Q.- Did you think Pohl's order was justified?
A.- I couldn't possibly have any misgivings about that. I couldn't even think about it, in any case, in November, 1943. That was at a time when I knew nothing about the affairs of the enterprises, but here again I have to state that if I wouldn't have thought that the order was justified, I personally would not have been able to change anything in it. I simply looked upon the thing for informational purposes, as it is contained in the file.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fritsch, we will recess until a quarter of two.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 1345.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 23 July 1947)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. FRITSCH (for defendant Baier):
Q. Witness, please take Document Book III, Document 1025, Exhibit 70, which is on page 103 of the German text, and page 96 of the English. Will you please tell us briefly what we are concerned with here, and what you had to do with it.
A. This is a letter by the co-defendant Mummenthey. Mummenthey at that time used me to prevent the appointment of work Manager Walter as an expert with the rank of Untersturmfuehrer. Officially I had nothing to do with this business. Mummenthey had told me that Walter didn't wish to become an expert in the SS, and therefore we both wanted to help Walter. The document shows that Walter wrote to Mummenthey. In this letter Walter had asked Mummenthey to prevent the appointment. Mummenthey thereupon wanted me to prevent this appointment by seeing Pohl, if necessary.
Q. Witness, the Prosecution has said that you were not satisfied with that promotion, and you wanted to achieve a higher rank for him.
A. No, that is not so, nor do I know how the Prosecution can assume such a thing. The fact that Walter never became an expert is sufficient to contradict what the Prosecution has contended.
Q. It seems to me that this matter is of interest because the letter shows that Himmler himself had made the appointment.
A. Yes, that is quite correct. It becomes clear from the letter. But Mummenthey did something rather bold when he prevented the promotion from being carried out, and he made it known when he wrote to me.
THE PRESIDENT: Please don't spend any more time on this letter.
BY DR. FIRTSCH:
Q. Witness, one question on another matter concerned with Walter.
I am only interested now, how you were connected with these things. There is a Prosecution document; a letter by Walter has been submitted, where he asked to have his salary increased. The statement for Pohl you made. Was that part of your duties?
A. No, the fixing of salary above six hundred marks was in Pohl's hands in his capacity as a manager. I assume that Pohl, when I reported to him about something, handed this matter to me saying that he approved of it and I passed it on to the agency concerned.
Q. Witness, I am to speak of something else, which is, your relation with the DWB. Were you a member of the management of one of the DWB companies of the DWB itself?
A. No. I was never a manager. In March 1944, shortly before the collapse, the employees were called up to the Home Guards, the Volksturm, and the defendants Dr. Volk and Dr. Wenner went to the front. Thereupon without doing anything about it myself, I was appointed Prokurist. I was not given official instructions. I never held any office, especially as in March, 1944, and, of course, shortly before the liquidation, or a month later, I left alone. The actual fact is, therefore, that any activity connected with the management in my capacity as a Prokurist I did not carry out for the DWB.
THE PRESIDENT: You said this was in 1944. You mean 1945, don't you?
THE WITNESS: I am very sorry. I made a mistake. I meant 1945.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, in document book No. 14, there is a document No. 1563, which is Exhibit No. 393, wherein reference is made to files and final balance sheet discussions. I shall start on the assumption that all matters connected with balance sheets of that concern, and the DWB were part of your duties. This becomes clear from the document, doesn't it?
A. Yes, that is quite correct.
Q. Witness, when you had these discussions about the balance sheets, did you reach any clarification about the sums of money for inmate labor, and the hours of work, and all these things, which are of interest for the terms "slave labor"?
A. No, this had nothing to do with losses listed on the balance sheets. On the balance sheet you compare the capital, values and debts, and you also show how much capital you have. As for the profit and loss, this is simply a calculation without any detailed statements as to production.
Q. Witness, you said, and this has been confirmed by other witnesses, that you disliked that kind of work in the WVHA. This dislike of yours, did it decrease as time went on, or did you continue to dislike it, and how did it express itself in your work with your colleagues?
A. I, of course, always endeavored to do my duty, and if I harbored any dislike against the work as such I did not wish my colleagues to suffer for it. This was true all the more, because after all I was on war service. However, I must say that I was never really happy in my work. It did not agree with me. I like the work of a teacher, and also because I had to set up on some occasions a sort of precedence on the part of my colleagues. I frequently felt that I was not liked.
Q. How, do you explain that?
A. For one thing it might have been because I was an auditor of the Staff, and auditors are usually not liked. I also thought the reason might be that the W-office Chiefs had a different training from mine. They were all of them graduates from the universities, and, therefore, they regarded my training which was more technical as inferior. Another element was the fact that it was well known that I knew Pohl from our joined training in the Navy. Anyway I had to overcome difficulties in that respect.
Q. Witness, I shall now come to the last detail of your activities with the WVHA. Until April 1945 you were in Berlin, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you do after that?
A. I was then given the order to evacuate the staff with such files as were then available.
Q. Did you have an order to destroy material and documents?
A. No, my files were economic files, and nobody told me in Berlin to destroy them. As I remember it, no files were destroyed by virtue of my orders in Berlin.
Q. What were the orders you were given?
A. I was to go to the troop training camp in Dachau, and wait for further orders there, which I did together with another twelve persons. The other members of Staff-W remained in Berlin. I had about half a truck full of files with me.
Q. How long did you remain in Dachau?
A. I remained there with the documents and my employees for about two weeks, during which time I lived with my family. I used that period of time because no normal work was possible at any point. I brought my personal affairs in order. For instance, I made my own tax declaration for 1944, and handed it in.
Q. Then you were given an order to leave Dachau. When was that?
A. That order reads about 21 April, and I think it was the Defendant Georg Loerner who asked me the approximate day. I was given the order to go south of Rosenheim, and to remain in that area.
Q. Did you receive any other orders concerning your files?
A. Yes, when I asked him, the defendant Pohl told me, when he was staying in Dachau, that the files had to be preserved.
Q. Did you experience the end of the war there?
A. No, I and the employees had gone to a hut near the valley where we and the documents were. It was there that I heard of the unconditional surrender. I cannot remember the exact date, but soon after the occupation I went back to the valley, and I read a poster which said, "All German officers have to report." I therefore, went, as my conscience was clean, on the very next day to Bernau and I reported to the appropriate agency there. I told them all about my personal data, and showed them my pay-book which is still in existence today.
Q. Witness, did you make any statement about where the documents were on that occasion?
A. No, I don't think so, because on the same day I was interrogated, and was transferred to Nussdorf Camp, and it was only there that I told them where the documents were which I had saved. Those documents were taken over by the Americans later on. I also carried with me money vouchers, which also during my interrogation I handed over voluntarily; about twenty-five million marks, shares, Reich Bonds were involved here.
Q. Witness, at the beginning of your direct examination, you told me that during your earlier interrogations, in your affidavits, there were one or two things which were not correct.
Will you please answer my questions whether this was due to the way you had been interrogated, particularly, the manner in which this was done?
A.- No, it wasn't due to that. Any bad treatment or mistreatment is completely out of the question here. However, I was threatened if I did not give the answers which were expected. On the whole I was not intimidated. But, I would like to point out that psychologically I had lost all points of resistance. The interrogators had a manner of putting words into my mouth which, considering how tired I was, opened up the line of least resistance. That is how these obvious mistakes occurred. In addition to that, there was the fact that for weeks or months one was not interrogated at all. Then in a state of mental fatigue, caused by long solitary confinement, one was suddenly called up. I can only describe how I felt at the time by saying that I was in a sort of coma which made everything seem completely different to me.
Q.- Witness, when you were captured did you hand over anything else apart from money and the files?
A.- Yes. I also had in my possession about 120 watches which I was to distribute to soldiers. Pohl's adjutant passed the order on to me that I was to distribute 300 watches to soldiers. That was before the surrender. I distributed about 180 of those watches and I still had 120, when the unconditional surrender was announced. I then deposited the watches with a game keeper in the valley where we stayed in whom I had very confidence. When I was a prisoner I made indications where these watches were. I know that they have been fetched meanwhile.
Q.- Were they new watches or old watches? Did they perhaps come from confiscated property?
A.- No, they were new watches - wrist watches in green and yellow covers - Swiss manufactured. As the watches were not my property I felt I had the obligation to surrender them. Even after the unconditional surrender I did not feel any longer justified in distributing the watches to the soldiers. On that occasion I also saw to it that the cash which was available was collected. At least, that is what I have heard. I did not distribute that money because it was not my own.
Q.- Witness, a few questions about the last point of the Indictment. When you gave us your curriculum vitae you described to us how you joined the Waffen SS from the Navy. Were you ever a member of the Allgemeine SS?
A.- No, I never was a member of that organization. As an administrative officer I left the Navy and was taken over by the SS-Verfuegunstruppe or Waffen SS?
Q.- Witness, did you ever have any misgivings about the Waffen SS?
A.- I never felt any misgivings because I was a member of the Waffen SS. After all, I described how happy I was in my school and it did not matter to me whether it was a school of the Waffen SS or whether it was a school of any other organization. It would not have made any difference whether I was a civilian or a soldier. The main thing to me was my teaching activity. As I said before since my school days I had a longing to be a teacher and finally that desire had been fulfilled.
Q.- Witness, in the documents surely one is tempted to draw the conclusions that certain things occurred in the SS which one must call immoral. Did you ever obtain knowledge about these things?
A.- No, but I admit that such things have occurred. I know it today but I believe that the acts of criminals cannot be put at the door step of people, the majority of whom were decent and nice. It seems to me that it was fully intended to put elements into concentration camps which were obedient tools of the earlier plans after decent and honorable SS men, of whom I saw many in my school, had been sent to the front.
Q.- Witness, you saw the films here in Nurnberg. These conditions can only have been caused either by very special conditions or by beasts in human shape. Did you never hear anything of such things or of things which were perhaps not of that volume?
A.- No, I never saw anything or heard that people were worked to death, that they were ill treated, or killed, or starved to death because of negligence. But, here again I have to state that the pictures which were shown were correct.
The circumstances which led to these conditions are, as I see it, in their majority to be explained by the extraordinary confusion of the last few weeks of the War. The German civilian population by air raids was completely demoralized. I experienced that myself, particularly the air raids which caused these conditions. I can only explain that no concentration camp received any supplies in the end and people, therefore, starved to death. I find that horrible but until I saw the films I did not have the slightest idea of these things.
Q.- Witness, one more question about that. Have you yourself been trained in any training courses of the SS?
A.- No, I never taken part in any military or ideological training course during the time when I was a member of the SS.
Q.- Witness, you were promoted in the Waffen-SS. Were you particularly quickly promoted? You held the same rank in the Waffen-SS which you held when you left the Navy, is that correct?
A.- Yes, I said that today. As for my promotions I can state that they were completely normal. The last time, in November 1943, I was made an SS-Oberfuehrer which is roughly a Colonel in the Wehrmacht. I may point out that comrades of mine who remained with the Navy in the end had the rank of Captain which is also equivalent to that of a Colonel.
Q.- Witness, a final question. The Prosecution in their opening statement have called you one of the executive assistants of Pohl. That is to say, the Prosecution maintains that you had been a participant or henchman of Pohl's in the accounts with which he is charged. I don't have to go into details here. We have discussed it. Did you commit any of the acts such as are expressed in the Indictment?
A.- No, with the utmost emphasis I can state that I never committed any injustice conscientiously against any human being.
Q.- May it please the Court, this terminates the direct examination of the defendant as a witness.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q.- Witness, you said that many of the things that you saw in the films were caused by the demoralization following air raids, destruction of transportation, shortage of food, and so on. You remember saying that?
A.- Yes, Your Honor.
Q.- Well, how do you account for the half million prisoners who were killed in Auschwitz in 1943/44? There was no demoralization then, was there?
A.- No. No. That has nothing to do with that, Your Honor. I was only thinking of the last few weeks of the War.
Q.- When things became very much worse?
A.- Yes, when everything deteriorated and as the films had been made since the end of the War, I assumed that the films on the whole described the conditions of the last weeks of the War and the confusion.
Q.- The films showed the conditions at their very worst?
A.- When they were very bad, indeed.
Q.- You suggested by your testimony that you thought that the atrocities were caused by just a few villains in an organization that was otherwise composed of very fine men?
DR. FRITSXH: Mr. President, I am so sorry, there was an interruption on the ear phones.
THE INTERPRETER: It seems all right now, sir.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. You suggested by your testimony that all of the terrible things which were done were done by just a few villains, bad men, belonging to an organization in which most of the men were very good. In other words, there are just a few bad SS men, and there were a great many good SS men.
A. That is what I said.
Q. And you believe that?
A. I believe that from the circle I experienced myself as a teacher, because I saw 1800 men whom I had educated, and they all went out to the front, almost all of them.
Q. How many SS men do you think participated in all of the murders that were committed during the war?
A. I am afraid that I am unable to tell you that.
Q. Well, let's take the figure 12,000,000. It isn't exact, but how many SS men would it take to murder 12,000,000 inmates? You don't know, of course?
A. No.
Q. No. You don't think that it was just a handful, just a half a dozen, do you?
A. No.
Q. It must have been thousands?
A. I cannot say about that from my earlier knowledge. I can only make statements from things I have heard here in this trial and from the documents that I have seen.
Q. I understand. I am trying to get your present attitude, the conclusion that you have now reached. Do you still believe that these atrocities were committed by just a handful, a very few bad men?
A. A handful, perhaps, is not the right term, but I believe that it definitely was a minority.
Q. What was the total strength of the SS at the top - I mean at the most - the Waffen SS?
A. I don't know the figure. Some hundred thousands.
Q. Oh, more than that. Does anyone know?
DR. FRITSCH: I believe about 900,000.
Q. Almost a million. That was including the fighting troops, who had nothing to do with concentration camps. Even if it was a minority, even if it was one-tenth, or one-hundredth, of that number, who had something to do with concentration camps, that is quite a few, isn't it?
A. Yes. Compared with the whole figure, it is little, but, absolutely speaking, it is very much.
Q. I don't want you to get the impression that the tremendous number of people who were murdered were the victims of just a small group, a mere handful, of bad SS men. You don't think that, do you?
A. No, Your Honor. After all, you explained it to me.
Q. You can't think that. You are not unreasonable enough to believe that, are you?
A. No, certainly not.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. I understood you to testify on direct examination that when you made your affidavit which is contained in Document Book No. 1 you were so tired that you were not responsible for what you said in your affidavit. Why were you so tired in January of this year, when you had been in custody about two years?
A. By "tired" I mean the psychological state resulting from solitary confinement. I could not talk to anybody. Since August I had been in solitary confinement and that has a very strong effect upon people. For one month I couldn't read anything. I could not talk to anybody. This influenced my powers of resistance.
Q. When were you put in solitary confinement?
A. I was put in solitary confinement in August 1946.
Q. Over a year after you were arrested?
A. Yes.
Q. Why were you put in solitary confinement in August 1946 after you had been in custody over a year?
A. I was not told why.
Q. What part of your affidavit, or what parts of your affidavit, are not true?
A. May I just look it up in my book?
Q. Yes.
A. May I start?
Q. Yes. I want you now to briefly point out that part or those parts of your affidavit that you now repudiate under oath and say are not true, and you need not elaborate on them. Just point out those things that you say are stated in your affidavit that are not true. Go ahead.
A. It says that I had been Pohl's deputy. That was suggested by the interrogator. I tried to fight against it. It has been clarified in the meantime.
Q. I just told you not to elaborate on anything. Just tell me what wasn't so. Now, you say you were not Pohl's deputy?
A. Yes.
Q. All right, now, what next?
A. Then, Heinrich Himmler was not the sole partner. The statement that the OSTI was founded before 1943 is not correct. That should read "founded in 1943". I was not then with the Staff yet.
Then the remark about the labor camps on page 5. I was shown only the photostatic copy, but not the file note, and I could not see very well from that. This was the letter with the queer heading. I spoke as though I had ordered labor camps to be transformed into concentration camps because I could not inform myself.
Then I said that people are alleged to have been present who were underfed. That statement was suggested to me. I couldn't put it in any other way. Then towards the end of the war some people worked twelve hours. I did not know it any better at the time. Then on page 7 the forced labor camps I already talked about. It says Pohl give the order to change all these concentration camps into labor camps. I did not have the time to talk about that, and I couldn't possibly say anything more about that point, but the document is self-explanatory.
Q. You mean it is the other way around, change the labor camps into concentration camps?
A. Yes, that is what I meant, on page 7.
Q. You said the opposite.
That comes down to page 7 in your affidavit. Now you say there, "The auditor, Dr. Hohberg, was my predecessor as Chief of Staff W in the WVHA."
DR. FRITSCH: Mr. President, I can understand one word, and the other words do not come through, and then a word suddenly turns up again, but I cannot follow the context. It is a somewhat wavy contact.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Can the witness hear me now? I will speak slowly.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Q. (By Judge Phillips) You state at the end of page 7, "The auditor, Dr. Hohberg, was my predecessor as Chief of the Staff W in the WVHA." Is that true or false?
A. That is true.
Q. Did you further state that "I, myself, as successor of Dr. Hohberg, likewise held the post of Pohl's deputy in my domain, exactly in the same manner as Hohberg himself, as Chief of Staff W, was deputy of Pohl in his work domain." Is that correct or false?
A. That is not true.
Q. In what respect is it not true?
A. Because Pohl's deputy was Loerner, and I have attempted within that interrogation to explain that. I might point out to you--
Q. That is all right. In other words, in all other respects, except as to the statement of a deputy of Pohl, is it correct with that exception?
A. Yes. It is not quite true to say from the beginning, because I didn't know when the time was.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: Cross examination by defense counsel.
BY DR. HEIM (Counsel for defendant Hohberg):
Q. Witness, did you in your affidavit use the name "Hohberg" or "Homberg"? In the text which is at my disposal he is called Homberg five times.
A. I did not look at the photostatic copy, but it could be clarified on the basis of that photostatic copy.
THE PRESIDENT: Let's not--- Hohberg, it couldn't be anything else, could it?
THE WITNESS: That I might have overlooked a letter somewhere is quite possible. Of course I knew the name Hohberg. I can only make a real statement about that if I see the original. Perhaps it is a misprint.
Q. (By Dr. Heim) You knew the name Hohberg?
A. Yes, I did, and I told Hohberg, the name Hohberg, to the interrogator.
Q. Witness, are you an auditor?
A. No.
Q. Dr. Hohberg is an auditor, isn't he?
A. Yes.
Q. How was it that Dr. Hohberg could have been your predecessor if you are not an auditor?
A. How do you mean? From the point of view of time of course he was my predecessor on Staff W.
Q. You said that you were not an auditor and that Hohberg was an auditor, didn't you?
A. Yes, quite right.
Q. In your affidavit you assert that Dr. Hohberg had been your predecessor, in other words, your predecessor as far as the work was concerned. Can you explain why Dr. Hohberg before your time was active as an auditor in the same work as you if you are not an auditor?
A. I don't believe that one has to assume in every case that the predecessor must have exactly the same sphere of work. Undoubtedly I did work which was looked after by Dr. Hohberg also. I would like to point out that Dr. Hohberg did not transfer over to me, which explains my difficulty, which was particularly great because I am unable to say to what extent he did the same work as I and to what extent he did other work. It is quite true that he was an auditor and I was not when I was ordered to join the staff. Is that enough for you?
Q. Witness, if I have understood you correctly, you wanted to say that Dr. Hohberg had not carried out the same work as you did later on?
A. Obviously not.
DR. HEIM: Thank you very much. No further questions.
BY DR. KLINERT (For defendants Volk and Bobermin):
Q. Witness, you said on your direct examination that the contract between the Reich and the DWB concerning the loan from the Reinhardt Fund had been carried out by the legal department of the Reich. In order to make quite clear the agency which dealt with this, I want you to answer this question. Was it the legal office, that is Office III of Office Group A, or was it the Legal Department of Staff W?
A. If it was processed by a Reich agency, which I said, then in my opinion it can only have been the Legal Office, Office A, in Office Group A
Q. Do you know who was in charge of that office?
A. Who was there throughout that period I don't know, but as long as I was with Staff W it was Dr. Salpeter.
Q. The legal department of Staff W was not concerned with this, in other words?
A. No, not according to what I found.
Q. Another question. Did Dr. Volk, when he tried to work out the rate, have anything to do with figuring out the wages or compensation for inmates?
A. Dr. Volk did not have anything to do with that.
Q. Now, a few questions about the defendant Bobermin. Did you in 1943 carry out the auditing of the Klinker Concrete Works, G.m.b.H.?
A. I am afraid I don't remember the time, but this auditing was made for the year 1943. We were concerned with the normal final balance sheet for the annual report.
Q. Who carried out the auditing?
A. I believe it was an auditor named Traeger.
Q. Did you find any deficiencies in his auditing?
A. I cannot recall anything wrong. If anything more had been found out, I would still know it.
Q. Did you also audit the Eastern German Building and Construction Material Company, G.m.b.H.?
A. Well, that company was a Reich company which had nothing to do with Staff W, and was, therefore, not to be audited by the auditing department of Staff W.
Q. Another question. Did the defendant Bobermin at the beginning of 1944 address to you the request to advocate his transfer to a combat unit?
A. I remember that the defendant Bobermin came to see me and expressed a wish that he wanted to fight, wanted to go to the front, and I also remember that I had the opportunity to transmit his wish to Pohl. By transmitting it I advocated it, of course.
Q. Were there any results?
A. Yes. The defendant Bobermin went to the front - I believe to Hungary. That was possible because he had a good deputy.
DR. KLINERT: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a short recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)