A During my time in the concentration camp and by the experience of my comrades in other camps, which I have heard and which I tested as to their correctness I was in a position to do so - I discovered four basic tendencies in concentration camps. Later on, but while I was still in the camp, I saw a number of documents which went through my hands, and I saw those tendencies fully confirmed.
The main purpose of the concentration camp in the first period was - and I would like to say here up to roughly 1941, perhaps 1942 - the main purpose was a double one: to separate all those who were politically suspect or politically dangerous, political enemies, particularly dangerous enemies of National Socialism, to separate them from the rest of the world and to put them into the concentration camp, to put them in contempt and, if necessary , to kill them, and thereby weaken the German population by the anonymous terror which came from these camps, although the German people did not know the details. On the one hand, a direct action against political enemies, and on the other hand, the indirect purpose of frightening the population; also be eliminate all those who were regarded as racially inferior, for instance, the Jews from the beginning, or Gypsies, and a few other groups.
Then, at a later date - that is to say, mainly from 1942 onwards - to exploit the inmates as workers in a very systematic manner that was finally connected with the German war economy and parts of German industry.
Thirdly, to exploit this human material, which had lost all its will-power and to use them for so-called scientific experiments, that is, human material which had no opportunity of hitting back and which was quite out of reach of genuine science.
They could do with us as they wished.
Fourthly, a sort of psychological training to become harsh. That applied to certain parts of the SS Death Head companies.
All these tendencies were in the course of time in certain documentary evidence, which not always from the beginning but in some cases in the course of time made it quite clear. However, the intention was there from the beginning, not perhaps for all four tendencies but for some of them, but that intention at least developed in the course of time, and that development was used and exploited.
Q What can you tell us about the types and number of concentration camps in Germany?
A The development of concentration camps in Germany differs according to the period of time involved. Before 30 June 1934 there were in an irregular way about 50 concentration camps. Some of them were very small, with just a few hundred, or a hundred, prisoners. Those camps were administered at that time exclusively by the SS. There was not a real administration. There was no central office. They were completely in the hands of the SS.
After 30 June 1934, in an increasing manner, the SS took over concentration camps, and in particular, the first big, important camp in Dachau, later on Sachsenhausen near Berlin, and they built up these camps in a systematic manner, and they grow into what I have described before. In July 1937 Buchenwald was founded in the same way.
These three main camps at that time were units in themselves.
They were behind barbed wire. Then there was an area where the leaders would live, the SS leaders of the camp, and finally barracks would be added to them which housed the SS troops, and then there would be a SS settlement for those SS leaders who could not live in in the leader houses.
The concentration camps, slowly step by step, formed outside camps, and during the war, particularly after foreign countries had been conquered after 1939, the concentration camps spread in Germany and spread over a large part of Europe.
There were various types of camps within the SS administration. There were camps which were called labor training camps. There people had to serve only for a specified period of time. In some cases they were in the hands of the police, but more and more, especially after 1942, they were taken into the administration of the SS.
Then there were also the actual protective custody camps. These camps were divided into three categories, grades 1, 2 and 3. It depended on the harshness. That description had a very strongly technical, formal character, because the actual development of each camp depended on the character of the SS in charge there, and directives would come from the WVHA. This division into three grades was frequently changed, basically changed, so that it is not particularly interesting or significant. The important thing was to study the real, concrete conditions in a concentration camp.
Into those camps a large number of prisoners and types of prisoners were sent from the very beginning, from June 1934.
Before that time, the camps were almost entirely for political prisoners, mainly communists. From 1934 onwards, under the SS administration, more and more types and categories of human beings were being sent into concentration camps.
The main categories were political opponents of National Socialism who in the camp were given a red sign on their coats on the left side and on the right side of their trousers, and underneath there would be the number of the prisoner. A prisoner would never be called by his name but always had to report his number, and his number was called out when he had to report somewhere.
Then, the second category were so-called or real criminals. Here again within the criminal category there were a number of types. There were those criminals who had served their sentences and who normally would have been released. That type was then taken into protective custody for reasons of either alleged or real security. Those criminals were so-called prisoners in protective custody, and they were called "B.V's". They had a sign "B.V." which is frequently translated as "professional criminal".
The second category which came later on, after 1941 or 1942, were people who were still serving their sentences, who should have been under traditional administration, and if their sentence was at least ten years, then they were protective custody prisoners, "S.V." which was frequently interpreted as "heavy criminals." Among those people there were a number of political prisoners who for political reasons had been given heavy sentences of hard labor.
The third large category were called "anti-socials".
That category carried a black triangle, whereas the criminals had a green triangle. The so-called anti-socials were made up of a large number of varying types. You could become an anti-social very quickly as far as the SS and the Gestapo were concerned. People I saw among that type with with their black triangle had done nothing, except sacked their National Socialist butler or a National Socialist employee or had treated him incorrectly in the opinion of the employee, or people who had overstayed their leave, and the National Socialist manager who didn't like them had denounced them to the Gestapo, people who had changed their regular place of work without obtaining permission from the Labor Exchange. Such types were also tramps, pimps, people who did not want to pay alimony. All these people were sent to concentration camps and were called anti-socials. On the whole, they were people without political convictions or ideas, and they had not been active politically.
Then there was another category - Jehova's Witnesses. The International Association of Jehova's Witnesses opposed conscription and opposed the taking of oaths. For those reasons the National Socialists persecuted them. Families were broken up. Women were sent to women's concentration camps, and men to men's concentration camps. These people were in all the big camps. They consisted of groups up to 450, 500 or 600 men.
They carried a lilac triangle. Then there were homosexuals in the camp, or such people as the Gestapo or SS described as homosexuals. They thought they would use the homosexuals in order to contribute to their own complexes particularly by this manner. I myself recall a number of people in the camp who carried the pink triangle of the homosexuals. They were people not only of high intellectual standard, but morally speaking completely impeccable. They were purely charged with being homosexuals in order to get rid of them as political opponents, which they were at the same time in the eyes of the SS. The homosexuals suffered an awful fate in the camp so that very few of them survived it.
Then from 1939 onwards there were a large number of foreigners. At Buchenwald alone at the end there were members of at least thirty or thirty-one nations, in some cases only two or three members of that nation. Of course, the main percentage after 1942 were Poles, Frenchmen, a large number of Russians, still not prisoners of war, Russians and Ukrainians, some of whom had been taken from the population or used workers in Germany and were therefore sent to concentration camps. They carried all of them, all foreigners, the red triangle, and then they had a special name on their triangle. Spaniards would have an "S"; Italians an "I"; Czechs a "T"; French an "F"; Norwegians an "N", and so on.
From the beginning the SS had the tendency and carried it out to have all categories of prisoners and have these categories fight each other with the result that very strong conflicts would grow among the prisoners themselves, and you have to take into consideration here in most camps prisoners lived to the tune of 10,000 to a square mile, and there they had to live.
Only when they worked they would be separated more. Conflicts in some cases were unbearable almost, and the SS in the end abandoned its aim more and more for reasons of cooperation.
The SS was very clever in using certain categories of prisoners. It would be wrong to assume that all those who carried the red triangle in concentration camps as political prisoners were really political human beings. It would also be wrong that those with the green triangle were always criminals. The reasons why the Gestapo sent somebody to a concentration camp or why the SS kept people in a concentration camp or marked them in a special way were very different.
Q Now, Dr. Kogon, I think in your outline of the categories of the concentration camp prisoners you probably forgot to mention the inferior races, the Jews, the gypsies, to some extent the Poles.
A I mentioned at the beginning that one of the aims was to exterminate races which National Socialism called nationally inferior groups. To those were added those who were called nationally inferior tribes of people, gypsies, according to National Socialist concepts, at least according to a group of National Socialists, and eastern peoples, almost all eastern peoples, particularly the Poles and the Russians.
Q Witness, I don't know that it is terribly important, but the gypsies are a rather curious incident. Is it not true that the Jews - that the gypsies were a numerically rather few, that they could in no way constitute any sort of a political threat to the Nazi State? Can you give us any reason why the gypsies were persecuted by the Nazis?
A They were for the German police a so-called nuisance, and the gypsies could not be coped with otherwise than by sending then to concentration camps. That was the cheapest method in order to solve the Nazi's problem, which could have been solved in a businesslike manner. They preferred the liquidation method. The SS could easily cope with gypsies who had no way of offering resistance. They couldn't stand the labor and the conditions and the climate anyway. Many of the gypsies were used to migrating from country to country and so they were sent somewhere else. Nobody know how to cope with that nuisance, and so therefore they were liquidated in concentration camps.
Q Now, is the term "Rassenschande" familiar to you?
A Yes. Just now I did not describe all categories of inmates of concentration camps, only the main categories. Jews, for instance, carried a yellow triangle, and above the triangle there was another type of triangle which would describe their special category. For instance, a Jewish political prisoner had a red triangle above the yellow triangle. There were also prisoners there who had been convicted or been charged with violating the socalled Nuernberg Laws for the protection of German blood. They were called defilers of the race, and they carried a yellow triangle with another black triangle across it. It was simply a black triangle without any inscription inside.
Q Now, can you think of any specific acts for which a Jew or an Aryan would be incarcerated in a concentration camp for Rassenschande?
A It seems difficult for me to use these ridiculous National Socialist terms such as Aryan or Non-Aryan, etc.
After all Aryans were only a linguistic community, not a national community. Now, when a so-called German-blooded man had sexual relations with a Jewish woman, which became known to the masters of the Third Reich, he could be charged with having violated the Nuernberg Laws, and be sent to a concentration camp by the Gestapo for national solution, and vice versa if a Jew had an affair with a woman of so-called German blood.
Q Now you mentioned very briefly the external organization of a concentration camp a few minutes ago but I wonder if you could describe just once again quite clearly the physical way in which a concentration camp was organized?
AAt the head of each concentration camp there was a camp commandant. The camp commandant had the full authority in all spheres of the camp. He was subordinate to, after 1942, the WVHA or the SS, and before that time, if my information is correct, to the RSHA, the ReichsSecurity Main Office.
Q Wait just a minute. I think the translation was incorrect at that point. Didn't you state that if your information was correct just prior to the WVHA's assuming jurisdiction that the camp commandant was under the SSFuehrungshauptamt?
A Yes, the Reich Haupt and the Reichs-Security Main Office.
Q Now, will you continue with your description?
A Under the commandant there was an adjudant. The adjutant of the concentration camp had a double function. On the one hand, he was also subordinate to the higher police and SS leader in the district in which the concentration camp was located, and he also represented the traditional authority of the higher police officer on behalf of the SS.
On the other hand, all orders issued by the commandant had to be carried out, or he had to see to it that they would be carried out, and the whole of the correspondence would be in his hands.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Under the camp commandant and the adjutant there were the camp leaders, or the camp leader. In smaller camps there was usually only one SS camp leader, and not always even a commandant officer; or in the larger camps there were up to three camp leaders. Camp leaders were SS officers. Their duties were the whole of the protective custody camp. Every day they did service in the concentration camp itself alternately. You had to report to them for roll call. They had to interrogate prisoners, if there was an order to that effect from Berlin, in a general manner, for instance, from the Reich Security Main Office, unless there was political information connected with it; the prisoner's conduct, for instance, in the concentration camp, and such matters.
Under the camp leader, or the camp leaders, there was the report leader. The report leader would regulate the whole of the relations between the inmates and the camp leaders and the camp commandant. Besides the report leader there was the leader in charge of work and, in larger camps, he would be called the assignment leader. Their duties and responsibilities were the work to be done by prisoners.
Under the report leader there was the SS block leaders in concentration camps. Most of them were Scharfuehrers who had under them one block of prisoners.
Under the labor assignment leader, or labor service leader--depending on who was in the camp of those two categories--the SS detail or detachment leaders would be, who supervised inmates during the work hours.
Apart from all those, there were the SS guards who were supplied by the SS troops and who supervised and guarded the prisoners as they worked, and manned the towers on which there were machine guns. Then, also, in each concentration camp--which had a central administration which was not an outside camp of a main camp--there existed the so-called political department. That department was under, on the one hand, the camp commandant; but, on the other hand, it had direct communication with the Gestapo Central Offices and the Reich Security Main Office. Up to a certain point, there was a certain amount of rivalry between the politi Court No. II, Case No. IV.
cal department and the commandant of the camp, and the camp leaders. The political department had to look after a new arrival in the concentra tion camp by drawing up a file of an inmate's status, and information between the Gestapo, the camp, and the Reich Main Security Office.
Finally, it had to do either political examinations and interrogations, or look after releases. That is the part of the administration or the organization of the concentration camp, as far as the SS is concerned.
I should add here,perhaps, that also there was in each concentration camp an administration of its own which was subordinated to the commandant, but which, in its turn, would report to the WVHA. This administration would be in charge of a number of departments: building and construction, magazines, food, clothes, and such matters.
A concentration camp had always to report to a number of departments of the WVHA. The main office to which most of the correspondence was directed was Department D. Several under-departments, for instance, the hospital and the camp doctor would report to Department D-III, to the doctor in charge of concentration camps. Then, releases of prisoners, transports, reports of other important matters would also be sent to Department D, which looked after the internal administration of concentration camps; also allocation of labor, or construction matters, building of new camps, building of huts, garages, and such things, would be directed to Department C of the WVHA.
Financial administration of concentration camps was concerned with Department A of the WVHA, and the industrial enterprizes which the SS had incorporated and which would surround the camp, were administered over by Department W of the WVHA.
As far as the prisoners were concerned, there was a similar organization. In all concentration camps the SS sponsored a so-called selfadministration on the part of the prisoners. These many thousands of human beings the SS was neither willing nor able to have a really effective control of detail; and, above all, the SS could not be bothered Court No. II, Case No. IV.
to carry out all the practical work which would have been necessary if that control of detail was to be achieved.
Therefore, the SS only supplied the higher system of power, a relatively thin layer underneath which there would be the self-administration of the prisoners. That part of the self-administration was lead by the camp eldest of the inmates who was appointed by the SS. Anything which went on among the prisoners was his responsibility towards the SS. In a majority of camps, the SS selected for that very important post in the self-administration a well-tested criminal, a real criminal who knew how to carry out the orders of the SS, and who opposed his own comrades in the camp, and who would see that his will was carried out.
In some camps, later on, it was possible in a decreasing manner, to put men with a considerable political responsibility, with real courage and responsibility. But that was possible only in a few camps--in particular, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and in Dachau. Now the camp eldest suggested who should hold all the other positions within the self-administration. He told the SS who should hold these positions, and the SS either confirmed or turned down these suggestions.
At the beginning, the SS interfered considerably in this selfadministration of the camps, especially the Capos' positions which I shall explain later.
The SS got tired of all this, and fed up, and just let matters drift; and all positions thereupon would be filled by camp inmates themselves without interference. The camp eldest--they were the block eldest--were the superiors of the inmates in the block itself. This man had people at his side who tidied up the rooms, etc, and the people in charge of arrangements in rooms would engage other people to help them, and these people did very little else than cheat their other comrades in the camp.
Apart from the camp eldest, there was also in some camps the man who was called "Controlleur", who headed a sort of camp police, but this was only in a very few camps, mainly those who were in charge of the Court No. II, Case No. IV.
political prisoners. That man, the Controlleur, carried with him his so-called camp police which looked after discipline when roll calls were made. The block eldest was, according to the SS block leaders, as far as the labor detachments were concerned, the Carpo was the same as the SS leader. The SS used to suggest the man for the Carpo position, and he was the first foreman in the detachment--not that he had to do work. He simply gave orders.
Then, the equivalent to the report leader on the SS side, the office of the report leader on the inmate side, there was the inmates office. That office had to collect all the files which came from the camps, questionnaires which had been filed in reports from the hospital, and so forth, and they had to pass it on to the report leaders--also for the political department. That was a matter of formality. The labor assignment leader had on the inmates side, as an equivalent, the so-called labor statistics, or, in some camps, the labor assignment office of the inmates. The SS hospital had on the inmates side the inmates hospital which was under the camp doctor. Inside that official self-administration, there grew in some camps, particularly in the "great three" camps: Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Dachau--and in particular in Buchenwald--something like an illegal camp administration which was composed of a very few inmates who had acquired internal power, in some cases by bitter conflicts with both the SS and other categories of inmates. But then, also, they opposed the SS. That illegal camp administration which consisted of a very few people had a first-rate intelligence service at its disposal which, up to '44 or '45, was extended in a manner, for in most concentration camps they heard what was really going on.
Then there was an office where all matters concerning inmates would come from. That office had enormous influence on the development of the camps. It attempted to stop the SS from taking the strongest measure and carried out a measure which would be a little better for prisoners. In some cases they corrupted the SS very considerably, which was done in a very systematic manner. So much for the outer and inner workings of the Camp.
Q Now, can you very briefly describe for us a typical arrival of say -- a political inmate in the concentration camp?
A I want to say first, because I can do it very briefly, a typical arrival does not give you a picture of the average. It all depended on the camp and also the period of time. It isn't as though arrivals in concentration camps before 1941 were particularly drastic and then improved slowly. The cases varied from camp to camp and from period of time to period of time. It could happen, for instance, in 1942, when you, as a German or as a member of a nation on which the SS didn't take a too unfavorable look, were quite well treated. When you arrived, you were not beaten. Everything happened in about three hours, but at the same time it was also a fact that other nations, such as after 1943, the French, in particular, were treated in a manner which cannot be imagined or described. High civil service men came to the tune of 150 or 160 from Compiene to Buchenwald and 35 corpses would fall out. The prisoners had to walk in the camp naked. That happened at any period of time. It was always possible that somebody says that at that time when he arrived at the camp everything was all right. Somebody else would be equally correct if he said the exact opposite of that same period of time. It was different at Auschwitz than at Buchenwald, and different at Buchenwald than Sachsenhausen, and at Sachsenhausen different from Lublin. That is what I must say first of all. A typical arrival is very difficult to describe. It varied a great deal, but speaking by and large, your arrival was a very difficult moment. In the case of political prisoners in particular and of Jews, there was a definite idea that you had to be humiliated personally and your will had to be broken.
You were not merely treated as you were in the Prussian Barracks. It was more than that. You arrived particularly exhausted. You had to stand for hours in the sun. You. had to keep your arms behind your head. You had to bow your knees. You had to, rather, squat, half sit on your knees. Jews, in all cases, whenever they arrived were at least given 5 beatings with the stick, sometimes even more.
It depended on the Scharfuehrer, Rapport Leader, labor leader, camp leaders. They were mistreated because they were Jews. That happened very frequently. In certain camps after 1942 that decreased; in some camps, also in certain categories in Buchenwald, in some cases, because the illegal camp administration had increased its influence the camp protective police became a real protection for inmates and the SS got tired of all the barbarous acts it had done itself, which did not prevent people from being beaten all the same. Then you were taken to the Political Department outside the bunker and then to the Protective Custody Camp, where you were in some cases for 2 hours and in some cases more, even nine hours and were not removed. Then something was read to you of the camp rules, the so-called camp rules. Nobody who has ever been in a concentration camp has ever seen a camp rule written down, only it was all sorts of sayings by Himmler --- all sorts of sayings by Himmler were written up about freedom. There was one way to freedom: obedience, if you stayed sober, for instance, which was particularly interesting to us in concentration camps because we could drink so much. But nothing could be really practiced in concentration camps by name of order. Orders or rules of the concentration camp were never written up. We were told, "I told you what they were on that occasion." I heard at least 15 times "This will be punished by death. That will be punished by death. Whatever happens will be punished by death anyway." We were allowed to commit suicide. That was their continuous suggestion that they called to the inmates. That was a favorite trick of the concentration camp authorities. They would say "You can always hang yourself.
You can run into the barbed wire." You were then taken to the bathing room and that is where your hair was shorn off and you were washed crashed in a very harsh manner and then after that you would jump into a sort of bath tub which was extremely dirty. Then when you left that room all your room all your personal data was taken away from you. You were still naked. Then you might have been driven across the square naked. I saw all Russian Prisoners of bar who arrived in a condition such as I have never seen before. I have never thought that it was possible that human legs that had just a bit of skin around them could walk double time, marching for thousands of kilometers. They were beaten and they were taken to the hospital and they looked like skeletons. One after another of Poles in the middle of winter when it would be at least 15 degrees, they were taken to a hot bath and had a hot shower bath and then were taken outside again into the open and there they had to remain standing naked after the hot bath which shock was a catastrophe; pneumonia would result an a case like that. Then you were given your clothes. You were given a few rags or, if better things were there, you were given better things. You were given trousers, a thin jacket, and perhaps later on you could get a few things more than the official allotment, trousers, a shirt, a silly little hat, all in these zebra colors and shoes, if there were shoes. In most cases they were wooden shoes from Holland without leather inside of them. These wooden shoes were particularly terrible if you had to run on the double and they caused all sorts of illnesses later on. My own feet were in a frightful state from these shoes. And then you were given a pair of socks and that was all. Then you went to the Clerks' office, or a manager's office and your personal data taken down and then you were taken to the hospital and then to the blocks. Later on all arrivals were taken in the quarantine in the camp of Buchenwald. There were tens of thousands of foreigners, most of them Poles, or, hardly any Germans, arrived from a southern camp, at that time and all of these foreigners were taken to quarantine. If one has seen the camp in Buchenwald during its actual development, you could only burst into hysterical laughters to call that camp a quarantine.
That was right outside. There was only one toilet. I am almost unable to describe this thing in a few words, to make it really graphically clear. Then on the next stage you were allocated to the labor detachment by the labor assignment leader. It was particularly dangerous for people who looked intellectual, people who were spectacles. Before I arrived I was warned by people who had been in the prison or in the camps and said "For God's Sake take your spectacles off." All those who arrived with spectacles are in the same condition as Jews. For Goebbels said -- called us intellectual beasts and said we were dangerous, and, we were particularly dangerous to their party, which was correct, because we were dangerous. A favorite trick was to allocate them to the detachment where they would perish very quickly, after they arrived in the concentration camp. I found out in Germany that the party on the left side, the death rate of these intellectuals is incredibly high, because in the concentration camps, I myself saw and I myself saw how these intellectuals were being exterminated. The people who had the best time were those people who know some sort of a craft, masons, tailors, shoe makers, and so forth. If possible at all they were sent to the work shops. Anybody else, that is to say, were sent to these very difficult detachments to build canals, road building, commandos, quarries. In these detachments the conditions were quite unbearable and it remained like that for years, right up to the end, although we would change our locations at times. On the day I made my arrival I was not sent to the quarry, but to the sand digger detachment, because the camp leader happened to stand on the square and we were in two lines and I was on the left hand side and he was saying that those on the right side can go to the diggers and I happened to be standing there and the labor assignment leader whispered something to him and he reversed all these and said first of all they would go to the quarries and the others to the sand diggers.
All those that were sent to the quarries were killed in a short period of time. Now you were in a labor detachment. In the summer you were called very early in the morning, as early as four o'clock. During the winter it was later, at six o'clocks; in some cases when our working capacity was very important it became a little easier. You didn't have to get up until six or six-thirty, or in the summer very early. Then you would have about thirty or thirty-five minutes to make your beds which was a labor, a torturous labor, an unbelievable labor for anybody who does not know the Prussian military system.
THE PRESIDENT: We will have to interrupt your story to give the interpreter a little rest, at least. A short recess.
THE MARSHAL: The court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you continue, Mr. McHaney, with your examination, let the record show that the defendant Fanslau is not present in court this morning for the same reasons which were indicated yesterday and the order of the Tribunal to proceed with the trial in his absence will be given.
BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q. Witness, you have described the category of prisoners in a concentration camp, and the arrival of an inmate to the concentration camp. I would like to go back just a moment and ask you if you know under what orders an inmate was committed to a concentration camp?
A. The commitment into the concentration camp was through the Gestapo. The Gestapo office in a German city reported after having had an examination which the inmate was subjected to by the Gestapo Central Office, the Reich Security Office in Berlin. From there the OK came back if the person was to be kept in custody, in which case the person was to be sent to a concentration camp, or that this person was to be released. Now if the person was committed to a concentration camp by the Gestapo, or at least upon suggestion of the Gestapo Main Office, which was by the office in Berlin, then according to what I found out in most cases, to be exact, ninety-five percent of cases of so-called protective custody order were original for the persons. I would like to draw the Tribunal's attention to the fact that there was a percentage of from between five to seven percent of inmates, that is, who were sent to concentration camps without protective custody orders and without any reasons at all. I myself, for instance, during the course of seven years and one month by reason of the protective custody order system had one particular protective custody order which was turned in. When a particular custody order was turned in, an order to commit an inmate to a concentration camp, then he was picked up by the police and put in a transport and was then transferred to a concentration camp that he was assigned to. The doctor of the Gestapo, then from the Gestapo Main Office, and through the police, went together with the prisoners into a concentration camp, and there it was found in the political department the number of new arrivals; then the number of inmates in the camp was recorded by the camp administration and sent to the Reich Security Office, or the SS WVHA and was reported to them.