Did I understand you correctly on that?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, as far as what happened to Kammler is concerned, nobody knows anything, and therefore the Tribunal cannot gain an impression of Kammler nor an impression of what Kammler was; but I assume that you can tell us sometain about the characteristics of Kammler, especially what his disposition was, whether he was a typical dictator, and so on. That is, please give us a brief description concerning the character and the general disposition of Kammler.
A. According to the descriptions made by the SS officers and especially by Ding-Schuler, Kammler was a younger, very ambitious man, and sometimes a very inciting SS officer, who had on occasion an amiable manner to those with whom he worked and those whom he used in connection with his plans and whom he thought could be used. According to the impression which I gained, he was a typical higher SS officer of the character which does not execute brutalities and inhumane acts themselves but orders them without any consideration and sees to it that they are executed.
Q. Witness, you just said that one of the characteristics of Kammler was ambition. Do you assume that Kammler with regard to tasks of special importance would hand over these tasks to an inferior and to a subordinate, or did Kammler actually execute all these tasks himself?
A. Kammler had certainly kept all the reins of actual decision and control within his own field of authority. Of course, as far as the execution is concerned, he needed quite a staff; and his next subordinates around him were, of course, informed.
Also Dr. Ding-Schuler was informed in quite a number of connections.
Witness, you just said that the immediate subordinates surrounding Kammler were informed, and now you refer to Dr. Ding-Schuler in that connection. Did you know anything about the intimate circle around Kammler as far as his own field of tasks was concerned?
A. Dr. Ding-Schuler very often met Kammler in the restricted area B. When he returned to Buchenwald he told me in some instances that Kammler had been surrounded by a larger staff of intimates and collaborators, and I know that Dr. Ding-Schuler had made intrigues and schemes against some of these collaborators of Kammler's. During these gatherings, there were certain conferences and that is why I made my remark.
Q. Witness, you just spoke of gatherings, of conferences which Kammler had with his staff. What I want to ask you now is whether Kammler had two different kinds of staffs around him, first of all the staff you are speaking of right now--and that probably would have been the staff that came where armament workers were executed; is that correct?
A. Yes, they were SS officers or collaborators of Kammler's whom he had brought with him from Berlin; and these were men from the so-called Jaegerstab in the Armament Ministry and members of the WVHA; but that was not always the case. It varied from one case to the other.
Q. Could you state some names of members of the WVHA who at that time took part in such conferences?
A. I know that Dr. Ding-Schuler once mentioned the Haupstrumfuehrer Gruenefeld of the construction office of the concentration camp of Buchenwald; and he asked him concerning plans which dealt with members, plans which had to be discussed with members of the WVHA during such a conference.
I am not quite sure whether the name of one of these members of the WVHA from Berlin was Kammler or not. I think that I remember; but I'm not quite sure.
Q. Another question, Witness. You just spoke here of the construction department; and I assume that here at the concentration camp Buchenwald there was a construction department, too?
A. Yes, there was a construction office.
Q. Now, this construction office didn't direct all the construction methods which became necessary on the spot and didn't execute these measures?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there sufficient material on the spot, too?
A. Well, that differed. Sometimes there was sufficient material; but in the end, of course, there was quite an insufficient quantity there.
DR. STEIN: Thank you. If your Honor please, I have no further questions.
DR. HAENSEL: Carl Haensel for Georg Loerner.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. Witness, you have a chart in your book of which we have already talked in the interrogation; and this chart contains food scales. Do you know where that chart comes from?
A. The document which I used for writing my book in this part comes from the magazine "Administration in the Concentration Camp Buchenwald."
The food scale which is mentioned there came from the administration of the concentration camp at Buchenwald; and this administration had received it from its superior office. The allotment was then via the district food office and the Reich Food Ministry.
Q. You just spoke of the Reich Food Ministry. Witness, do you know whether this Reich Food ministry established this food scale?
A. Do you mean here establish or confirm?
Q. No, I mean establish. If we see, for instance, "Meat, 400 grams for 1938 to 1942," then I mean what authority, what agency established this figure of 400 grams as a food scale for the concentration camp inmates and so fourth?
A. I have no clear knowledge as to who was the originator of this food scale. I heard in the concentration camp at that time that as far as food scales were concerned we were assimilated into the normal food scale in the country.
Q. For your personal information the prosecution has submitted two documents in which the food scale was established by the Economic Ministry; but that is only for your information. Now, this food scale which you consider only theoretical, if this food scale had been carried out, would you have considered it as sufficient, somehow sufficient?
A. In order to answer your question, I would have to question you myself. What do you consider sufficient? Sufficient in order not to starve under the conditions of the camp?
Q. Witness, do you think that the people who establish ed this food scale went against their duty, or do you think that they did the best they could under the circumstances?
A. At no point can I see that these people actually violated their duties.
Q. Not even if they belonged to the SS?
A. Not even if they belonged to the SS as far as this particular point is concerned.
Q. But it is apparent that in practice much less was distributed than this food scale on the paper which you just lested there?
A. Yes.
Q. Where does the deficiency come from? From the people who established the food scale or the camp command or where?
A. If the people who established this food scale had to see to it according to the office they had that their orders were actually carried out, then they are also responsible as far as I see it. In a general way I would say that of course all the others who had to deal with the execution and who did not carry it out or sabotaged it are responsible for our being in such a bad way.
THE PRESIDENT: While we are on the subject of food, we'll recess until 1:30.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1330 this afternoon.
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 23 April 1947)
THE MARSHAL: All persons in the courtroom will please take their seats. Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
DR. FRITSCH: Dr. Fritsch for the defendant Hans Baier.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Dr. Kogon, I have just one question to ask you. During the direct examination you spoke of so called inmate pay. If I am right, you meant those amounts, by that which were transmitted by the relatives to the inmates in the camp, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now that money was sent by postal checks, or money orders, or some other manner into the camp, and was paid out to whom payable in the camp?
A. The money arrived through the channels which had been described by the defense counsel to the concentration camp, and it went to the Inmates Pay Administration Office. From time to time it was announced that all those inmates who had an account with the Inmates Pay Administration could pick up their money, and then the persons who held those accounts were paid off approximately up to thirty marks.
Q. In other words, it occurred that the relatives would send more money, then that certain money stayed behind because no purchase could be effected with that money?
A. Yes. In the camp with reference to certain inmates, there were more large amounts.
Q. Now did you know if those were really accounts, or if the money administration office put the money in certain accounts in a bank?
A. I found out that all accepted amounts of money from Buchenwald were transferred to a Bank Institute in Weimar.
Q. Who was it that actually had a free hand in this money. I might ratify that question. Was it the Camp administration, or some other agency?
A. I don't know that.
Q. Now, I ask yon Dr. Kogon to tell me. if I understood yon correctly yesterday, when you said, that you said I believe verbally, that the WVHA made money on these accounts?
A. I had found out at the concentration camp that the money administration of the WVHA drew the difference from the money which they paid out for a loan delivered to the Reich, and another part they kept themselves. Secondly, in the camp the fact was discussed that the SS administration of the WVHA also had a free hand on the selective marks, which, as I said before, were placed on account of the SS in the Bank institute. For this second part of my statement, I have no other source than this information which I might say is of some value which came from the camp itself.
DR. FRITSCH: No further questions of the witness, Your Honor.
BY DR. GAWLIK: (For defendants Volk and Bobermin)
Q Doctor, if I understand you correctly, you said that knowledge concerning the cruelties in the concentration camps depended on one's position and that that knowledge was larger in the Administration. Is it correct, as I am reading now from the examples that you mentioned yesterday, that under the administration you mean the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps and Amtsgruppe D?
A Yes, those two. However, I did not want to state that differentiations in the knowledge of the conditions in the concentration camps was limited only to that Amtsgruppe.
Q In the course of the years, inmates were employed in factories more and more?
A Yes.
Q And it is also correct that these factories were outside of the protective custody camps, with a few exceptional cases?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Would you furthermore agree with me, Doctor, if I say that a business manager of such a factory, normally speaking, did not know of the conditions in the protective custody camps, particularly if these factories were at a certain distance from the concentration camp?
A I would say that the knowledge could not possibly have been very large. As we have practically found out in most of the cases, it was a minimum of information. The only source which could be at the disposal of the business manager was the inmates working there, who, then, told of the real happenings in the concentration camps when they were in humane or political contact with that man.
Q Doctor, if this business manager did not have his office at the place where these inmates were being used but, shall we say, at a certain distance from that point and if that business manager had a whole lot of factories to supervise, would you agree with me, Doctor, that then you could not assume that he knew of all those gruesome things that happened in the concentration camps?
A The possibility of such knowledge would be reduced in the way the Defense Counsel puts it, unless there were certain things that occurred, for instance, the circumstance that a member of a factory went to see this business manager in order to tell him explicitly about information received, information of this kind.
Q In order to give you just one concrete example, Doctor, the defendant Bobermin, who is my client, had 222 tile factories. He had his main office in Posen. The office D itself was in Oranienburg, and in one such factory alone in Woloschau, 30 kilometers from Auschwitz, he had inmates who were being used there. Would you agree with me, Doctor, that one could not possibly say that he had knowledge of these gruesome acts?
MR. MC HANEY: If the Tribunal please, I object to the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Objection sustained. That is purely a question for the Tribunal to decide, not this witness.
DR. GAWLIK: Yes. Well, Your Honor, the witness is an expert on concentration camps and conditions there because he dealt with those natters. All I want him to tell me is his opinion. I know quite clearly that this will not be a final judgment and that this witness will not give a final judgment and that this is a question for the Tribunal, but on the basis of his employment with these conditions in the concentration camps, and particularly with respect to how far knowledge of these gruesome acts which undoubtedly prevailed, he is to tell us his opinion of that.
That is all. Of course, I can leave the name out and just take that as an example, if you want me to.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think possibly the difference between the German procedure and the American procedure can not be reconciled. This is perfectly clear to you under your ideas, your German ideas of procedure, and it is perfectly clear to me under our American ideas, and they can not be reconciled. You are asking this witness to decide a question, to give his opinion, his decision in fact, on a question which is exclusively for the Tribunal. I think that we will have to adhere to the American rule. The Tribunal will answer your question by giving its opinion.
DR. GAWLIK: Your Honor, may I then use the question simply as an example?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, put the question, and then I'll see how it sounds.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q Witness, now take, for instance, the manager of a great factory with many sister factories distributed over the entire area of the Reich. His main office is not near or with the Inspector or Amtsgruppe D, and in one of his factories he is employing concentration camp inmates. On the basis of your experience, can you answer my question whether in such a case of such a business manager one could undoubtedly assume that he had knowledge of the gruesome acts of the concentration camps?
Is that all right, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it isn't all right, but let's take the answer. Let the witness answer.
THE PRESIDENT: No, it isn't all right, but let's take the answer. Let the witness answer.
A The possibility is rather small, unless certain circumstances prevailed, in other words, certain connections of this business manager with his employees in the factory where the concentration camp inmates were being used, and it depended furthermore on the close connections of the member of the factory with the concentration camp inmates. That is, if he himself found out certain decisive facts. The fact of the employment of concentration camp inmates naturally had to become known to him, because he had to apply for these inmates through the SS-WVHA.
BY DR. FROSCHMANN(for Defendant Mummenthey):
Q Witness, how could protective custody inmates, as you said, come into political contact with the business manager?
A There were many possibilities for that. The business manager, for instance, could seek out contact with the inmates if he was interested, and from a given moment on, he started turning against National Socialism and to be sorry about requisitioning concentration camp inmates.
Q In other words, it was possible only in regular business channels; is that correct?
AA business manager, for instance, as everybody knows, could go to any place in the plant. He could go to the workshops, not necessarily only to the offices.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q Wasn't it known to you that the inmates were not permitted, and neither were the business managers, to speak with each other, that is, to hold private conversations?
A There was very little that was not prohibited in the National Socialist State. The man who actually wanted to contribute to the position did. The SS WVHA or the Reich or the RSHA could prohibit anything they wanted to.
Q In the course of your direct examination you mentioned Berlstedt. It was a small town, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Did protective custody inmates of the concentration camp of Buchenwald work there?
A Yes.
Q In what factory there?
A In the DEST factories.
Q What was produced there?
A What was being produced there? I know that clay was being produced there and was also being made there.
Q How many miles or kilometers was Berlstedt and Buchenwald apart?
A I already said that in the direct examination, that according to my opinion it was approximately three kilometers north of Buchenwald.
Q I understand it was considerably farther off, in other words, between fifteen and twenty kilometers. Is it possible?
A From the windows of Block 50 one could see Berlstedt. I did not stick to these three kilometers, of course. That would also depend on the fact which routes and which roads were chosen in order to get to Berlstedt. If you take the direct line in the air it would be approximately three kilometers.
Q Do you know that they had a special work outside of Berlstedt?
A You mean an outside camp of Buchenwald? Yes.
Q Do you know that place Berlstedt and the factory Berlstedt had Court No. II, Case No. IV.
modern machinery?
A No, I do not.
Q Were you in Berlstedt yourself one time?
A Only after the liberation I was in Berlstedt once.
Q Did you see the production places there?
A I only saw the building from the street. I did not go in order to visit the factory.
Q In other words, you cannot say anything about the machines, the installations there, can you?
A No. There are quite a few living witnesses who could testify to that effect.
Q Concerning these installations, regardless of whether they existed or not, did you ever discuss them with your inmates at the time, co-inmates at least?
A I only discussed it with the comrades who had been put in a punitive detail in the clay pits in Berlstedt. I discussed the situation there, but I didn't discuss the machinery and the installations in the factory that possibly existed there.
Q From the tale of your comrades, was it known to you that in the clay pits there were great big pumps in order to remove the water which was being accumulated there when it rained?
A Yes, I heard about that. I heard there were such pumps in those clay pits.
Q Do you know that the clay masses that were being produced in that clay pit were pulled out by certain chain wagons and pushed to the production places?
A No, I don't.
Q Witness, in your book, which has been mentioned here repeatedly, on Page 220, you asserted with all certainty that in the clay pit of Berlstedt incredible conditions prevailed there, and that the protective custody inmates were being used there to work in the worst of weathers, sometimes they sank knee-deep into the water. May I draw from your state Court No. II, Case No. IV.
ment so far, that these statements of yours in your book are based on reports from the comrades of yours who were being employed there?
AAbsolutely.
Q May I furthermore assume that when you publish your second edition of the book you will also mention this fact or rectify this fact which is not true, which is not true because this machinery was there?
A I cannot see a contradition between the installment of pumps at a certain given moment, or of instruments with which the clay was being removed from the clay pit, and what my comrades told me about the factual conditions there. I can have pumps and still sink into the water up to my stomach when it is bad weather. Therefore, I do not know if I have to rectify that in the second edition.
Q Not exactly rectify your position, or rather add something to it at the suggestion of the defense counsel of this Tribunal, I don't want you to change anything in your book or add something to your book on the basis of what I have said, but I assume that you, in the interest of the objective truth, will see yourself compelled, with reference to the conditions in Berlstedt, to re-examine them personally. That is only on the side. Now, a different question. The business manager, who in order to discuss inmates thus would visit a commandant of the concentration camp, could he simply enter the camp without any trouble?
A No, he had to have a special permit by the commandant himself.
Q If he had that permission, was he allowed to go through the camp then?
A Only if the commandant permitted it, and in company of an SS man.
Q May I deduct from that that the business manager would first report to the commander in his office?
A Yes.
Q If this visit by the business manager only referred to the conversation with the commander of the camp, would the business manager have the possibility to hear or see that gruesome acts were being carried out Court No. II, Case No. IV.
in the concentration camp?
A I can only answer the question generally speaking the way it was, but in other words, again generally speaking, basically yes, because these inmates of the concentration camp also worked outside of the barbed wire fence and particularly in the commandant area. It has repeatedly occurred.
Q Witness, may I interrupt you? You didn't quite understand my question. I wanted to know if a business manager who only enters the office and has a discussion there with a camp commandant, if he from that building could see gruesome acts, shootings and abuses and all that. Could he see that?
A Only while going to and coming back from the office, but he only could see general abuse, mistreatment, and I am sure he couldn't see shootings. It would seem to me it would be quite a coincidence that he would notice a remarkably bad situation there, that is remarkably bad compared with the general conditions in the camp.
Q Witness, one more question, to what period of time does your statement referring to Berlstedt refer to, that is the one you have in your book?
AApproximately to the period of time from 1941 or 1942 up to the very end, in other words, until spring, 1945, particularly, however, approximately '43, at which time comrades who were very close comrades of mine were sent to the clay pits in Berlstedt from Buchenwald for a period of six months.
Q You are speaking of the punitive details into those clay pits. Do you know that the WVHA repeatedly gave orders to the camp commandants and a directive in which no more punitive details were to be compiled or set up?
A I only knew that the erection of such punitive companies approximately from 1942 on were stopped, that actually though punitive commandos existed, and without exaggeration many of them did. Particularly punitive transfers from the Stamm-camps actually occurred when Court No. II, Case No. IV.
people were transferred to particularly bad commandos.
Q My last question, do you know that the business managers by the WVHA had been prohibited to employ such punitive commandos in their factories?
A No.
DR. FROSCHMANN: No further questions to the witness.
BY DR. HAENSEL (For Defendant Goerg Loerner)
Q Witness, I have one question in the field of clothing. You said yesterday, and I think I wrote it down verbatim that concentration camp inmates mostly received wooden Dutch-like shoes?
A I also remembered that on certain given moments, I can't remember the date exactly, other shoes were also issued, in the first years mostly wooden shoes, that is in the first years of my experience only wooden shoes, and wooden shoes until the end of the concentration camps.
Q My question goes to the effect to find out if wooden shoes were given out as you said, mostly Dutch wooden shoes. It is known that the Dutch wooden shoes are very uncomfortable.
A For years mainly Dutch wooden shoes were given out, at least as far as Buchenwald was concerned, and at Buchenwald we had a work shop for Dutch wooden shoes up until April, 1945.
Q. In your book "The SS State", on page 44, you write -- and I quote: "Particularly catastrophical were the shoes. Comrades, particularly those who received wooden shoes, could hardly walk after a few days. He who received Dutch wooden shoes were worse off than anybody else, particularly when persons were not used to wearing them without socks because they had very sharp edges, and one could hardly walk, and particularly not firmly."
I am asking you now, witness, don't you think, also, that if, as you said yesterday, mostly Dutch shoes were given out-- or would have been given out--that then the concentration camp inmates of the concentration camp of Buchenwald, from the economic and industrial point of view, could not have worked in the shortest period of time?
A. If, actually, I said the word "mostly used," or if I used it in the book--I do not wish to use it in such a strict manner. My remark in the book was referring to the time of my early experience in the concentration camp and, at that time, there was no such thing as a built-up armament industry to which these concentration camp inmates were being transferred by the SS.
Q. You did not use the word "mostly" in your book, but you used the word yesterday in your statement.
A. Yes, well I do not wish to keep it up in this manner.
DR. HAENSEL: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further cross-examination by any of the Defense counsel? Re-direct, Mr. McHaney?
MR. McHANEY: Yes.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. McHANEY:
Q. Witness, you have been put a number of hypothetical questions by various of the Defense counsel. Let us add a few facts to these hypothetical questions and see if it changes your answers any. Suppose this business manager had a factory or an operation like Berlstedt where the death rate was somewhat high, and there was a substantial turn-over in labor.
Does that fact lead you to believe that the conditions, the working conditions in Berlstedt would have come to the attention of the business manager?
A. The working conditions and the death rates in such a camp or in such a factory were normally reported to the SS administration of the Stamm camp, and that happened regularly. And, as an illustration, had to report to the supervisory position if the business manager in the SS-WVHA. Then he found out the whole thing by itself. If he worked at the working place itself, then he could see it almost daily.
Q. Thus, if we say that this business manager was a member of one of the Amtsgruppe of the WVHA, and let us exclude Amtsgruppe D, then that would also change your answer considerably--wouldn't it?
A. No. It would not because the business manager would belong to the SS itself. Then he had all possibilities in order to inform himself of those things, and he was informed concerning the death rates and the general conditions in the camp.
Q. Well, I think that was the answer which I was asking for. And if we further add to the hypothetical question that this business manager, who was in Berlin -- and not in Berlstedt, or not in the Klinker Works at Auschwitz -- and then went to see Odilo, Blubotschnick, in Lublin, would you say that probably that business manager knew what went on in concentration camps and in his factories in which concentration camp inmates worked?
A. Surely. His knowledge at least would have been sufficient in order to alarm him -- that is, if he had a human feeling in him. And if he didn't think that all these conditions were correct and necessary ever since the beginning.
Q. Do you know who Glubotschnick was, witness?
A. Glubotschnick, you mean?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, Glubotschnick was an Austrian who, according to my recollection, from '38 to '39, after the capture of Austria, became Gauleiter -- or, rather, was Gauleiter-- then was transferred to the SS due to some corruption.
In other words, he had to withdraw from the position as Gauleiter and climb very fast to a higher commando position in the SS. If I am not wrong, he became a Gruppenfuehrer.
Q. And you also know that Glubotschnick was the SS and Police Leader in the area of Lublin, and had supervision over the death camps of Treblinka, Maidanek?
A. This fact, namely, the Higher SS and Police Leader that he became Higher SS and Police Leader, and that he was connected with the mass liquidation in Maidanek; I believe, Treblinka, also. I was told during my time, in my concentration camp, by inmates who came on transports.
Q. Now, will you tell us just briefly what, for what reasons a man was assigned to a penal company?
A. The reasons why a concentration camp inmate was transferred or assigned to a penal company or penal commando were of various kinds just exactly as it applied to the case of other punishments. Part of the inmates were sent to those penal companies from the beginning because, for instance, they were Communists. At certain times it used to be in the following manner in the concentration camp, namely, that every inmate and every prisoner who was turned in was sent to penal companies for three months -- or sometimes even longer in those companies. Violations of discipline which were considered heavy violations by the SS -- that is, discipline that had become used in our camps or that sometimes they could be absolutely funny reasons why people were assigned to those.
Q. Do you know whether children were incarcerated in concentration camps?
A. Yes, I know that in Buchenwald at the time of the liberation of the concentration camp, there were approximately 900 children.
I believe that the exact figure is 877 who were prisoners there.
Q. How young were they?
A. The youngest child was approximately three and a half, and the highest limit amongst these juveniles was approximately 12 or 13 years of age.
Q. What were they -- dangerous criminals, or political inmates?
A. Well, they can only be children. The question is rather difficult to answer. These children were also considered children of state enemies of some sort, and sent to concentration camps. Their presence in the concentration camp was seen from every point of view as so senseless that one could assume that, as children who were children of state enemies, they would be destroyed and annihilated. The fact remains that many transports of children were sent to Auschwitz for gassing, also from Buchenwald.
Q. Do you know whether any of these children were degraded and morally corrupted by the conditions in the camp?
A. Yes; those juveniles in the camp were submitted to the greatest moral dangers. Part of them were either destroyed morally, that is.
Q. Now, to one question on Action 14-F-13: those were the transports to Bernburg. Did any of those transports take place after March 3, 1942?
A. Yes, in autumn of 1942, some more transports lists for this purpose were compiled. Through the intervention of members of the illegal camp administration Buchenwald we succeeded through the camp doctor, to receive a postponement for those transports so that then I believe there were three or four of them, consisting of 90 men each, transferred in March or April -- perhaps even in January 1943 released for transport.
Q. Now, witness, you have been accused, I think rather seriously in this court room of having forged a piece of evidence used by the prosecution -- and I have reference to Document NO-265 which is the Ding Diary, and has been introduced in this case as Prosecution Exhibit 219.