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:
Case IV. Court 2 "In the implementation of this extermination program the Special Commitment Groups (Einsatzgruppen) were subdivided into Special Commitment Detachments (Einsatzkommandos), and the Einsatzkommandos into still Smaller units, the so-called Special Purpose Detachments and Unit Detachments.
Usually, the smaller units were, led by a member of the SD, the GESTAPO or the Criminal police. The unit selected for this task would enter a village or city and order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose of resettlement. They were requested to hand over their valuables to the leaders of the unit, and shortly before the execution to surrender their outer clothing. The men, women and children were led to a place of execution which in most cases was located next to a more deeply excavated antitank ditch. Then they were shot, kneeling or standing, and the corpses thrown into the ditch. I never permitted the shooting by individuals in the group D, but ordered that several of the men should shoot at the same time, in order to avoid direct, personal responsibility. The leaders of the unit or especially designated persons, however, had to fire the last bullet against these victims which were not dead immediately. I learned from conversations with other group leaders that some of them demanded that the victims lie down flat on the ground to be shot through the nape of the neck. I did not approve of these methods."
The extermination of the Jews was not limited to the Einsatzgruppen. Indeed, the slaughter in the charnel houses of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, and Sobiber was on a vaster scale. These extermination camps were all located in Poland. After the invasion of Poland, all Jews were forced to register, live in ghettes and wear the yellow star. The "final solution" of the Jewish problem could be resolved therefore with almost assemblyline precision. Train-loads of Jews were evacuated from the ghettos to such camps as Auschwitz where the test of life or death was physical ability to work. Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, described the screening process in the following language:
"We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to Case IV -Court 2 to fool the victimes into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process.
Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under their clothing, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated."
From the 3rd of March 1942 until the end, Auschwitz was one of the many concentration comps under the jurisdiction of the WVHA. The great influx of Jews in 1942 apparently so overtaxed the facilities at Auschwitz that the defendant Pohl, in November of that year, wrote to the Reich Minister of Finance in an effort to have the camp enlarged.
Extermination centers similar to Auschwitz existed at Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, and Sobibor in the vicinity of Lublin. There the procedure was the same. The victims were stripped of their clothes, money and valuables. The hair of the women was cut off, later to be manufacture into mattresses. Then, herded like so many cattle, the naked men, women, and children were driven to their death in the gas chambers. Gold teeth were pulled from the mouths of the corpses. An attempt was even made to manufacture soap from the fatty parts of the bodies, while the ashes remaining after cremation were used for fertilizer. This was indeed a gruesomely commercial exploitation of death on a mass basis.
In this compounded crime of genocide, the WVHA played a very essential part. This extermination of peoples, this mass departattion to slave labor in concentration camps, gave rise to the confiscation - or, to put it more precisely, the theft- of property on a gigantic scale. To the defendant Pohl and his collaborators in the WVHA fell the task of collecting that property and mustering those slaves for use by the Third Reich.
As to Auschwitz, no problem existed as it was already under the control of the WVHA. As to the operations of the Einsatzgruppen and the Higher SS and Police Leaders in occupied Europe however, new administrative machinery had to be created by Pohl. In August 1942, Case IV - Court 2 with the approval of Himmler, he appointed SS Economic Administrators to be attached to the staffs of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.
Among other things, it was the duty of the SS Economic Administrator to hold all booty and raw material for disposal by the WVHA. He had supervisory rights over all concentration and labor camps under the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leader. Allocations of labor were directed by him and economic enterprises were under his supervision. Executions in concentration camps had to be reported to him and then to the WVHA.
The extermination camps in the viccinity of Lublin, such as Troblinka and Majdaneck, gave rise to special problems because of the magnitude of their operations. These camps were, until the latter part of 1943, under the jurisdiction of one Odillo Globocnik, the Higher SS and Police Leader, Lublin.
In order to coordinate the undertaking, a Special Staff "G" was created within the framework of the WVHA. The head of this staff was Globocnik while the administrative and accounting personnel was supplied by the WVHA. It was the task of Special Staff "G" to seize and account for all property in the General Government of occupied Poland derived from the extermination and enslavement of Jews. This ghoulish program was called Action Reinhardt, presumably in honor of Reinhardt Heydrich who was assassinated in the summer of 1942.
In order to appreciate the extent of Action Reinhardt and the criminal participation of the WVHA in carrying it out, it will be convenient to consider the action in three steps - first, the deportation of Jews, second, the exploitation of personal property, and third, the exploitation of Jewish manpower and industrial equipment.
The removal of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto for extermination or enslavement in the camps of Lublin is a typical example of the deportation phase of Action Reinhardt. The final destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in April and May 1943 was one of the most horrible chapters in Jewish persecution.
The Ghetto was established in Warsaw in November 1940, It was separated from the rest of the city by the walling up of streets, windows, doors, open spaces, and the like. Approximately 400,000 Jews were forced to live within its confines. Conditions were such that there was only one room for every six persons.
The first large evacuation of Jews from Warsaw to the extermination centers took place between 22 July and 3 October 1942. In this action over 300,000 were removed.
In a secret memorandum dated 9 October 1942, Himmler ordered Pohl and SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, the Higher SS and Police Leader East, to assemble in concentration camps in Warsaw and Lublin all Jews working in shoe, fur, and tailor shops. Jews working in actual armament firms were to be replaced gradually and segregated in a few concentration camp factories in the eastern part of the General Government. Himmler concluded with the statement that: "Of course, there too, the Jews shall someday disappear, in accordance with the Fuehrer's wishes." In January 1943, Himmler made a visit to Warsaw and to his great amazement discovered that 40,000 Jews were still in the Ghetto. Many of them were working in textile and fur plants contrary to his order of 9 October 1942. He instructed Krueger and Pohl to transfer them immediately to Lublin. On 16 February this order was amplified to include all Jews and all private enterprises in the Warsaw Ghetto. Himmler was angry because private employers in the Ghetto were profiteering from cheap Jewish labor and he wanted this benefit to accrue to the SS. As I shall explain a little later, Pohl immediately took stops to form a company for the purpose of employing the Jewish manpower and exploiting the industries in Lublin.
Himmler further ordered Kruger to submit plans for the complete destruction of the Ghetto. He said:
"For the razing of the Ghetto, a master-plan is to be submitted to me. It must be achieved, in any case, that the existing living space for 500,000 sub-humans, which will never be suitable for Germans, disappears from the picture, and that the metropolis of Warsaw, which is always a dangerous focal point of disintegration and mutiny, be reduced in size."
A graphic description of the end of the Ghetto is in the report of Jurgen Stroop, Higher SS and Police Leader in Warsaw, who supervised the final deportation action under Krueger.
The original plan was to transfer to Lublin the armament factories and other enterprises of military importance which were situated within the Ghetto, together with the personnel and machines, in three days. The hapless Jews, well aware of the fate in store for them, put up such a heavy resistance that, instead of three days, the action lasted from 19 April to 16 May 1943. Stroop said:
"The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could be broken only by relentlessly using all our force and energy by day and night. On 23 April 1943 the Reichsfuehrer SS issued through the Higher SS and Police Fuehrer East of Cracow his order to complete the combing out of the Warsaw Ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting every block on fire, including the blocks of residential buildings near the armament works. One concern after the other was systematically evacuated and subsequently destroyed by fire. The Jews then emerged from their hiding places and dug-outs in almost every case. Not infrequently, the Jews stayed in the burning buildings until, because of the boat and the fear of being burned alive, they preferred to jump down the upper stories after having thrown mattresses and other upholstered articles into the street from the burning buildings. With their bones broken, they still tried to crawl across the street into blocks of buildings which had not yet been set on fire or were only partly in flames. Often the Jews changed their hiding places during the night, by moving into the ruins of burnt-out buildings, taking refuge there until they were found by our patrols. Their stay in the sewers also ceased to be pleasant after the first week. Frequently from the street, we could hear loud voices coming through the server shafts. Then the men of the Waffen SS, the Police or the Wehrmacht Engineers courageously climbed down the shafts to bring out the Jews and not infrequently they them stumbled over Jews already dead, or were shot at.
It was always necessary to use smoke candles to drive the Jews out. Thus one day we opened 183 sewer entrance holes and at a fixed time lowered candles into them, with the result that the bandits fled from what they believed to gas to the center of the former Ghetto, where they could then be pulled out of the sewer holes there. A great number of Jews, who could not be counted, were exterminated by blowing up sewers and dug-outs.
"Of the total of 56,065 Jews caught, about 7,000 were exterminated within the former Ghetto in the course of the largescale action, and 6,929 by transporting them to T.II (an obvious reference to Treblinka), which means 14,000 Jews exterminated altogether. Beyond the number of 56,065 Jews an estimated number of 5 to 6,000 were killed by explosions or in fires."
The loot from this action included about five million Reichsmarks in polish currency, large sums of foreign currency, and great quantities of valuables such as rings, watches, and jewels. As we shall see later, this property was transferred to the WVHA.
On 2 June 1943 Krueger transmitted to Himmler Stroop's final report on the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. On 11 June 1943, Himmler directed Pohl to establish a concentration camp in Warsaw, the prisoners of which were to be used in salvaging the debris and scrap iron. In addition, the Ghetto was to be absolutely leveled, with a view to creating a large park.
By 23 July 1943, Pohl was able to report the establishment of a concentration camp at Warsaw. The actual demolition of the Ghetto was carried out by Amtsgruppe C and several reports on this matter will be submitted to the Tribunal. These reports indicate the employment of over two thousand concentration camp prisoners and reflect the use of large amounts of machinery and funds. On 29 July 1944, Kammler, Chief of Amtsgruppe C, sent a telegram to Rudolf Brandt, Himmler's adjutant, stating that the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto had been completed according to schedule, but that the subsequent work had not been carried out.
In short, the only portion of the whole plan which was not carried out was the establishment of a park.
The second phase of Action Reinhardt which I have mentioned is the confiscation personal property. This involved the murder and corpse-desecration of countless Jews. Every watch, every gold fountain pen, every pair of shoes represented a dead man, woman, or child. It is literally impossible to comprehend the enormity of the crimes committed in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, and the rest. To assist the Tribunal in that regard, we shall exhibit a motion picture which shows the warehouses of those death camps full of clothes, shoes, spectacles, and bales of human hair. The WVHA accounted for and controlled the disposition of those proceeds of mass murder.
On 26 September 1942, the defendant Frank issued basic instructions to the agents of the WVHA in Auschwitz and Lublin on what he termed the "utilization of property on the occasion of settlement and evacuation of Jews." He stated that the Jewish property and I am quoting "will in all orders of the future be called goods originating from thefts, receipt of stolen goods, and hoarded goods." Excerpts from this order read as follows:
A Cash-money in German Reichsbank notes have to be paid into the account: Economic and Administrative Main Office 158/1488 with the Reichsbank in Berlin-Schoneberg.
B Foreign exchange (coined or uncoined), rare metals, jewelry, precious and semi-precious stones, pearls, gold from teeth and scrap gold have to be delivered to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office. The latter is responsible for the immediate delivery to the German Reichsbank.
C Watches and clocks of all kinds, alarm clocks, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, scissors, flashlights, wallets and purses are to be repaired by the Economic and Administrative Main Office in repair shops, cleaned and evaluated, and have to be delivered quickly to front line troops."
D Men's underwear and men's clothing including footwear has to be sorted and valued. After covering the needs of the concentration camps inmates and in exceptions for the troops they are to be handed over to the Volksdoutsche Mittelstelle. The proceeds go to the Reich in all cases.
E Valuable furs of all kinds, raw and cured, are to be delivered to the SS-WVHA. Ordinary furs (lamb, hare and rabbit skins) are to be reported to the SS-WVHA, Amt B II, and are to be delivered to the clothing plant of the Waffen-SS, Ravensbrueck near Fuerstenberg (Mecklenburg).
The order concluded:
"It has to be strictly observed, that the Jewish Star is removed from all garments and outer garments which are to be delivered. Furthermore, items which are to be delivered have to be searched for hidden and sewed in values, this should be carried out with the greatest possible care."
On 28 December 1943, the defendant Pohl issued the second basic order on the "administration of Jewish property. He admonished all SS Economic Administrators to keep their accounts as low as possible and to transfer all amounts abouve monthly requirements to Amstgruppe A of the WVHA, which would handle the final accounting with the Reich. The order further stated that: "Upon completion of the resettlement operation the vouchers will have to be presented for auditing to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, Section A IV." The defendant Vogt was Chief of that office.
What was the extent of this bloody loot received by the WVHA and what was done with it? Fortunately, the Prosecution is in possession of rather complete reports in that regard. Prior to December 1943, the WVHA accounted for personal property in excess of 180,000,000 Reichsmarks of murdered and enslaved Jews in the Lublin area alone. This included foreign currency from 48 different countries, not the least of which was $1,300,000 in United States banknotes and gold coin.
Also carefully listed and evaluated were 262,711 articles of considerable value, among them jewelry, watches and gold spectacle frames. Nearly 2,000 freight carloads of clothes, linens, and rags were disposed of on orders of the WVHA.
This material began flowing into the coffers of the WVHA at least as early as August 1942. The defendant Pohl made arrangements with Walter Funk, the President of the Reichsbauk and a defendant before the International Military Tribunal, for the deposit of the currency, jewelry, dental gold, and other valuables. A revolving fund was established, which reached 10 to 12 million Reichsmarks, for use primarily by Amtsgruppe W in financing economic enterprises controlled by the WVHA. This was known as the "Reinhardt Fund". In June of 1943, outstanding debts of various industries of Amtsgruppe W in the amount of approximately 8 million Reichsmarks were satisfied out of the Reinhardt Fund. This noxious deal was known to and participated in by the defendants Pohl, Frank, Fanslau, Georg and Hans Loerner, Hohberg, Baier, Volk, Bobermin, and Mummenthey, among others.
The source of the blood-stained loot from the extermination camps was also known to others in the WVHA. The defendant Vogt went to Lublin and personally audited the accounts of Globoenik. The defendant Georg Loerner, in agreement with the Reich Ministry of Economics, allocated for disposition hundreds of carloads of clothing from Auschwitz and Lublin. His own factory in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp reprocessed confiscated furs and rags. The defendant Sommer was familiar with the repair of thousands of watches of exterminated Jews in the workshops of the Sachsenhausen concentration camps. The defendant Pook was chief of the dentists who supervised the extraction of gold teeth from corpses in all concentration camps under the jurisdiction of the WVHA.