On the 23rd and 24th April 1942, I compiled in the order attached the main essentials which have to be brought into effect with the utmost urgency if the commencement of work for purposes of the armament industry is not to be delayed."
The order by Pohl referred to in the letter to Himmler, was addressed to all concentration camp commanders and work managers and contained the following provisions:
"The camp-commanders alone are responsible for the employment of the labor available. This employment must be, in the true meaning of the word, exhaustive, in order to obtain the greatest measure of performance.
"Work is allotted by the Chief of the Department D centrally and alone. The campcommanders themselves may not accept on their own initiative work offered by third parties and may not negotiate about it.
"There is no limit to working hours. Their duration depends on the kind of working establishments in the camps and the kind of work to be done. They are fixed by the camp-commanders alone.
"Any circumstances which may result in a shortening of work hours (e.g. meals, rollcalls) have therefore to be restricted to a minimum which cannot be condensed any further. It is forbidden to allow long walks to the place of working and noon intervals are only for eating purposes.
"Guard-duties have to be freed from their traditional rigidity and to be made more flexible having regard to the coming tasks of peace. Sentries on horseback, watchdogs, and movable obstacles are to be developed."
Every means, except humane treatment, was employed by the defendants to extract every effort to the last gasp of the workers before they died, as they did by the thousands, from overwork: "employment must be in the true sense of the word exhaustive," "there is no limit to working hours," "sentries on horseback and watchdogs are to be used." In the SS industries, in stone quarries, gravel pits, coal mines, underground armament plants, construction brigades, camp workshops, the laborers weltered in their bloody misery.
The labor economics of the defendants was not, however, designed simply to produce work, for, had it been, far more could have been achieved by decent treatment of the workers. But an equally important purpose of the SS, as a criminal organization, and of the WVHA, as an essential element of the SS, was the annihilation of so-called inferior peoples. Thousands were marked as "subhuman" and thereby slated for death for being Jews and Poles. But before they were to die they were to be driven, degraded, and damnified until death was a merciful delivery. Under the WVHA the typical concentration camp was not actually an extermination camp nor a labor camp, for either purpose could have been carried out quicker and much more efficiently. But they were the cruelest and most fiendish combination of both which could be devised by these defendants. Impossible physical exertion extracted under the whip of a mounted guard provided torture and ultimately death. This dichotomy in purpose of the slave labor program is also shown by the fact that senseless and useless labor, without any constructive purpose, was continuously carried out in the camps. Walls and even entire buildings were erected only to be torn down the following day, again to be re-built on the next. Prisoners were forced to carry huge rocks from one place to another, and on the following day to carry then back again. Contradictory purposes -- profit and production, on the one hand, and torture and murder, on the other, made the search for manpower one of the most important parts of the concentration camp labor program.
In the work details both inside and outside the concentration camps, every inmate was utilized -- political and criminal prisoners, the sick, the lame, those who had already been exhausted from overwork, clergymen, prisoners of war, women, and children.
As an illustration: the fact that one-third of the workers in the SS industries were sick was put forward by one of the WVHA officials as an objection to a proposed increase in the charges for concentration camp labor. A file memorandum of 24 April 1944, on this subject stated:
"The prisoners receiving a pay of RM 0.25 per working day are those who can only be employed on a very limited scale. They are all sick people engaged in the manufacturing of weaving and plaiting products in the plants of Auschwitz, Dachau, Neuengamme and Stutthoff. Consequently about 1/3 of the DAW workers are already excluded from a pay raise for prisoners in the sense of the letter received."
Priests of Polish and Lithuanian nationality were worked and used on all kinds of labor pursuant to an order of Himmler. However the order mercifully provided, that German, Dutch and Norwegian priests were to be employed only in gardening work. But, even gardening work in the concentration camps was deadly, and consisted primarily of carrying stone and earth. Workers were forced to carry tremendous loads, on the double, under the constant scrutiny of guards. Dogs were set upon those who fell behind. Many were shot while working; many others died from beatings and attacks by the dogs. Nevertheless, gardening was considered one of the better assignments.
Simply to obtain another source of slave labor, prisoners of war were placed in concentration camps upon the slightest pretext. An order of Mueller of 30 March 1943 provided that escaped Russian prisoners of war were to be sent to concentration camps if they stole bread at night while making their escape.
By 1944 no reason whatever was given in many cases, for transferring prisoners of war into the custody of the WVHA other than that workers were needed. As an example, Himmler sent the following telegram to SS-Gruppenfuehrer Fegelein on 6 August 1944:
"Find out what the Polish Officers still in the Prisoners of War Camp are doing. Have they been assigned to work or not? If not, I suggest that they be transferred to the concentration camps immediately and be assigned to work as prisoners."
Under the most inhumane conditions prisoners of war were used in munitions factories, coal mines, and stone quarries. On 30 September 1944, Himmler officially recognized the extensive use of Prisoners of war by the WVHA and ordered that their mobilization would be coordinated with Pohl and Berger in joint action with the then-existing labor mobilization offices.
The work of women and children was also a part of the labor program of the WVHA. On 6 January 1943, Himmler wrote to Pohl as follows:
"In operations against guerilla troops, men, women and children suspected of guerilla activities will be rounded up and shipped to the camps in Lublin or Auschwitz.
"The Higher SS and Police Chiefs will arrange the shipments with the Chief of the Security Police, the Chief of the SS-Main Economic and Administration Office and the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps. The Chief of the SS-Main Economic and Administrative Office, in agreement with the Chief of the Security Police and SD, suggest the establishment of collective camps for children and adolescents in Lublin. In these camps a racial and political examination will take place. Racially worthless adolescents, male and female, will be assigned as apprentices to the economic enterprises of the Concentration Camps.
"Children will have to be brought up. This will be done by teaching them obedience, diligency, unconditional subordination and honesty towards their German masters.
They will do sums to one hundred, learn to recognize traffic signs and be prepared for their special occupations as farm workers, locksmiths, stone-masons, joiners, etc. The girls will be trained as farm workers, weavers, spinners, knitters and for similar jobs."
Women were used in the most exacting labor, and even in the deadly construction commandoes, pursuant to Pohl's request. On 24 may 1944 Pohl sent the following telegram to Himmler:
"The first transportation of Jews from Hungary show that about 50% of the Jews who are fit to work are women. Since there is not sufficient adequate purely female work available for this large number of women, we must put them to work for OT construction projects. Your approval is requested. The OT agrees."
Himmler replied:
"Of course Jewish women are to be used for labor. In this case one has merely to provide a healthy diet. Here a diet with raw vegetables is important. Be sure to import garlic from Hungary in sufficient quantity.
The ever-present problem for the WVHA was to obtain replacements as fast as the inmates were killed or disabled in the work program. It is an almost unbelievable fact that workers were killed by overwork, mistreatment, and malnutrition at such a rate that it was impossible for the apprehension agencies to replenish the workers as fast as they died. Rudolf Hoess, Chief of Amt D I, has estimated that in the industries with particularly severe working conditions, as in the mines, 20% of the workers each month either died at their work or were sent back for extermination because of inability to work.
The dilemma became so acute that the Chief of the Security Police and SD made the following complaint to Pohl in December 1942:
"In answer to the letter addressed to the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, a copy of which was sent to me by the Adjutant's Office of the Reichsfuehrer-SS I have to inform you that in the meantime measures have been taken to increase the total number of prisoners in the concentration camps.
"As soon as these measures are completed I shall give other instructions. But I should like, however, to point out in this connection that because of the great number of deaths in the concentration camps, it was impossible to increase the total number of prisoners, in spite of the increased numbers sent to them recently, and that with a constant or even increasing death rate, it is unlikely that an improvement can be effected even by sending an increased number of prisoners."
Similarly, in the same month, the medical office of the WVHA, Amt D III, complained in a letter to the camp doctors of all the concentration camps:
"In the enclosed a compilation of the current arrivals and departures in all the concentration camps is sent to you for your information. It discloses that out of 136,000 arrivals about 70,000 died. With such a high rate of death the number of the prisoners can never be brought up to the figure as has been ordered by the Reichsfuehrer-SS."
On 20 August 1942, the camp physician at Buchenwald made the following request in the interest of saving paper:
"It is requested to examine whether it is necessary to issue reports of the death of political Russians....as political Russians form the greatest number among the dead prisoners at the present time, more time and paper could be saved if these death reports were dropped."
One source of concentration camp inmates was the Reich Ministry of Justice. On 18 September 1942 Himmler and the Minister of Justice conferred at Himmler's field command post. A captured file memorandum by the Minister records that one of the items of agreement was that certain prisoners should be delivered by the Ministry of Justice to the SS to be worked to death. On this point, the memorandum reads:
"The delivery of anti-social elements from the execution of their sentence to the Reich Fuehrer of the SS to be worked to death. Persons under protective arrest, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukrainians, Poles with more than 3-year sentences, Czechs and Germans with more than 8-year sentences, according to the decision of the Reich Minister for Justice. First of all the worst antisocial elements amongst those just mentioned are to be handed over."
Shortly after this conference the Minister wrote to Reichsleiter Bermann:
"With a view to freeing the German people of Poles, Russians, Jews and Gypsies and with a view of making the Eastern territories which have been incorporated into the Reich available for settlements for German nationals, I intend to turn over criminal proceedings against Poles, Russians, Jews and Gypsies to the Reichsfuehrer SS. In so doing I base myself on the principle that the administration of Justice can only make a small contribution to the extermination of members of these peoples."
A report on the progress of this undertaking was made to Pohl by the Chief of the Security Police and SD on 21 Dec. 1942. The latter, in describing his efforts to increase the total number of inmates in the concentration camps, stated that 12,000 prisoners had been named by the Justice Ministry, that some had been transferred, and that subordinate agencies have orders to transfer an additional 35,000 prisoners. Correspondence during march and April 1943 between Pohl and Himmler shows that the SS was not failing in its task of working these prisoners to death. Pohl reported that the death rate of prisoners transferred from the Justice Ministry was an average of 30% per year and even higher in Mauthausen. Out of 10,191 such prisoners, Mauthausen received 7,587 and 3,306 had died by the first of the year.
Theoretically, the RSHA had jurisdiction over internment of inmates, length of sentence, and release from the camp.
In practice, however, the economic purposes of the WVHA prevailed ever the punitive objectives of the RSHA. Release of workers who were employed at socalled "important work locations" was first cleared with the WVHA. SS victimes were sent to the camps by the thousands without any regard for penal consideration and for no other purpose than increasing the number of slave laborers. So-called inferior races were herded into the camps by the thousands without any pretext of charges. As an example, Himmler wrote to Gluecks, in January 1942, as follows:
"As no more Russian prisoners of war are expected in the near future, I shall sent to the camps a large number of Jews and Jewesses who will be sent out of Germany. Make the necessary arrangements for the reception of 100,000 male Jews and up to 50,000 Jewesses into the concentration camps during the next 4 weeks. The concentration camps will have to deal with major economical problems and tasks in the next weeks. SS Gruppenfuehrer POHL will inform you of particulars."
In the summer of 1942, Russian workers were transferred to concentration camps in such numbers that the WVHA, with all of its bookkeeping facilities, was unable to keep a record, even by serial number, of their arrival or transfer. On 1 August 1942, the Chief of Amtsgruppe D sent the following order to the commanders of concentration camps:
"According to a communication from the Reich Security Main Office in the letter referred to above, the technical office of the Reich Security Office Main Office will register the transferred Soviet Russian civilian workers only in numbers. There will be no special treatment of each individual case.
"In order to save paper and labor I, therefore, direct that neither the arrival of such a prisoner nor his transfer into another camp is to be individually reported; moreover, no camp index cards are to be made out and sent to the Reich Security Main Office office IV C 2. Reports to this office are not to be made either."
It is obvious that the absence of individual records of the prisoners made administration of any penal policy impossible whether the end be reformation, deterrence or even incapacitation.
The International Military Tribunal correctly found that:
"Steps were continually taken, involving the use of the Security Police and SD and even the Waffen SS, to insure that the SS had an adequate supply of concentration camp labor for its projects."
The WVHA was intimately connected in a variety of ways with the cruelty, torture, and murders which particularly characterized the slave labor program in the building of armaments. Both Amtsgruppe C, in charge of construction, and Amtsgruppe W, in charge of the SS industries, were engaged in the actual construction of armaments, and each had its own munitions program, using inmate labor supplied by Amtsgruppe D, on a gigantic scale. In addition, the WVHA supplied thousands of workers to private industries engaged in the manufacturing of armaments. Finally, the WVHA worked in close cooperation with the highest Reich officials in the armament program - Goering, Speer, Sauckel, Sauer, and Waegler. I shall briefly refer to each of these phases of armament construction.
Amtsgruppe C, under Kammler and his deputies, Eirenschmalz, Kiefer, and Busching, not only constructed plants for other agencies on a gigantic scale but in addition Kammler was given over-all authority for producing V-1 and V-2 weapons at Concentration Camp Nordhausen-Dora. The giant munitions plant was constructed underground to escape allied bombings and was located on the outskirts of Nordhausen, 125 miles southwest of Berlin. Approximately 80,000 slave laborers were used at Dora and they were forced to work, eat, and sleep in the dankness of the subterranean tunnels, and were driven 14 hours a day along the 31 miles of railroad track in the underground factories. The tempo of work was deadly and the living conditions unbearable. Literally thousands of inmates were murdered on this project. One transport of unfortunates after another left Buchenwald and nearby camps for Dora - never to return. The V weapons were a specialty of the SS and of the WVHA and were constructed upon the lives of those foreigners whose countries were to be destroyed by them.
Amtsgruppe W, under the supervision of the defendants Pohl, Georg Loerner, Baier, Volk, and Mummenthey, also used inmate labor on a wide scale and under the most inhumane conditions, in manufacturing armaments in its Amt IV plants, which were located in almost every camp under the WVHA, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Lublin, Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof.
As an example, in plants of the DEST industry, directly managed by the defendant Mummenthey of Amt W II, airplane parts were manufactured by inmates at Flossenburg and Mauthausen, planes were assembled by inmates at Herzogenbusch, and air torpedoes were welded by inmates at Natzweiler. More detailed reference will be made to these firms in the discussion of the SS industries.
Private armament firms, as well as many other types of industries, were supplied with laborers from concentration camps by Amtsgruppe D. One of the largest private employers was the I.G., Farbenindustrie, which was given priority on prisoners for its Buna plant over all other armament plants. At Goering's request eight to ten thousand inmates were used in constructing the Buna plant in 1941. The largest labor camp in Auschwitz, containing 7,000 inmates, was attached to the Farben plant. Numerous other Farben plants were also supplied with inmate labor by Amtsgruppe D II. Hermann Goering Works, Krupp, Siemens-Schuckert, and Flick were also among the large employers of inmates.
Close liaison was maintained by order of Speer among the highest officials in the Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production, the Office of the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, Sauckel, and the WVHA. The policy of the WVHA was to allocate concentration camp labor through the former agencies in groups of not less than 1,000 male inmates or 5,000 female inmates. If one concern was not able to use an entire lot of inmates, several collectively applied for the allocation. The WVHA also worked in close cooperation with Sauer, the head of the Technical Office of Armament Production in the Speer Ministry in building tank engines for the Jaegerprogramme, and with members of the Central Planning Board in building armament plants. Fifteen extensive plans for the construction of subterranean plants for the airplane industry were carried out by Amtsgruppe C with concentration camp prisoners in cooperation with the Armament Commission and the Plenipotentiary General for Construction in the Reich Aviation Ministry. In March 1944, in a top secret letter to Reichsmarshal Goering, Himmler summarized the activities of the WVHA in the aviation industry.
Himmler's letter read as follows:
"Most honored Reichsmarshal:
"Following my teletype letter of 18 February 1944 I herewith transmit a survey on the employment of prisoners in the aviation industry.
"This survey indicates that at the present time about 36,000 prisoners are employed for the purposes of the air force. An increase to a total of 90,000 prisoners is contemplated.
"The production is being discussed, established, and executed between the Reich Ministry of Aviation and the Chief of my EconomicAdministrative Main Office, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and General of the Pohl respectively.
"We assist with all forces at our disposal."
Continuing the quotation from Himmler's letter to Goering:
"The task of my Economic-Administrative Main Office, however, is not solely fulfilled with the delivery of the prisoners to the aviation industry as SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl and his assistants take care of the required working speed through constant control and supervision of the work groups (Kommandos) and therefore have some influence on the results of production. In this respect I may suggest consideration of the fact that in enlarging our responsibility through a speeding up of the total work, better results can definitely be expected.
"We also have for some time adjusted our own stone quarries to production for the air force. For instance, in Flossenburg near Weiden the prisoners employed previously in the quarry are working now in the fighter plane program for the Messerschmitt corporation, Regensburg, which saw in the availability of our stone mason shops and labor forces after the attack on Regensburg at that time a favorable opportunity for the immediate partial transfer of their production. Altogether 4,000 prisoners will work there after the expansion. We produce now with 2,000 men 900 sets of engine cowlings and radiator covers as well as 120,000 single parts of various kinds for the fighter ME 109.
"In Oranienburg we are employing 6,000 prisoners at the Heinkel works now for construction of the HE 177. With that we have supplied 60% of the total crew of the plant.
"The prisoners are working without fault. Up until now 200 suggestions regarding the improvement of work have been handed in at Heinkel from the ranks of the prisoners, which were used and were rewarded with premiums. We are increasing this employment to 8,000 prisoners.
"We also have employed female prisoners in the aviation industry. For instance, at the mechanical workshops in Neubrandenburg 2,500 women are working now in the manufacture of devices for dropping bombs and rudder control. The plant has adjusted the total serial production to employ prisoners. In the month of January 30,000 devices as well as 500 rudder controls and altitude regulators have been manufactured. We are increasing employment to 4,000 women. The performance of the women is excellent."
Still reading from Himmler's letter to Goering:
"In our own plant in Butschowitz near Bruenn (Brno) we produce also for the air force, there however with civilian workers. This plant supplied 14,000 wooden-built rear control apparatus for ME 109 to the Messerschmitt corporation, Augsburg.
"The movement of manufacturing plants of the aviation industry to subterranean locations requires further employment of about 100,000 prisoners. The plans for this employment on the basis of your letter of 14 February 1944 are already under way.
"I shall keep you, most honored Reichsmarshal, currently informed on this subject."
End of Himmler's letter to Goering.
In addition to the double role which Amtsgruppe C played in the armament industry, it was responsible for two other model achievements in construction, the construction of concentration camps and crematoriums. Cold, damp, vermin-infected huts and well-constructed murder chambers extended for blocks. The existence of the crematoriums was a closely guarded secret and the camp commander of Mauthausen Concentration Camp has related that an order existed to the effect that every three weeks the detail of inmates working in the crematorium was to be shot.
Another project under Amtsgruppe C was the construction of a secret Fuehrer headquarters near Ohrdruf. The project was known by the code name S III. The defendant Sommers himself went to Buchenwald to select the inmates for this important work. The strength of the project, which was commenced in November 1944, reached 13,000 by 27 March 1945 and hundreds of inmates were killed by overwork and mistreatment.
Various other construction projects were carried out by Amtsgruppe C. The so-called "A" projects were underground work detachments, designated A-1, A-2, A-3, etc. Construction of these projects included the enormous undertaking of moving the munitions industries underground, and cost the lives of thousands of inmates. The "B" projects were surface work details. "S" projects were secret building detachments, such as the one at Ohrdruf, and the "V" projects, already described, involved production of secret weapons.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that a good place to stop?
MR. HART: Yes, sir, I believe that it is.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess until one-thirty.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
The MARSHAL: Tribunal No 2 is again in session.
MR. ROBBINS. Amtsgruppe C was, the largest user of concentration camps inmates. Kammler was constantly on the search for new menpower for his construction brigades. On 10 March, 1942 he wrote to Gluecks, Chief of Amtsgruppe D:
"In view of the increasing shortage of civilina workers the execution of the construction tasks devolving upon the SS-Economic-Administrative Main Office in the 3rd Year of war 1942 requires the employment of an increased number of prisoners, prisoners of war and Jews.
"Although through the operation "Heinrich" a certain number of German construction firms and skilled workers have already been secured for construction projects in the Eastern territory for the establishment of supply depots, it is, nevertheless essential that prisoners, prisoners of war, Jews etc, be kept in readiness as helpers for the jobs in all circumstances."
The evidence will show that the defendants Eirenschmalz and Kiefer, as members of the Amtsgruppe C played a vital part in this construction program and are responsible for the mistreatment, torture and murder of untold hundreds of concentration camps inmates.
THE SS INDUSTRIES One of Himmler's principal ambitions for the WVHA was that it would eventually make the SS economically independent, both from the State and from the Party.
The SS was to become a "State within a State" industrially and commercially, as well as politically and militarily. Here again as in other aspects of German life, the basis of industrial organization was to be the national Socialist philosophy. The economic system of this elite group was to be based upon racial and political selection, reinforced by military organization, and individu ally motivated by a characteristically corrupted conscience and a desire for personal enrichment.
The corner-stone of the new economic order was to be slave labor and spoliation -- exploitation, and even extermination through work, of so-called inferior people; expropriation of valuable industries in the occupied countries.
The development of the SS industries was entrusted to Amtsgruppe W of the WVHA. The Amtsgruppe was designated "W" from "Wirtschaft" which means economy. The importance of Amtsgruppe W was emphasized by the fact that Pohl and his Deputy, Georg Loerner, were themselves directly in charge of the Amtsgruppe and were principal managers of the Parent holding company, German economic Enterprises, LTD., commonly known as DWB. However, the operation of the SS industries was both too intensive and too extensive to be supervised to any substantial degree by Pohl and Loerner. The bulk of the supervising work was carried on by members of Staff W including Hohberg, Baier, and Volk, and the Chief of the Aemter, including Mummenthey, Bobermin, and Klein.
These were the men of commerce of the new order - the elite industrialists. It was their goal to carry the economics of business efficiency to the nazi terminus. Fanatical Nazis turned into fanatical businessman, and their business was profit for the SS State and for themselves through the fraudulent income of the SS industries. In order that German economic life could be re-cast and re-built on the SS patern, entrepreneurs, were trained in the WVHA industries, and scholls for business administration were established where SS principles of commerce were taught. The defendant Baier, later to become the Chief of Staff W, was in charge of such a school, known as the "Jonkerschule toels" and as the "SS-Fuehrer schule Verwlatung". Indeed, one of the most elightening of the captured WVHA documents is a memorandum which was to be used by the defendant Fanslau as material for a lecture in the SS training schools and which explains the political and economic rationale of the SS industries. The memorandum was submitted to Fanslau on behalf of the defendant Volk, Legal Advisor to Pohl and member of Staff, W. It explains that the purpose of the SS industries was "to get hold of all anti-social elements, which no longer had a right to live within the National Socialist State, and to turn their working strength to the benefit of the whole nation.
This was effected in the concentration camps. The Reich Fuehrer SS, therefore, delegated SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl to set up concentration camp enterprises, in addition he gaves orders to establish companies on a private economy basis for the purpose of employing the prisoners.
"National Socialism maintains this point of view: The State gives orders to the economy. The State does not exist for the benefit of economy, but economy exists for the benefit of the State."
Another basic memorandum discovered among the WVHA files, dealing with the tasks and organization of the SS industries states that "The tasks were set by the Reichsfuehrer-SS in his capacity as Reichsleiter of the NSDAP.
This applies in particular to the enterprises founded by the authority of the Reichsfuehrer -SS. These receive allocations of concentrations camps prisoners as workers in order to be able to master the economic tasks of the Four year plan. The fact that these prisoners are sent to these enterprises by the Reichsfuehrer-SS in his capacity as "Chief of the German Police" in no way alters the charakter of these enterprises as task taken ever by the NSDAP, the best proof for this is that no funds are placed to their credit in the budget of the "Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
MR. ROBBINS: continuing from the quotation, "The large scale use of the labor of concentration camps prisoners by the Reichsfuehrer-SS is therefore a measure of the NSDAP, as the "Dynamic element" in the State, at the same time it sets the enterprises the tasks of adapting penal execu tion to the development of the Reich as a whole and making it more economic (Productive.)
According to the experiences made and the economic results, the execution of this tasks, will perhaps bring about a "Revolution in penal Execution," Which the judicial administration, as the State element, in the State can never be expected to bring about in so far-reaching a form, and certainly not in the near future.
"The SS as a branch of the NSDAP is not only ideologically, but also economically solely responsible for all enterprises of Offices 111 (later Office Group W.) The founders of all the companies... appear solely as trustees of the SS and received their capital from SS funds.
Concerning the selection of business leaders, the memorandum stated:
"The best of ideas and most worthwhile of tasks are valueless if it is impossible to find the man suited to carry them out. This applies to economics just as much as to politics, Since the SS is extending its activity more and more to the field of private economy, we must act in accordance with this realization.
"The economic tasks of the SS shall and must be carried out mainly by SS-men. All employees of Office III, including civilian employees, are considered members of the Reichsfuehrung-SS, irrespective of the enterprise in which they happen to be working and the funds from which they receive their pay in the meantime."
Brief examination of the organization of Amtsgruppe W and of its several Aemter will illustrate how closely connected were each of the industries with the administration of the concentration camps and the slave labor program, and how closely their purposes coincided with those of the SS state.
The structure of Amtsgruppe W was based upon Pohl's conception of military organization and the Fuehrerprinzip. The individual economic enterprises maintained by the SS were headed by the Offices W-I to W-VIII. They in turn, were subordinate to Staff W, which was responsible to the Chief and Deputy Chief of the Amtsgruppe.
Viewing Amtsgruppe W from the standpoint of private economy, into which the SS industries had to be fitted for purposes of commercial law, registration, and taxation, the parent holding company, the German Economic Enterprises, Ltd. DWB, stood at the head of the various W industries. Within the DWB, Pohl was Managing Director and Georg Loerner was Second Managing Director. The defendant Volk was Executive Manager. The Chief of Staff W hold the position of economic advisor to the Managing Director. He had immediate supervision over the directors of the DWB, the auditing and legal departments, tax affairs, and questions concerning plant management. All communications to the highest Party Offices, Ministries, and Central Authorities had to go through the Chief of Staff W.
This position was occupied by the defendant Hohberg until August 1943, thereafter by the defendant Baier. The chief of each of the eight Aemter occupied the position of assistant to the Managing Director and was the principal member of the Board of Directors of the companies under the control of his particular Amt. Pohl, as the Managing Director of the DWB, had the power of appointment and dismissal of the Chief and Deputy Chiefs of the Aemter, and had exclusive power to establish, acquire, sell, and dissolve subsidiaries and to appoint and dismiss managers and members of the boards of directors of the subsidiary companies.
The Code of Procedure, or by laws, of the DWB was binding upon each of its subsidiaries in which it had a direct or indirect share of 50% of the capital and upon all enterprises under the administration of the WVHA. The organization of this giant combine and of its subsidiaries was designed to achieve a synthesis of the theories of industrial management with the principles of Party, State and military organization.
In addition to the duties of Staff W, which have already been mentioned, control and management of five subsidiary industries was the direct responsibility of this group. These were, in addition to the Ostindustry, which will be dealt with in connection with the part it played in the Jewish extermination program, the Public Utility Dwelling and Homestead Ltd., Dachau, House and Real Estate Ltd., Berlin, and German Medicines ltd., Prague, A fifth company, the Sales Store of Berlin Furniture Factory Ltd., was liquidated in 1943. Additionally, it was the function of Staff W to collaborate with Amtsgruppe D in negotiating for, appraising and acquiring sites for concentration camps in which DAW plants were to be located. Typical of this function of Staff W was the negotiation by the defendant Volk for the site for Concentration Camp Stutthof. Also typical was an arrangement by the defendant Hohberg, as Chief of Staff W, for participation by the WVHA with the Hermann Goering Works in establishing a klinker factory at Linz. Hohberg, in this instance, arranged for the raw material to be supplied by the Hermann Goering Works and for the WVHA to build the factory and supply the inmates from the concentration camp Mauthausen; the profits were to be divided equally between the Goering Works and the WVHA. Participation by Mummenthey, as Chief of Amt W I, and representatives from Amtsgruppe C and D, in these particular negotiations illustrate the close cooperation among all the officials of the WVHA.