them, and did bear the names of the inmates who owned this property, and their number. They had been stored in a very orderly fashion.
Finally, we had the opportunity to take a look into the library. We found that they had a large number of excellent books, and we also had the opportunity to talk to the inmates. We were also allowed to ask them why they were incarcerated in a concentration camp.
I cannot recall any case which could have led me to the conclusion that somebody was unjustly imprisoned in this camp. If one considered that these people had violated orders and laws of the Government. Since we were in an SS uniform, I don't know whether the inmates told us the truth.
In one case -- and I can remember that clearly and precisely -we found out that the inmate had told us a lie. Upon a question why he was imprisoned there he told us that he had been imprisoned because of jealousy; and from this we could have drawn the conclusion that somebody had denounced him. When the accompanying officer, however, asked him the same question, he corrected himself to the extent that he had killed his wife, and that he had therefore been punished in this way for his deed.
Q According to the documents which have been submitted here, and according to the other evidence, there cannot be any doubt that, in part at least, the inmates were treated in an inhumane manner. It is understandable that one is surprised that many people who inspected the camps just as you did state, that on the occasion of such a visit, you could not see anything about such atrocities.
Do you believe, witness, that you were intentionally not shown things as they were in reality? Do you have any reason to believe so?
A I don't think so. However, of course, I cannot deny that this possibility exists.
THE PRESIDENT: Was this visit in 1938?
WITNESS: Yes, it was in 1938 or 1939.
THE PRESIDENT: Before the war?
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, before the war.
WITNESS: May I repeat my answer once more?
I don't think so, but I can't deny that this possibility exists. That may have been the case whenever an inspection was carried out. Perhaps we were completely deceived. We were deceived apparently when something was shown to us that the people wanted us to see.
BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for defendant Baier):
Q Witness, you mean to say that perhaps the members of the SS were not shown the true state of affairs either?
A. After all, we were not treated any differently. We didn't know about the things and now, whenever I look through the documents and I look at what happened within a small distance from my place of work, I can only think that probably these things were kept secret by virtue of the order of the Fuehrer, so that one had to gain the impression that everything was going all right and in reality we were deceived. I can't deny that this possibility exists.
Q. When you inspected the camp, did you also see inmates at work?
A. No, on the occasion of this visit whenever we saw inmates this was within the concentration camp installations which we entered, the kitchen, and so on. Of course, I also saw inmates outside the camp and I saw them work in public institutions, parks, and so on.
Q. What impression did these inmates give you?
A. All the inmates, those in the protective custody camp and also the inmates which I saw outside the protective custody camp, occasionally would make a good impression, as far as their clothing and physical condition was concerned.
Q. Witness, may I point out that all that happened always around 1938 and 1939?
A. Yes.
Q. That was during the time when you were active at the school?
A. However, this testimony also refers to the time during the war.
Q. Witness--
JUDGE MUSMANNO: That last comment of his sort of puts everything into the air. He said the conditions which he described in 1938 and 1939 also prevailed during the war.
DR. FRITSCH: I beg your pardon, Your Honor, I can't hear very well.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: I understood the witness to say that the conditions which prevailed in 1938 and 1939 in Dachau also prevailed during the war. Now I want to know if I heard that correctly and, if so, does he mean throughout the entire period of the war up to the actual day of surrender?
DR. FRITSCH: I understood the witness to say, Your Honor, that when he saw inmates working outside the camp they made a good impression on him with regard to their clothing and their physical condition, and he said that this did not only apply for the time before the war but also during the war.
May I perhaps ask the witness if I have repeated his statement correctly?
THE WITNESS: With this statement I was trying to express the fact that I observed this whenever I went to work and whenever I came from work and this condition did not change even after the war had begun. In 1943 I was in Dachau and when I went to work and when I came back from work I saw inmates and I could not determine any difference with regard to their clothing and physical condition, as far as they were working outside.
Q. Witness, the question whether this imprisonment was justified has already been repeatedly discussed here. I don't want to go into too much detail here. However, I would like you to tell me your point of view on that subject. In order to put the question more precisely, did you consider the imprisonment of the inmates justified?
A. Yes. I am not a legal man. I can't give you the legal reasons. However, I know that the Reich Government had issued a law and I didn't know that at the time, but I know it today, that it had been issued even on the basis of the Weimar Constitution. I knew that during the First World War such a law already existed.
THE PRESIDENT: What law?
DR. FRITSCH: This was a protective custody law. That is what the witness means.
THE PRESIDENT: He hasn't said so. Is that the law he means?
DR. FRITSCH: The witness stated that during the First World War there also was a law which made it possible to imprison people without any legal procedure.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, all right, go ahead.
Q. Will you continue, witness?
A. We were also told that other countries, for example, England, had established so-called concentration camps.
The propaganda also told us these things in word and in writing. They even showed us films about that. The inmates, as far as I was concerned, were people who had broken laws and who in a legal manner had lost their liberty. Of course, I felt human pity for them, but I only felt sorry for them because their liberty had been taken away from them. Otherwise, I had no reason to feel sorry for them, because I always had the impression that they were treated very well.
Q. Witness, we shall refer to the question of inmate labor again later on. Will you please describe to us briefly how you yourself came into closer contact with the inmates and when this happened for the first time?
A. As director of the school, I had always refused to use concentration camp inmates for necessary work which had to be carried out at school. I only did this for the reason that I did not like the idea personally of having people who were not at liberty around me. And I did not consider the use of inmate labor appropriate at a training school. Up to the year 1941 I was able to carry out those plans. I had employed charwomen and from time to time I would employ free workers whenever it became necessary. In the year 1941 the school was enlarged and I needed skilled craftsmen and other workers. Because of the lack of workers I was unable to procure this labor from the Labor Office. My administrative officer told me at that time that it was impossible to have this work carried out unless we employed concentration camp inmates, and finally I agreed to use inmates and to request inmates for daily work at the school, after having been unable to do this so far for the reasons which I have already mentioned.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a recess, please.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. KLINERT (Counsel for defendant Bobermin): May it please the Court, I would like to make the request to excuse the defendant Bobermin from tomorrow's session in order to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Bobermin has permission to be absent from tomorrow's session of court at the request of his counsel.
HANS BAIER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, we stopped at the point before the recess where you touched upon the question of when you came into closer contact with the inmates for the first time, and you had told us that at the administrative school in Dachau in 1941 you employed a few inmates. I would now like you to continue this description briefly and tell us with a few words whether there you took care of these inmates and what your contact with them was.
A. The inmates were employed in the kitchen. They were employed as assistant cooks, as craftsmen, and to clean up. As a rule I did not have very close contact with them, but I talked to them occasionally and asked them if they had any complaints. They said no. They said that they had a good time at that school, and they had additional food. They felt quite happy at the school. The working hours were adequate. In the morning they started their work. They had an adequate interval for lunch, and in the late afternoon they went back to the camp. I think it is out of the question for a prisoner in an official prison to lead the same pleasant life that these inmates did in our school. I know that they liked their work.
Q. Did you otherwise have contact with inmates through your family?
A. Yes. I lived on a piece of land which belonged to the Reich, and I had a small house there. For the reason which I mentioned before, namely, to employ workers who were not free, I, unlike others in my position - SS members of the same settlement - refused at the beginning to employ inmates for personal purposes, but when in 1940 my wife suffered from a difficult birth and became unable to work and I had to spend more and more time at the school, in 1941 I decided to use inmates for my garden.
Q. Excuse me, witness. You meant 1941, didn't you?
A. 1941, yes, of course.
Q. Pray continue.
A. Three of them arrived, and I may say that these inmates, who had only to look after my garden, lived a very good life in my house and were practically members of my family. My garden was about 800 meters square, and a lawn made up large parts of it. One person would have been quite adequate to look after the garden, but I sensed once they had started their work that they liked this work, and so I left the three of them there.
Q. Did you feed these inmates?
A. No, I did not feed them. They were given their food in the camp and were also given additional rations because gardening was regarded as heavy work. Nevertheless, they received additional food on occasion because a meal cooked by a housewife is different from food cooked in the camp. This did not happen because the inmates were hungry or because they said they wanted something, but I felt the desire, and so did my wife, to do something kind for the inmates. When they were ill, we gave them drugs and things.
Q. Witness, one more question about that: I suppose that you talked to these inmates and informed yourself how they were treated in the camp. Did you do that?
A. Yes.
Q. What were the answers that you received?
A. There was never a negative answer, and I know that the inmates were well fed, because I could see that. In the case of one inmate, I heard that they received parcels occasionally. I know from my youngest daughter who talked in the morning to the inmate and she told me that he had given here some drops that must have come from the Red Cross parcel.
Q. Herr Baier, we talked about the fact that your activity in Dachau was interrupted by your training courses which you gave in Berlin. Those, you said, came to an end roughly by Christmas 1939. You went back to the school. Did anything change now in the structure of your school?
A. Yes, something did change, as until the outbreak of war we only gave lessons in one form because we did not have enough space in 1940 to do more, but when the school reopened in January, 1940, I received the first full-time teachers, and, of course, from then onwards the main point of our teaching wax the was effort. To put it briefly this meant that the main emphasis was being laid on the specific administrative matters and less on general education. Other changes did not occur, but as time want on after '41 the school grew, and one should remember that this school was the only one of its kind.
Q. Witness, as a Kapitaenleutnant, Lieutenant Commander of the administration, which is the same rank as a captain in the Wehrmacht, you joined the Waffen-SS, and you became a Hauptsturmfuehrer. Is that the same rank?
A. Hauptsturmfuehrer is the same thing as a captain. It is correct that I went over as a Hauptsturmfuehrer to the Waffen-SS. I kept my rank. In other words, I did not improve or lose any money by the transfer, but I gained an activity which was to my liking.
Q. How many pupils went through your school or the courses you hold? Please give me a rough figure.
A. Between '37 until I left the end of '43, about 1800. They were on the upwards scale.
Q. Witness, the indictment does not say quite clearly, but let us suppose that from your activity with the school for admin istrative leaders the conclusion might be made that the training was done therein order to realize the so-called criminal aims of the SS.
Did you at any time hear of anything which, according to general moral principles, were criminal aims during you activities with the SS and with the school in particular?
A Neither with the SS nor with the school in particular, nothing of that happened. The SS was described to us always as the crack unit of Germany, and I saw no reason to have any doubts, especially as the official instructions and orders which reached me for my work, particularly in the school, were always unequivocally correct and morally above reproach.
THE PRESIDENT: May I interrupt to ask a question?
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. With reference to the inmates that worked at the school in the kitchen or in the garden, what nationality were they?
A. They were Germans and foreigners. The foreigners included two Poles, as I remember it.
Q. What other nationality?
A. Others I am afraid I don't know.
Q. Germans and Poles?
A. Yes.
Q. Here they brought to the school from the concentration camp under guard?
A. Yes.
Q. In a motor vehicle?
A. No, they walked. The distance was about quarter of an hour.
Q. Quarter of an hour?
A Quarter of an hour, yes.
Q. Did the guards carry guns?
A. No, they did not carry guns. They only had the usual SS uniform which included a gun, a revolver.
Q. They were armed?
A. Yes, they were armed.
Q. Did you pay anybody for the work of these inmates?
A. No, but the school paid to the Reich the condensation for the work done by the inmates, and I don't think the concentration camp paid the inmates anything for their work.
Q. Well, did you pay for the gardeners?
A. The gardeners were part of the detachment working at the school. I myself did not pay anything for the gardeners.
Q. But the school paid somebody, you think it was the Reich?
A. Yes to the Reich, to the concentration camp.
Q. Well, how did you think the Polish inmate got into the camp did he tell you what he was there for?
A. No, I didn't discuss it with him?
Q. Well, were you curious; did you wonder how a Polish person got into a German concentration camp?
A. As I said, I did not discuss it with him, your Honor. I know that Poles were there, and all I could imagine was that some political reason would apply why these Poles were in custody. What the reasons were I did not know?
Q. And you never asked?
A. I did not discuss it. For reasons of humanity I didn't ask any questions. I knew I couldn't change the fact he was there. I could only treat him well, but I could not change anything in his fate. I attempted to do it once. I wanted to get him out of the concentration camp, and I went myself and saw the commandant. I looked at the file. I still remember the number. It was 11084. And I asked him if it wouldn't be possible for this man to be released, and the commandant contacted the agencies of the RSHA but was told it was mot possibles.
If I read the documents today I can well imagine that it wasn't possible, but I did not know it at the time.
Q. Did the commandant tell you -- Are you talking about the Pole now, the Polish man?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Did the commandant tell you why he was in the concentration camp? He showed you the record, you say.
A. The record showed nothing about the reason why the man was in custody. It was a very thin file. My impression was it was a camp record, not the record of the RsHA, purely a file which concerned the camp.
Q. There was nothing in the man's camp record to show why he was there?
A. No, I didn't see anything. Otherwise I would know it.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, now I would like to leave the school. In August, 1943, you joined the WVHA on order. Is the date correct?
A. Yes, 9 August 1943 I started my service.
Q. Was this transfer a sudden one or had you been warned beforehand?
A. This transfer to the WVHA by order came somewhat surprisingly. I should give a detailed explanation about this. Defendant Pohl said on the witness stand that I went to Berlin against my will. The same was stated by Defendant Frank on the witness stand. As I said before, I was particularly keen on teaching but for reasons of my parents' lack of money I was prevented to satisfy that desire. How that the dream of my youth had come true in the first years of my membership of the SS I had built up the administrative school. I led it, and during that time nothing negative occurred at all.
My immediate superior during most of the time during my activities as the commanding officer was Defendant Frank.
Since roughly autumn 1942 I received reports from which I had to deduce that plans were afoot which aimed at a change in this position. Also I had the feeling that people no longer were satisfied with my work. The work had nothing to do with the SS. It was purely military administrative activities. This caused me in autumn 1942, without having been asked to go so, to go to Berlin and report to my superior, Pohl, in order to make inquiries as to his intentions, to become able to receive sufficient clarity about this. I heard that the intention existed to turn over the school to a troop officer, which would eliminate me automatically.
A. (continued) At the same time the defendant Frank stated that I was no soldier. Now, after thirty years of honest work I suddenly had to regard myself as unqualified. Of course, in the suitable manner I reported to the defendant Pohl, particularly as regards to the fact that he had once had me transferred to the Verfuegungstruppe from the Navy. But, I was told there was a War on and as a soldier I had to follow such orders as night come along.
Q. Why did you not take the consequences? You had been hired, as you called it, expressly for the school.
A. I would like to say here with emphasis that in peace time I would have taken the consequences and left the service. Furthermore, I was to be put under a 16 years younger SS leader. He was the son of the co-defendant Fanslau and I was a particularly provocative comment on my work in this.
Q. Was there any mention at that time of transfer to WVHA?
A. No, not at that time no transfer was alluded but no definite result was reached either from which one could see what was going to happen. Some rumors began to circulate that I would be transferred away from the school and then shortly after that the defendant Pohl visited us and he told no that he needed an auditor for the WVHA and he had "ear marked" me for that position. I asked Pohl thereupon for old times sake not to do that and leave no in my school and with my family. Pohl refused to do that.
Q. Did he give you a reason?
A. No, he emphasized that there was a military necessity for this. On the witness stand the defendant Pohl said that I had joined the WVHA against my will. He also said it happened that I would become an auditor with the WVHA. Frank said on the witness stand the thing had been done so that a troop officer could take over the school.