In a letter of May 1943, POhl, considered the appointment of a doctor to supervise for the SS all experiments in concentration camps. He stated that eight to ten series od experiments were going on at that time. We shall prove that, after 15 May, 1944, the opinion of Gluecks, Chief of Amtsgruppe D, had to be secured before any experiments could be performed on inmates.
Nor was support of these criminal experiments by the WVHA limited to Amtsgruppe D. Personal had to be assigned to assist in the experiments, money, equipment, and other facilities had to be made available, and in some instances laboratories and wards had to no constructed. This required, to a greater or lesser degree, the cooperation of all of the Amtsgruppen in the WVHA.
For example, in the summer of 1942 an Institute for Military Scientific Research was formed within an SS organization known as "Das Ahnenerbe". The Ahnenerbe was originally concerned, as stated in its charter, with research into the capacity, spirit, accomplishments and heritage of northern racial Indo-Germanism. It endeavored to promote heraldry, the study of family and national hereditary history, and the dissemination of racial theories. With the formation of the Institute for Military Scientific Research, however, it became deeply involved in criminal experimentation on concentration camp inmates. The International Military Tribunal made the following finding with respect to the Ahnenerbe, and I quote from the judgment on pp. 16952-3- of the English transcript:
"Also attached to the SS main offices was a research foundation known as the Experiments Ahnenerbe. The scientists attached to this organization are stated to have been mainly honorary members of the SS. During the war an institute for military scientific research became attached to the Ahnenerbe which conducted extensive experiments involving the use of living human beings. An employee of this institute was a certain Dr. Rascher, who conducted these experiments with the full knowledge of the Ahnenerbe, which was subsidized and under the patronage of the Reichsfuehrer SS who was a trustee of the foundation."
The expenses of the criminal activities of this organization were met out of funds of the Waffen-SS and the financial arrangements were gabdked by the defendants George and Hans Loerner and their confederates in Amtsgruppe A and B of the WVHA.
I shall now outline briefly some of the experiments as to which the Prosecution will offer proof.
Between February and July, 1942, high altitude or low pressure experiments were conducted at the Dachau Concentration Camp. This Tribunal has heard considerable proof in the case against Erhard Milch on these experiments as well as the freezing experiments to which I shall come in a moment. The Prosecution will show that the high altitude experiments were performed on approximately 200 inmates, most of whom were Russian prisoners of war, Polish, political prisoners, and Jews.
Between 70 and 80 of the experimental subjects were deliberately killed. The experiments were designed to terminate with death. These deaths were frequently followed by gruesome autopsies, sometimes in the low pressure chamber itself. Several cases were recorded in which tests persons who had survived the experiment were drowned and dissected under water in order to observe the formation of air embolism. The purpose was to establish the highest altitude from which the air crew could be rescued in case of damage to the pressurized cabin of the plane. These experiments were supported by the Luftwaffe, Das Ahnenerbe, and the SS, They were executed by Dr. Rascher and the defendant Romberg in the Medical Case. The defendant Pohl actually observed one of these experiments being performed.
The freezing experiments in Dachau lasted from August 1942 until approximately May 1943. Nearly 300 inmates were experimented on and over 80 of them died as a result. In one series of experiments the subjects were forced to remain in a tank of ice water for several hours. Narcosis was frequently not used and the pain was extreme. Death usually occurred after 80 minutes where the subject was unclothed, but it is known that two Russian prisoners of war did not die until after the 5th hour of torture.
In another series of experiments, naked victims were kept outdoors in freezing weather for 8 to 14 hours. Their hands and feet were frozen white.
The purpose of these-experiments was to determine the most effective way of rewarming severely chilled persons. The Luftwaffe was primarily interested in this problem because of the loss of pilots in the North Sea. Various methods of rewarming were tried, the most successful of which was a very hot bath. But the perverted and sadistic character of these experiments is perhaps best revealed in a report by Rascher on rewarming by "animal" warmth. He said:
"The experimental subjects were removed from the water when their rectal temperature reached 30°C. At this time the experimental subjects had all lost consciousness. In eight cases the experimental subjects were then placed between two naked women in a spacious bed. The women were supposed to nestle as closely as possible to the chilled person. Then all three persons were covered with blankets. A speeding up of rewarming by light cradles or by medicines was not attempted.
When the temperature of the experimental subjects was recorded it was striking that an after-drop of temperature up to 3°C occurred, which is a greater after-drop of temperature than that seen with any other method of rewarming. It was observed, however, that consciousness returned at an earlier pointy that is at a lower body temperature than with other methods of rewarming.
"Once the subjects regained consciousness they did not lose it again, but very quickly grasped the situation and snuggled up to the naked female bodies. The rise of body temperature then occurred at about the same speed as in experimental subjects who had been rewarmed by packing in blankets. (Fig. 2) Exceptions were four experimental subjects who, at body temperatures between 30°C and 32°C, performed the act of sexual intercourse. In these experimental subjects, the temperature rose very rapidly after sexual intercourse, which could be compared with the speedy rise in temperature in a hot bath.
"2. Another set of experiments concerned the rewarming of intensely chilled persons by one woman. In all these cases rewarming was significantly quicker than could be accomplished by two women. The cause of this seems to be that warming by one woman only, personal inhibitions are removed, and the woman nestles up to the chilled individual much more intimately. Also in these cases, the return of complete consciousness was strikingly rapid. Only one experimental subject did not return to consciousness and the warming effect was only slight. This person died with symptoms suggesting cerebral haemorrhage, as was confirmed by subsequent autopsy."
The women used in this obscene manner were transferred from Ravensbruck to Dachau by order of the WVHA. Rascher refused to use one of the girls because she had what he described as unquestionable Nordic racial characteristics. She had volunteered for the camp brothel for half a year on promise of release. As she put it: "Better half a year in the brothel than half a year in the concentration camp." This so outraged Himmler that he ordered Pohl to investigate the matter.
The WVHA also manufactured experimental clothing at the plant at Dachau under the defendant George Loerner for use in these experiments.
Dr. Rascher was not content with his murderous achievements in the high altitude and freezing experiments. In 1943, he turned his attention to the development of a blood coagulation drug. Simple and innocuous clinical tests with the drug were not considered realistic enough, so prisoners at Dachau were shot in order to study the rapidity of blood coagulation. The WVHA not only made the inmates available for these macabre studies, but a pharmaceutical laboratory controlled by Amtsgruppe W assisted in the manufacture of the coagulant on a commercial scale.
Experiments with poisonous food were performed on prisoners in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. These were suggested by the defendant Pohl and were carried out by a Dr. Schenk who was attached to Amtsgruppe B of the WVHA under the defendant George Learner. On 9 September 1942, Pohl wrote to Himmler as follows:
"We shall have to make two groups of food experiments. First such which cover the examination of poisonous ingredients of our food or such as are slowly growing poisonous.
"The prisoners can very well be used for these experiments, Secondly, however, experiments will perhaps be necessary concerning the amelioration by food. These experiments cannot yield valuable results when made on racially inferior people, i.e., inferior as to the bodily structure and physical state. For this, volunteers have to put themselves at our disposal as usual, researchers who do not only note physical phenomena in themselves, but also physical changes. Both of them play a part in appraisement of food."
These experiments resulted in the death of scores of inmates.
Perhaps the most frightful of all the experiments in concentration camps were those to test the effectiveness of typhus vaccines at Buchenwald. The attack against Russia in 1941 found the German Wehrmacht unprepared to combat frequent typhus epidemics among the troops. Frantic efforts were made to develop and test vaccines and therapeutic drugs and for this purpose hundreds of human guinea pigs were used. In the course of these experiments 75% of the selected number of inmates were vaccinated with one the vaccines or nourished with one of the chemical substances and, after a period of several weeks, were infected with typhus.
The remaining 25% were used as controls and were infected without previous protection. We shall offer in evidence a diary kept by the doctor who conducted these experiments. It shows that no less than 725 prisoners were used in these experiments, over 150 of whom died.
The typhus infections were usually brought about by the injection of typhus infected blood. In order to insure a constant supply of such blood, four to six inmates per month were deliberately infected with typhus. Substantially all of these so-called "passage persons" died.
The WVHA assisted in these murders at Buchenwald by the construction of a block for vaccine production. This was done by Amtsgruppe C. It will also be proved that Dr. Lolling of Amtsgruppe D and Dr. Schenk of Amtsgruppe B inspected the experimental station at Buchenwald.
Similar experiments were performed at Natzweiler by Dr. Eugene Haagen with the support of the WVHA. In November 1943 100 prisoners were made available to him by Pohl. Their physical condition was so poor that 18 died during transport from another camp. Haagen complained bitterly that only 12 of the inmates could be used for his purpose and even these would have to be given a special diet for two or three months. He therefore requested and received an additional 100 men in healthy condition. Pohl furnished still another 200 prisoners to Haagen in the summer of 1944, at least 50 of whom died as a result of these experiments. The WVHA was mentioned as having supported the experiments in a report by Haagen to the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.
In the sterilization experiments, the depths of degeneracy were reached. This research was not undertaken to benefit mankind, but to destroy it. But the latter part of 1941, it was the established policy of the Third Reich to exterminate the Jews in Europe. An effort was made to use sterilization to effectuate this policy. Those able to work wore to be preserved for the time being so long as their capacity to propagate was destroyed. This policy of genocide also included other peoples regarded as "sub-human" such as the Russians and Poles.
Experiments were carried out at Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck and other concentration camps in an effort to find an inexpensive, inconspicuous, and rapid method of mass sterilization. The defendant Pohl and other members of the WVHA took a personal interest in these experiments. Pohl was especially enthusiastic about medicinal sterilization since it gave the possibility of being performed without the victims' knowledge. Dr. Pokorny, who is now standing trial in the medical case, came upon an article by a Dr. Madaus which stated that the drug caladium seguinum derived from the plant Schweigrohr when taken orally or intravenously would bring about permanent sterility in animals. He wrote Himmler in October 1941 suggesting that experiments be conducted on criminals.
His letter stated, and I quote:
"If, on the basis of this research, it were possible to produce a drug which after a relatively short time, effects an imperceptible sterilization on human beings, then we would have a new powerful weapon at our disposal. The thought alone that the 3 million Bolsheviks, at present German prisoners could be sterilized so that they could be used as laborers but be prevented from reproduction, opens the most far reaching perspectives."
This proposal was passed on to Pohl and he personally supervised efforts to cultivate the plant Schweigrohr on a largo scale. He also made arrangements to perform experiments on concentration camp inmates.
Sterilizations by x-ray in Auschwitz were supported by the WVHA. With the full knowledge and consent of Pohl a Dr. Horst Schumann was permitted to destroy all normal life for a number of young Polish-Jews. After having been horribly burned by x-rays, most of these boys were then subjected to castration so that the destructive effects of the x-rays could be studied microscopically. The Prosecution hopes to afford the Tribunal the opportunity of hearing the testimony of one of the few survivors of this Nazi criminal depravity.
A Dr. Clauberg was also working at Auschwitz. He devised a method of sterilizing women by injecting an irritating solution into the uterus. He was assigned the task by Himmler of determining how long it would take to sterilize 1000 women by his method. His success was such that he estimated this might be accomplished in one day by a physician and 10 assistants. Several hundred Jews and Gypsies were the victims of his pseudo-science.
In addition to the experiments already outlined, the Prosecution will offer proof of other medical War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, including malaria, seawater, and sepsis experiments at Dachau, epidemic jaundice experiments at Sachsenhausen, poison gas experiments at Natzweilor, and hormone experiments at Buchenwald. Those crimes were perpetrated with the knowledge and assistance of the I pass now to a phase of mass extermination implemented by the concentration camp structure - the so-called enthanasia program.
On the opening day of the invasion of Poland, 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler charged Prof. Karl Brandt, at that time his escort physician, and Phillip Bouhler, the Chief of the Private Chancellery of the Fuehrer, with the task of organizing and executing a program for the extermination of persons considered incurably ill.
The timing of the program with the initiation of a war of aggression was, of course, not a coincidence. By the elimination of insane, aged, and incurable persons, as well as deformed children, it was hoped to make more medical personnel and hospital facilities available for war casualties. It is equally clear that this program implimented the basic Nazi doctrines of race, blood , and State; only those persons who could strengthen the Nordic race and the Third Reich were considered worthy of life. Hence, those who were weak in mind or body, who were unable to work, who were "useless eaters" were systematically and ruthlessly killed.
As a result of the Fuehrer order, a large and somewhat complicated organization was established to carry out the euthanasia program. Since we are here concerned with euthanasia only insofar as it touches the concentration camps and the jurisdiction of the WVHA, the overall operation of the program can be sketched in broad strokes. Questionnaires were sent to the Ministry of Interior purporting to report the condition of each patient in the various mental institutions. These questionnaires were submitted to so-called exports in the euthanasia organization who (without so much as having seen the patient) passed sentence of life of death.
Then a list was made up of the patients who were judged as "positive" cases and these patients were removed from the asymlum to collecting centers and from there were transferred to euthanasia stations and killed. The executions were carried out without the consent of the relatives and, of course, without the consent of the victim. Falsified death notices with stereotype wording were sent to the relatives.
The entire procedure was carried out under elaborate code names in an effort to insure secrecy. However, this proved to be quite impossible and the program was common knowledge throughout Germany. Indeed, public opinion and particularly that of the church - was effective enough to bring about a temporary stop in the general program in the autumn of 1941, The heartful protest by thousands of decent Germans against this wholesale murder is exemplified in a letter written by the Bishop of Limburg to the Ministry of Justice in 1941, when he said:
"About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion, the above mentioned Euthanasia has been systematically practiced for months - approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden, because death certificates from a Registry Hadamar-Moenchberg are sent to the home communities. (Moenchberg is the name of this institution because it was a Franciscan monastery prior to its secularization in 1803.)
"Several times a week busses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say:
"There comes the murderbox again." After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of the miserable victims, especially when repulsive odors annoy them, depending on the direction of the wind.
"The effect of the principles at work here are: Children call each other names and say, "You're crazy; you'll be sent to the baking even in Hadamar." Those who do not want to marry, or find no opportunity, say, "Marry, never'. Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine!" You hear old folks say, "Don't send me to a state hospital! After the feeble-minded have been finished off, the next useless caters whose turn will come are the old people."
"All God-fearing men consider this destruction of helpless beings as crass injustice. And if anybody says that Germany cannot win the war, if there is yet a just God, these expressions are not the result of a lack of love of fatherland but of a deep concern for our people. The population cannot grasp that systematic actions are carried out which in accordance with Par. 211 of the German criminal code are punishable with death'. High authority as a moral concept has suffered a severe shock as a result of these happenings. The official notice that N.N. had died of a contagious disease and for that reason his body had to be burned, no longer finds credence, and such official notices which are no longer believed have further undermined the ethical value of the concept of authority.
"Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interest of public peace, this may be well intended. But the knowledge and the conviction will be increased with the bitter realization that discussion is prohibited with threats but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law."
This case is concerned with the euthanasia program because thousands of prisoners of all nationalities were transported from the concentration camps to euthanasia stations and murdered there. It is also true that camp doctors systematically killed inmates who were no longer able to work under the pretense that they were insane. These killings were usually accomplished by injections of phenol or gasoline. The executions were carried out under the code name "14 f 13" which apparently was derived from a file number in Amtsgruppe D of the WVHA. That office played an essential role in the operation of the program.
Thus, on 10 December 1941, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps sent a letter to the camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenburg, Gross-Rosen, Neuengamme, and Niederhagen advising them that the Doctors' Commission would visit the concentration camps in the near future to select prisoners for "special treatment 14 f 13" and enclosing the usual form of questionnaire used in the euthanasia program. The camp doctors were directed to complete questionnaires on eligible prisoners in order to shorten the work of the Doctors' Commission. Exactly five days later, the camp doctors at Cross-Rosen had selected 293 inmates as eligible for screening by the Doctors' Commission. These unfortunate people were carefully listed under such headings as "Poles or Czechs in Protective Custody", "Shirkers", "Jews in Protective Custody", "Jews who were Habitual Criminals", "Jews who were shirkers" , "Jews Who Defiled the Race". A Jew who defiled the race was one who had married or had sexual intercourse with an Aryan.
This list was sent to the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, which in turn wrote Gross-Rosen to expect a Dr. Mennecke on the 16th of January 1942 who would make the final selection. Dr. Mennecke was one of the so-called experts in the euthanasia program who was commissioned to visit concentration camps. He was recently tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by a German court for his part in the program. He was brought to Nurnberg and testified for the Prosecution in the case against Karl Brandt et. al. Of the 293 inmates listed as eligible by the camp management at Gross-Rosen, 214 were selected for extermination by Dr. Mennecke and no less than 51 of those were of Polish or Czech nationality. A further substantial number were Jews of non-German nationality. Our proof will show that 127 of those prisoners were sent to the Bernburg euthanasia station and exterminated, 36 died before the transport left Gross-Rosen, and of the remainder, 42 were not transported because as a result of a thirty-day rest, they were again able to work.
This speedy recovery of the 42 inmates selected for extermination brought forth a reprimand from the WVHA. On 26 March 1942, Liebehenschel, Chief of Amt D I wrote to the camp commanders as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Let me interrupt you Mr. Hart. Will you mark the spot please, and we will resume after the customary recess.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
"Through the report of a camp commander it became known, that 42 of the 51 inmates selected for special treatment 14 f 13 became 'fit to work again' after some time which made their transfer for special treatment unnecessary. This shows that the selection of these inmates is not being effected in compliance with the rules laid down. Only those inmates who correspond to the conditions laid down and, this is the most important thing, who are no longer fit to work, are brought before the examining commission.
"In order to enable the concentration camps to carry out the tasks they are set, every inmates fit to work is to be put at the disposal of the camp. The camp commanders of the concentration camps are asked to give their special attention to this matter."
It is thus apparent that the euthanasia program had as its main purpose the execution of those no longer able to work. However, it was also used as a means for the extermination of Jews. This is clearly shown in the method of selecting Jews. The physical examination of Aryan inmates was certainly no more than perfunctory, but as to Jewish inmates there was no examination whatever. In November 1941, Dr. Mennecke wrote to his wife concerning the euthanasia examinations in Buchenwald as follows:
"As a second portion a total of 1200 Jews followed, all of whom do not need to be 'examined', but where it is sufficient to take the reasons for their arrest from the files (often very voluminous!) and to transfer them to the reports. Therefore, it is merely a theoretical work......."
The reasons for arrest which were considered as sufficient to justify exterminating Jews are also illuminating. We will present to the Tribunal a series of pictures of 63 Jews who were selected in Buchenwald. Dr. Mennecke wrote the reasons for arrest on the back of each of these pictures. One Jewess was noted as having a "Derogatory attitude toward the Reich; Continuous race defilement by keeping her Jewish descent a secret and rendering the Hitler salutes" Another had made "Incredibly impudent and spiteful remarks toward Germans. On the train made acquaintance of soldiers coming from the front, introduced herself as Jewess, gave them bread for coffee and cocoa, then insulted the soldiers in the meanest possible way." A third was said to be an "Anti-German Eastern Jew Agitator. In the camp: lazy, impudent, recalcitrant."
This murderous program continued long after the WVHA had assumed jurisdiction over the concentration camps.
From the middle of 1943 the selections were supposed to be limited to insane inmates unable to work. On 27 April 1943. Gluecks, Chief of Amtsgruppe D, sent the following order to the concentration camps:
"The Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police upon demonstration has decreed that in the future only insane prisoners can be selected for the notion 14 f 13 by the medical commissions appointed for this purpose.
All other prisoners unfit for work (persons suffering from tuberculosis, bedridden invalids, etc.) are absolutely to be excluded from this action. Bedridden prisoners are to be given suitable work, which can also be done in bed."
The Prosecution will present evidence on the operation of the euthanasia program in the Buchenwald, Dachau, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, and Natzweiler concentration camps. These invalid transports were a thing of terror to all inmates as they were frequently used by the camp management as a means of disposing of prisoners considered to be undesirable. It appears that the extermination stations of Bernburg and Hartheim were the principal centers for killing prisoners. Frank Ziereiss, former commander of Mauthausen, estimated that at least 20,000 prisoners were executed at Hartheim over a period of one and half years.
The criminality of the euthanasia program as it operated in the Third Reich presents no novel question of law. The International Military Tribunal found that it involved the commission of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and I quote from the Judgment, pp. 16916-17 of the English transcript:
"Reference should also be made to the policy which was in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which all aged, insane, and incurable people, "useless eaters', were transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and their relatives informed that they had died from natural causes. The victims were not confined to German citizens, but included foreign laborers, who were no longer able to work, and were therefore useless to the German war machine. It has been estimated that at least some 275,OOO people were killed in this manner in nursing homes, hospitals and asylums, which were under the jurisdiction of the defendant Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Interior. How many foreign workers were included in this total it has been quite impossible to determine."
A number of decisions of German courts since the end of the war have also held that the euthanasia program was in violation of the German penal law.
MR. HART: Mr. Robbins will continue with the opening statement.
MR. ROBBINS: Slave Labor.
A primary phase of National socialist policy which permeated every level of Party and Government, from the highest to the lowest, was that of enslaving peoples and exploiting their labors and energies. This policy of labor exploitation was emphasized in many of Hitler's speeches. His declaration on 9 November 1941 -- quoted in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal -- is typical. There he boasted that 250 million men lived in the territory which worked solely for Germany, and that the territory which worked indirectly for Germany contained 350 million men. "It is not doubtful," Hitler said, "that we shall succeed in harnessing the very Last man to our work." In Himmler's now infamous Posen speech on October 4th, 1943 the attitude of the SS toward Germany's slave laborers was strikingly related: and I quote:
"What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we shall take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our Cultur; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests no only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and heartless when it is not necessary, but it is clear, we Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these man animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with then." End of quote.
It was appropriate that the most unmerciful and satanic part of the slave labor program -- that carried out in the concentration camps --
THE PRESIDENT: I am obliged to say that the trouble is in one of the earphones, or in some connection with the earphones. The line is clear, and the transmission is clear, and part of the earphones are all right. Are you getting it over the line? Is it important enough that you hear now and you can get a copy of it later, all right? Well, you can hear the interpreter directly (discussion ensued with a German counsel). All right, between listening to the interpreter directly, and getting a copy of it afterwards. I think you are amply protected. Let's proceed.
MR. ROBBINS: Your Honor, if only a few can not hear, they might sit in those seats along here.
DR. SEIDL: Dr. Seidl for the defendant Pohl. Mr. President, the defendants are entitled to hear, but at least speaking for the defendant Pohl, and Dr. Seidl alone, I have no objection against this. Although the system is out of order, this at any time might be ready provided afterwards we are given a copy of at least a statement of the Prosecution. Now the question is, however, whether the Court would think it ethical in regard to the various rules that the defendants themselves will be informed later of the contents of the opening statement of the Prosecution by reading the speech later on. I am told the defendants are not in a position of listening to the translation of the speech, and under the circumstances I must leave it to the Court whether because of the shortcoming of the electrical transmission if the Court itself be justified to continue with the opening statement.
THE PRESIDENT: How many defendants are not able to hear? The defendants, I mean, not the counsel, but the defendants? You can hear or can not? How many defendant can not hear the translation? (Some of defendants raise their hands). It seems it is those on the one circuit, apparently that is the one difficult line. The Tribunal regards it as rather serious that half of them and their counsel can not hear what is being stated. That ceases to be a minor difficulty. I am advised by the technical staff it will take from twenty minutes to half-an-hour to remedy the situation.
Perhaps we had better let them repair it immediately.
MR. McHANEY: Might I suggest an adjournment now and reconvene at 12:30 or 1:00 o'clock instead of the customary 1:30.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, I think we will take a short recess and then reassemble. It may be they can remedy this more quickly the we think, and if so there won't be any confusion in the adjournment, and the cafeteria, will not be upset, and so forth. Just remain around and we will take a poll at 12:00 o'clock to see what shape we are in then.
(Emergency recess)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal. It was appropriate that the most unmerciful and satanic part of the slave labor program that carried out in the concentration camps -- should have been entrusted to Oswald Pohl and the members of the WHA. The various precursors of the WVHA, with the help of Pohl and others of the defendants, had proved their ability to exploit the inmates of concentration camps. As early as 1939 Himmler ordered that supervision over economic matters and use of inmate labor should be under Pohl, although administration of camps at that time was still under the Concentration Camp Inspectorate. In 1939, also, the defendant Mummenthey was made business manager of the DEST stone industry which was one of the most lethal employers of concentration camp inmates. In 1940 he argued vigorously, on the basis of his experience, that the DEST industry should remain an enterprise operated with inmate labor only. Volk, too, as well as others of of the defendants, had thoroughly mastered the economics of slave labor. By the time Pohl's group was reorganized in February 1942, they had developed a science of exhausting the last effort of these whose productive capacity was so pitifully small from malnutrition and mistreatment.
When the WVHA assumed complete jurisdiction over the concentration camps, Pohl wrote to Himmler explaining his plans for the utilization of inmate labor: quote:
"1) The war has brought about a marked change in the structure of the concentration camps and has changed their duties with regard to the employment of the prisoners. The custody of prisoners for the sole reasons of security, education, or prevention is no longer the main consideration. The mobilization of all prisoners who are fit for work, for purposes of the war now, and for purposes of construction in take forthcoming peace, come to the foreground more and more.
"2) From this knowledge some necessary measures result with the aim to transform the concentration camps into organizations more suitable for the economic tasks, whilst they were formerly merely politically interested.
"3) For this reason I have gathered together all the leaders of the former Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, all Camp-Commanders, and all managers and supervisors of work.