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.
Staff W also assisted Pohl in determining the amount which each of the SS industries was to set aside for payment for the use of concentration camp labor. Each SS industry put aside an amount ranging from 30 pfennigs to 5 Reichsmarks per day, ostensibly to be used as prisoner's wages. However, it was never even considered that the inmate should receive any part of the sum. "Legally" such "wages" belonged to the Reich treasury. Various schemes, however, were utilized by Staff W to enable the WVHA illegally to retain a substantial part of the funds. A file memorandum dated 23 March 1944 by the defendant Baier, at that time Chief of Staff W, states Pohl's attitude on this matter:
"The Hauptamtschef emphasized that he doesn't aim at letting the entire among paid by the employer for the prisoner go to the Reich, but that part of it could serve other purposes."
Amtsgruppe D employed the same fraudulent methods in charging private firms for the use of inmate labor. Up to 8 RM was collected, but only a fraction turned over to the Reich.
One of the bookkeeping methods adopted by some of the SS industries for the purpose of evading their obligation to surrender their excess profits to the Reich was to increase the charge to themselves for inmate labor, to pay approximately half this amount to the Reich, and to set up the balance in an account called "Reserve for Prisoners' Wages", By this device the industries increased their apparent expenses for wages, thereby reducing their excess profits and the amount which they transmitted to the Reich. In a confidential profit analysis of the W industries, Dr. Wenner, an executive manager of the DWB, rationalized this system of bookkeeping as follows:
"In case the Reich or the corresponding Reich Offices do not intend to realize this claim, a trustee of the DWB will take over the administration of these amounts in the trustee section. The control of these amounts rests with SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl in his capacity of representative of the Reich.*** The only difference is that payment of taxes and surrender of profits will fall to the tax collector's office, while a payment of the amounts to the trustee account will leave the control of the amounts in the hands of the SS-WVHA."
These were the elite economists and plant managers who were chosen on the basis of Race and Blood and their readiness to give their lives for the Reich.
Instances of sordid practices could be multiplied --from looting the inmates of their money, watches, blankets, and clothing, to the spoliation of great industries in the occupied countries. As an instance, the camp commander at Mauthausen has explained how, in one of the camps, approximately a thousand inmates who had been engravers and lithographers by profession were used in the manufacturing of counterfeit foreign bank notes and identification papers and seals from all over the world.
At Dachau and Mauthausen, human skin of dead prisoners, was used to make lamp shades, saddles, riding britches, gloves, house slippers, and ladies' hand bags. Tattooed skin was particularly valued by the SS men.
The WVHA even illegally appropriated laborers who were consigned to the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor and who had been recruited through Action Sauckel in the East as so-called free laborers. This occurred when transports from the East were sent by mistake to the concentration camps. Needless to say, the entire transport in almost every instance was kept in the concentration camp. What was the gain of the WVHA was Sauckel's loss, and that of the new emigre.
Even the execution and cremation of their victims became a matter of marks and pfennigs. A typical bill rendered by the Commander of the Concentration Camp Natzweiler to the Security Police and SD reads as follows:
"The expenses for the 20 prisoners executed and cremated in this concentration camp amount to RM 127.05. The commander of the C. C, Natzweiler would be obliged for an early remittance of the said amount."
But perhaps the most sordid income of the WVHA was derived from the houses of prostitution operated in the camps. An order by Pohl, dated 13 April 1943, provided that visitors to the brothels would be charged 2 RM, and that from this amount, the woman would receive 45 pfennigs and the matron 5 pfennigs. The remainder of 1.50 RM, 04 75% of the proceeds, went to the WVHA. These were the business men of the SS.
I now turn to a brief description of the industries under the individual. Aemter.
Amt W-I, under the defendant Mummenthey, was in charge of stone and earthworks within the Reich. The largest industry under this Amt was the German Earth and Stone Works, Ltd. commonly known as DEST.
The DEST concern operated granite quarries in Mauthausen, Flossenberg, Gross Rosen, and Natzweiler, a stone preparation plant at Granionburg, a gravel dredging pit at Auschwitz, and brick factories at various camps. The DEST industry was organized in 1938 and was under the control of Mummenthey after September 1939. The preamble to its table of organization stated that it was to employ inmates from the concentration camps in the production of building material. The importance of this enterprise was emphasized by an order of Hitler in 1941 that the DEST industry, by the end of the war, should supply an amount of granite in excess of that supplied before the war by all German stone quarries combined, and by an order of Himmler to Pohl to train 5,000 stone masons and 10,000 brick layers.
Assignment to work in the DEST stone quarries was one of the most dreaded of the details. Prisoners were forced to attempt impossible tasks, such as pulling heavy carts up steep hills and carrying heavy stone. Every evening many invalid and severely injured workers were brought into the camp on stretchers. Thousands were killed by overwork, falling stones, beatings, shootings, deliberate pushing into the abyss, and other sports of the guards.
Also under the defendant Mummenthey were the Bohemia Ceramic Works, Ltd. and the Porcelain Factory Allach-Munich, Ltd., both using concentration camp labor on a large scale. The extent to which the latter industry relied upon prison labor is illustrated by a novel request which it made to Staff W. In a letter of 22 December 1943, an official of the porcelain factory stated that the company had suffered a loss of 10,500 RM because, for a period of five weeks, it had been unable to obtain inmates from the Dachau Concentration Camp due to a typhus epidemic in that camp. Advancing a unique theory of contract liability, the official claimed that because the porcelain company relief exclusively upon concentration camp labor, Staff W should reimburse the company for its loss.
Amt W II, under the defendant Bobermin was established to operate the confiscated stone and earth works in the East. As early as May 1940 Bobermin, as chief of what was then Office III-A-4 of the WVHA, was in charge of stone industries in the East. The defendant Volk was Bobermin's deputy at that time. In a report for the year 1940, Volk described the early activities of the WVHA in the East:
"The rough outlines of the construction of the eastern territories were given by the Fuehrer himself in his decree dated 7 October 1939 which was not made public:
'The consequences of Versailles in Europe are removed. Due to this fact, the Greater German Reich has been enable to accept and settle, in her territories, German people who heretofore had to live abroad, and to form the settlement of the people's groups within her spheres of interest in such a manner that better borderlines between them be achieved.'
"The Fuehrer conferred the execution of this task upon the Reich Fuehrer-SS by appointing him Reich Commissioner for Strengthening Germanism. Thereby, it is the particular duty of the Reich Fuehrer-SS to form now German settlement areas by resettling, especially by settling the Reich Germansand Racial Germans returning from abroad.
"In order to be able to perform this task, the Reich Fuehrer-SS had to safeguard above all the whole production of building materials, for under the Polish Government, houses worthy of human beings had not been erected at all, particularly not in the open country. The management of the Works producing building materials, therefore, had to be transferred to Germans.
"For this reason, the Main Trustee Office East requisitioned all brick-works in the incorporated Eastern territories by order of the Reich Marshal, insofar as they were Jewish or Polish property, or insofar as loss than 75% of the plants belonged to Reich or Racial Germans, in the interest of defending the Reich in favor of the German Reich at the disposal of the Reich Commissioner for Strengthening Germanism. The SS-Gruppenfuehrer Oswald POHL, Chief of the Administrative and Economic Head Office with the Reich Fuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police, was appointed Trustee General with the powers of employing independently sub-trustees and sub-deputies. SS-Gruppenfuehrer POHL conferred the performance of this task upon the Chief of his Office III A, SSStandartenfuehrer Dr. SALPETER, since the latter was in charge of those brick-works which employed convicts, and thus some of recognized experts could be put at the disposal of the newly established Main Division."
The Golleschauer Portland Cement Fabrik A.G., under Amt W II was the first of the cement factoriesin the hands of the SS. It produced 200,000 tons yearly, and used inmates from the concentration camp Auschwitz.
The cement company, together with two other large firms operating earth and stone works, glazed tile factories and lime and chalk factories in the East, were subsidiaries of Klinker Cement Ltd., which was in turn a subsidiary of DWB. Bobermin well described his activities in a letter to Himmler which he drafted in July 1941 for Pohl's Signature. It read in part:
"The seizure of brick works in the East, which were formerly owned by Poles or Jews, for disposal of the Reich Commissioner for strengthening Germanism, was extraordinarily extensive, in order to bring as many plants into operation as possible, and to attain the highest possible production.
"313 brick works with an estimated annual output of 600 million bricks were seized at the beginning of 1940.
"Out of these originally seized brick works, four were returned to their owners, who had meanwhile been recognized as racial Germans. Finally, some brick works were handed over to the Reich-works Hermann Goering after negotiations - as these brick works are in close operation - and economical connection with the mined secured by the Hermann Goering Works."
Weberman's methods in acquiring eastern earth works are illustrated in a letter to Pohl on 2 April 1944, advocating that Amt W II take over the tile works of Bonarka:
"Within the city limits of Cracow, there are tile works of Bonarka counted amongst the technically best works in the General Government. The annual production is about 14 million units. The brick-works are under the administration of the trustee-ship of the General Government (GG).
"But considering that we have a technically wellequipped establishment, and that the men of the forced labor camp will be the disposal at favorable conditions, we shall most likely show a profit. The main reason for the taking over is the sufficient supply of building material to the Waffen SS."
The evidence will also show in addition that part of the funds obtained from the infamous Action Reichardt, to be described at a later point, were placed at Bobermints disposal.
Office W III comprised the so-called nutrition firms and supplied provision for concentration camps and troops. They, too, used inmate labor, and had operating branches in Oranionburg, Dachau, Auschwitz, Lublin, and in other camps.
Office W IV, under May and Opperbeck, controlled one of the largest SS enterprises, the German Equipment Works, commonly known as DAW. This firm originated in the concentration camp work shops, and was placed under Pohl's administration as early as 1936. During the war, it was engaged principally in armament production and had branches in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Lublin, Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, and other camps. Also included in Office W IV were other large industries using inmate labor in the production of armaments.
Office W V was engaged in the utilization of concentration camp labor in agriculture, forestries, and fisheries. The scope of its activities was greatly enlarged by the acquisition of large fertile territories in the east. Farming, lumbering and fisheries in Russia, farming and stock-breeding in Poland, all became a part of SS economics under W V.
The principal task of Office W VI was the operation of textile and leather plants in the concentration camp Ravansbrueck. Clothing for inmates and troops was manufactured there. An adequate explanation of the activities of Amt W VII is found in Fanslau's lecture material quoted from earlier:
"The circle of the economic enterprises of the SS would not have been completed, if it did not also have a great publishing office, to introduce the ideological views of the SS to its SS members and further to additional circles of the population. The Nordland publishing office GmbH had developed a great deal during the last year, and now belongs to the main publishing firms, and already today occupies the fifth place among the main publishing firms of the Greater German Reich. Besides this Nordland publishing firm, we have the Voelkischen Kunstverlag, which in the main produced pictures, e.g., photographs of the Fuehrer, the Reichsfuehrer-SS, and other important personalities from Party and State. In addition, it produces reproductions of oil paintings."
The activities of the defendant Klein and his Special Tasks Office (W VIII) have been dealt with earlier when it was pointed out that his enterprises used concentration camp labor under the most cruel and inhumane conditions. The evidence will show that in spite of the ostensibly cultural purpose and nature of his projects, the defendant Klein, as well as the other defendants, was responsible for the death of numerous inmates.
In the SS industries, production and profit were valued for more highly than human life. To the SS man by training the concentration camp slave was mere human debris. He was worth less than the mechanical tools of production. A hoe or a hod or a hammer was more highly valued. They were not expendable, but human beings were.
Mr. McHaney will continue with the opening statement.
Case IV - Court 2 Mr. MC HANEY:
The systematic and relentless annihilation of the Jewish peoples by the Nazis constitutes one of the blackest pages in the history of the civilized worlds. This mad program of wholesale slaughter also included other groups considered racially inferior, such as the Poles, but the Jew was especially marked for destruction. This crimes of genocide was part of the Nazi doctrine of total warfare, war waged against populations rather than against states and armed forces. One must search as far back as the massacres by Genghis Khan and b, Tamerlane to find anything remotely comparable to the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis. Hans Frank, former Governor General of the occupied Polish territories, and a defendant before the International Military Tribunal, spoke the truth when the testified: "A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased".
An introduction to this crime of mass murder and the part played in it by the WVHA and these defendants can perhaps best be given in the words of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. On 4 October 1943, he said to a meeting of SS-Gruppenfuehrers at Posen:
"I also want to talk to you quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30th, 1934 to do the duty we were hidden, and stand comrades who had lapsed, up against the wall and shoot them, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it. It was that tact which is a matter of course and which I am glad to say, is inherent in us, that made us never discuss it among ourselves, never speak of it. It appalled everyone, and yet everyone was certain that he would do it the next time if such orders are issued and if it is necessary."
"I mean the clearing out of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It's one of those things it is easy to talk about - "the Jewish race is being exterminated", says one party member, "that's quite clear, it's in our program - elimination of the Jews, and we're doing it, exterminating them." And then they come, 80 million worthy Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has witnessed it, not one of then has been through it. Most of you must know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500 or 1000. To have stuck it out and at the same time - apart from exceptions Case IV, Court 2 caused by human weakness - to have remained decent follows, that is what has made us hard.
This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written, for we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves, if - with the bombing raids, the burdens and to deprivations of war - we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators and trouble-mongers. We would now probably have reached the 1916/17 stage when the Jews were still in the German notional body.
"We have taken from them what wealth they had. I have issued a strict order, which SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl has carried out, that this wealth should, as a matter of course, be handed over to the Reich without reserve."
And so the arm of destruction was the SS. On 31 July 1941, Heydrich - Chief of the Security Police and SD - was charged with the "final solution" of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. With the advance of the German armies in Russia, Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD murdered Jews and Communists intellectuals by the hundreds of thousands. The slaughter was so wanton and sadistic that one administrative official of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories was prompted to write:
"I have forbidden the wild executions of Jews in Liepaja because they were not justifiable in the manner in which they were carried out."
"I should like to be informed whether your inuiry of 31 October is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all Jews in the East? Shall this take place without regard to age and sex and economic interests (of the Wehrmacht, for instance in specialists in the armament industry)?"
The asnwer came back that "ecomic considerations should fundamentally remain unconsidered in the settlement of the problem" and that "questions arising (should) be settled directly with the Higher SS and police Leaders". Cases were reported where persons who had been shot worked themselves out of their graves some time after they had been covered.
Otto Ohlendorf, the leader of Einsatzgruppe D operating in southern Russia, estimated that 90,000 men, women, and children were liquidated by his unit. In describing these operations, he said: