A. The Special Tasks groups which have meanwhile become the Waffen SS grow from month to month. After the beginning of the war it had grown from about 40,000 men into a whole army. All one could do thereupon was to divide the tasks. The situation in 1942 was that the administrative offices of the Waffen SS, of which I was in charge at the time, either had to grow into a futile organization or had to be separated into ministerial tasks and into the tasks connected with the leading of troops. To take an example, the clothing of troops could no longer be directed from above. For 250,000 men it had to be done from some main office. At the ministerial level you had to allocate it, whereas the actual distribution was done by the administrative office in the main operational office.
Q. Who approved the expenditure of these items? Did you as earlier on have to account for every item of expense, clothing, feeding, and so forth, and did you have a clear order from the highest level?
A. No. In wartime the whole handling of this was entirely different. In the first year of the war the situation was that the previous budget of 1938 and 1939 was extended automatically. In 1940 no budget conference took place either because it would have been quite impossible. You would have had to contact the Reich Ministry of Finance once a month or once a week and tell them, "Please give me another hundred thousand marks. Himmler has just started another new regiment. We need more clothes." You would just have left the Reich Ministry of Finance and reached the office in order to confirm this when yet another problem would have arisen. Therefore, this whole thing was well-nigh impossible. The Reich Minister of Finance saw the point; and, just as he did with the OKW, he gave permission to the Main Office Budget of Building to spend such money as it needed to carry out its military tasks. The same applied to concentration camps. Concentration camps from the beginning of the war onwards did not have a regular budget. Expenditure could be effected by the administrative leaders in such a way as they occurred.
To give an example, in 1939 concentration camp X had 15,000 inmates, In peace-time should this concentration camp have been increased to 20,000 inmates an additional budget would have had to be submitted, which is to say that the Reich Ministry of Finance would have had to approve an additional or supplementary budget which would approve all expenditures for these 5,000 men. That, of course, could not be done in wartime, which is the reason why since the outbreak of war the socalled open and unrestricted budget was initiated. That is to say, expenditure did no longer need a budget approval, as it were.
Perhaps the Court may have its doubts because one might assume in that case any administrative leader of the concentration camps could do with the money what he wanted to; he could buy as his fancy took him. This, of course, was not the case. After all he was under oath that he would observe the general budget and treasury regulations. Besides, purchase in wartime was so limited and so dependent on material conditionals that the money question was of secondary importance. For instance, if he had to buy 5,000 beds, beds for inmates who had newly arrived, it was not important to find the money for the 5,000 beds. Much more important was the finding of the timber for the 5,000 beds. That was the urgent problem. Therefore, the budget details in wartime had fallen to nothing.
Q. Were there cases ever when approval and permission had become necessary from the WVHA or the Main Office Building and Budget?
A. Yes, only as far as constructions were concerned, and even there I have to modify my statement -- only in cases where massive new constructions were built, that is to say, all those buildings which were built of stone and cost probably more than 100,000 marks. In my affidavit I spoke only of 40,000 marks; but that was wrong. The documents have shown me indicating that I made a mistake.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO): Dr. Rauschenbach, doesn't it seem that possibly you are going into too much detail on these items? Now, you know with what the indictment charges your client and you know what the prosecution has advanced against him. Of course we are going to give you plenty of latitude, but wouldn't it be well if you could direct and channel your testimony into a reply to what the prosecution has presented and what the indictment charges your client with?
I'm afraid that we may get into a lot of detail which possibly is interesting but certainly doesn't help us too much in deciding the issue.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: That will apply only to the beginning, your Honor.
THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO): Very well.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: I shall now come immediately to the other things. I only wished to show the Court the difference which has to be made between the influence which Frank had in peacetime and in wartime on budget details, which, in a broader sense from the point of view of the indictment, is connected with conspiracy and finally covered by the words of the indictment that none of the accountants in Office Group A can escape the charge of murder. That was the reason why I went into detail with these budgets. I shall new deal with very much briefer subjects.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. To sum up what we have said hitherto, Witness, the result is probably this, that for all practical intents and purposes in the three years of peace, 1936, 1937, and 1938, budgets for the Death Head units and concentration camps were in the hands of the Administrative Office SS.
A. Yes.
Q. And when you were again put in charge of these things an open budget had been introduced where the lower grade agencies could dispose of the matters quite freely; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, in that period of time was it your impression that for the economic needs of the camp inmates not enough had been done?
A. Do you mean the time before the war or after the war?
Q. Let us start with the period before the war.
A. Lest the Tribunal reproach me again, I shall answer this question relatively briefly, although originally I intended to speak a little more broadly.
In my conviction and according to the evidence I have seen, which should be found in the Finance Ministry, actually, and as long as the conditions of humans in camps were looked after properly, the stay in a concentration camp, as I see it personally, could be quite definitely justified and the state justified in locking up in one of those camps its enemies whom it had to regard temporarily as such.
Q. In 1936 how much money was at the disposal of camps for each single inmate?
A. I can answer that question in the greatest detail because the figures had these strange proportions to one another. The budget for concentration camps in 1936 contained a total sum of 12,000,000 marks without what was known as the building needs. The figure of the inmates concerned was 12,000. That there were actually 12,000 I am unable to say, of course, because as a budget expert I was only interested in the maximum limit. Thus, for a man there was 1,000 marks, if you divide these sums by one another. With individual expenses it all amounted to about 1200.
Q. What had to be paid for with this sum?
A. Everything had to be paid for. Any personal needs of the inmate, his food, his laundry, his clothes, his shoes, his medical care, and any other needs, such as cinemas, radio -- which existed in peacetime in all camps as far as I know -- libraries, all these necessities had to be paid from the 1,000 or 12,00 marks.
Q. How much was earmarked for daily food rations?
A. That was precisely at 60 pfennig for an inmate who didn't work and for an inmate who worked, 80 pfennig.
Q. Will you please compare this with the wages paid out by the Reich Labor Service?
A. That is a good idea because otherwise the Court might think that the 60 pfennig is a very small sum. But the Reich Labor Service was given a daily scale of 72 pfennig for adolescents.
Q. What about the Wehrmacht?
A. The Wehrmacht paid 92 pfennig.
Q. In peacetime cull you feed the men adequately with eighty phennings?
A. Yes, indeed you could, that was entirely possible. If I had to cook for one-thousand men in peacetime, you could cook tasty food for eighty pfennings in peacetime; insofar as the present wages paid out today in German prisons the present time is the same as it was before the war, that is to say, sixty pfennings.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess, please.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess fifteen minutes.
(Recess)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, before the recess you said that approximately 1,200 Reichsmarks per year were spent for expenses for each inmate in the year of 1936 for example. Do you believe that particular amount, actually was used only for the inmates?
A. Yes, I am sure it was, because certain additional requests were also filed.
A. Arc you of the opinion that this amount was sufficient in order to take care of the inmates' health, hygienic and also cultural needs, in order to enable them to lead some sort of a existence worthy of a human being?
A. Yes, financially speaking it was absolutely possible, because at that time only about 1800 marks were put up for the German soldier, in other words, only 600 marks over what the inmates received, and it must not be forgotten that the soldier for military reasons alone had quite different needs than an inmate.
Q. Was anything done in the financial respect also for the families of the inmates?
A. I myself did not deal with that particular matter nor did the Inspectorate have anything to do with it but, I know, that there was a law that the wife of an inmate, or shall we say a man who had been sent to a concentration camp, could immediately apply to the community for a certain amount of money for support of the family, and she received that in addition, I know that the NSV, too, had received an order........
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Did that also apply to inmates that were brought in from the cast?
THE WITNESS: Would you repeat the question please.
(The question was repeated by the interpreter.)
A. I couldn't tell that because I didn't know the laws, I didn't know the laws about the people from the east. I am speaking about the German conditions.
Q. You mean German inmates?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, if a Jew was separated from his family in Cracow and sent to Nordhausen, you don't mean that the Reich made any provision for his family?
A. No, no, I don't say that.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. I shall now come to something else, that is to document........
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Let me ask one question. I want to get it straight for the record.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Witness, I want to know if I have this right. I understood you to say that up to and prior to 1936 that a German inmate in a concentration camp was allocated 60 phennings per day for sustenance if he were not working and 80 pfennigs per day if he was employed or was working, is that correct?
A. For food, yes.
Q. Just for food alone, and not for clothes?
A. Yes.
Q. What was the allocation after 1936, say, for instance, after the war began?
A. It was the same thing until the moment the war started.
Q. During the war what was the allocation?
A. From the moment of the outbreak of the war the sum of money was no longer important, but the food that was available. In other words, what was important and decisive was what the Reich Food Ministry had put at our disposal. That was the dominating factor and not how much any sector spent for it. In other words, if the Reich Food Ministry had allocated a certain amount of food for the inmates, which, through unusual circumstances, had become more expensive so that an amount of 70 to 90 pfennigs had to be spent on food per day, then the Administrative Leader could also say 90 pfennings. That was quite all right. The monetary limitations had been rescinded as of the outbreak of the war.
Q. In other words, after the war there was not any specific amount allocated, but they were supposed to furnish them sufficient food?
A. No, no. He could move from 60 pfennings up to a mark and a mark and a half.
Q. At his discretion?
A. No, it was not at his discretion, but it depended entirely on the allocation of food. Let us take another example, for instance the competent food office, that particular office that was responsible for the concentration camp, one day allocated say meat, fat, and other food which was more expensive. Then the food allocation on that particular day for the inmates could amount to 90 pfennigs. The following day there were perhaps only beans and potatoes there for allocation and then the cost could only be 40 pfennigs. In other words, the decisive factor was not how high the ration could be according to the monetary situation, but it was decided by what the Food Ministry had allocated. Those sums were paid by the Administrative Leader.
Q. In other words then, the Food Ministry could allocate food up to a certain amount or down as low as a certain amount, between those brackets for the concentration camp inmates?
A. Yes, the rations had been fixed, and the food was allocated within that margin. The Food Ministry did not bother about the cost of the Food.
Q. Now, who was responsible to see that they got the food that was allocated by the Food Ministry?
A. The Administrative Leader of the concentration camp.
Q. That was the camp commandant?
A. No, he was the manager of the accounts. He had to see to it that the food which had been allocated to him by the Food Ministry would actually reach the dishes, or shall we say the plates, of the inmates. The concentration camp commandant had the official supervision. That of course, meant that he also had to concern himself with that. If, for instance, the Administrative Leader through negligence let his potatoes become spoiled because he didn't stock them properly, then the concentration commandant could or had to warn him and also punish him because he did not take proper care of the particular ration he was allocated, and because he did not distribute it to the inmates.
Q. Who appointed the Administrative Leaders?
A. The Administrative Leader was named by the WVHA, that is, by the personnel main office. The WVHA made the suggestion, proposed him. The appointment was made by the personnel main office, and the assignment also.
Q. And under what amt in the WVHA was the Administrative Leader responsible, to report to?
A. You mean the man who made the suggestion? That was Pohl himself.
Q. No, you didn't -- I will ask the question again. To what branch of the WVHA was the Administrative Leader required to make his reports?
A. What report do you mean your Honor?
Q. The reports of the food allocation, what he did with the food in the concentration camps.
A. He had to make the report only when there were certain deficiencies. In other words, if everything worked out all right and the food was sufficient, then he did not have to write up a report, and he was not supposed to give one either.
Q. Well, who inspected him from the WVHA to see that he did that?
A. Would you repeat the question, please?
(The question was repeated by the interpreter.)
A. Nobody from the WVHA. The WVHA was a ministerial level which did not have to deal with those things, and could not deal with them.
Q. Who inspected him to see that he gave the food that was allocated to the prisoners, to the prisoners?
A. The commandant.
Q. The commandant? Well, did the commandant then--was he responsible to report to anybody as to the food of the inmates?
A. If he had the impression that the administrative leader, either through his inability or by embezzling the food, did not comply with his duties, then he reported that to Amtsgruppe D, namely to the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps. Then he would wither have the man relieved from his duties because of inability, or he would have him punished.
Q. But if the inmates did not get the food, and the commandant did not care whether they got the food, or not--nobody would know anything about it. Is that correct?
A. No, then it could become apparent only when the inspector of the concentration camps made his visit in that particular camp, and if it struck him that the inmates looked starved. Otherwise, nobody could actually find out about it.
Q. Well, did Amtsgruppe D ever make any report from any of these camps that people were starving to death there?
A. I couldn't tell you that because I had nothing to do with it.
Q. All right.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH (Counsel for the defendant Frank):
Q. Witness, I shall now proceed to Document NO-495 which is Exhibit 37 in the second book, on page 66; on page 56 of the English document book. In this document it is stated that the following agencies will be dissolved as of the 31st of January, 1942: First the Main Office, Budget and Construction. Second, second the Main Office Administration and Economy; and third, the Administrative Office SS. I ask you now, witness, this last office which I just mentioned:
The Administrative office SS, was that the Quartermaster of the SS, the chief of which you were from thirtieth of November 1939, up to the moment of the dissolution on the thirty-first of January 1942?
A. Yes, I was chief of that particular office for over two years, and thus I was chief of the troop administration of the Waffen SS. I shall repeat that during that time I did not have the slightest connection, and I couldn't have had the slightest connection, with the concentration camps, because those were purely military tasks, and while I held that office I was also promoted to major general in the German army for my achievements in supply. That was at a time when Pohl himself was not yet a general, but was only being paid from a Party office. Thus I did not have an official subordination to Pohl either at that time, because otherwise it would have been absolutely unusual that I would have become an active German major general of the Waffen SS, before Pohl.
Q. Who was it that took over the tasks of the Administrative office SS after that office was dissolved.
A. As I have already said, those tasks were separated into those on the ministerial level and those of purely troop quartermaster jobs. The troop quartermaster went into the Fuehrungs Hauptamt, the operational office, whereas I became chief of Amtsgruppe A. And I took along the ministerial tasks from the Administrative Office, and at the same time the tasks dealing with finance, of the auditing and personnel questions, and combined them in Amtsgruppe A.
Q. I understood you to say that that Amtsgruppe A, of the new WVHA basically was nothing else but the continuation of the administrative office of the Waffen SS of before. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. What were the points of contact - to come back to that again that Amtsgruppe A, while you directed, had with the concentration camps?
A. Those points of contact were very slight during the war. They consisted of procuring the amounts of money asked for by the concentration camps which, as I have already mentioned, were put at the disposal by the Reich Finance Minister without any restrictions. The second point of contact was the auditing job. May I add at this occasion that the auditing of accounts has so far in this trial perhaps been mis-interpreted by the name of "preliminary check". By the term "preliminary check" a layman would be under the impression--and I believe that people are under the impression--that was not the preliminary check, in the sense that the check was carried out before the expense actually occurred. The preliminary check actually was called preliminary check because it was done for the auditing court. In other words, we should have to say that the checking was taken care of by the court of auditing. And the preliminary check was carried out by the auditing office of Amtsgruppe A.
Q. Did the administrative office of the concentration camps have to state when making requests for money what they wanted to do with the money?
A. Not anymore during the war.
The administrative leaders sent their money applications to Oranienburg to the administration of the Inspectorate. Then the administration of the Inspectorate collected those requests and reported the amounts acquired to the Main Office, to Amtsgruppe A.
Q. Could one see from those applications what the money was being used for?
A. No, not during the war.
Q. How was it then, before the Inspector of the concentration camps was incorporated into the WVHA?
A. Nothing was changed in that respect that had nothing to do with the incorporation of the inspectorate. This providing of money for the finance ministry already took place when the inspectorate had not been incorporated yet.
Q. Witness, as far as the incorporation of the concentration camp inspectorate into the WVHA is concerned. I believe it would be a good idea if you would explain to this Tribunal the chart which I already introduced as an appendix to my opening speech.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: I do not knew, Your Honor, if you have this chart at the present time before you. Otherwise, I happen to have a few copies here, that is, the chart of the WVHA which I introduced as an appendix to my opening speech, for the defendant Frank.
THE PRESIDENT: We don't have your chart, Dr. Rauschenbach; we just have the chart that is Exhibit 36.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: I don't mean that, Your Honor. I mean the chart which I introduced as an appendix to my opening speech.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Do you have the chart before you, witness?
A. Yes.
Q. Now then, what do those red lines mean, and those blue lines, respectively?
A. The red connecting line shows, in my opinion, with absolute clarity that Amtsgruppe D, even after the incorporation into the WVHA, had a double channel of command upward. That is absolutely unusual because all other Amtsgruppen had only one channel of command upward and that was the Main Office chief.
Now, if Amtsgruppe D. as this chart shows, actually continued to have two channels of command, the same continues for the concentration camps themselves.
Q. A preliminary question, witness, when and where was this chart set up, and by whom?
A. The chart was set up here.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this chart will be used for informational purposes only, and it will be used only to refresh the witness's memory so that although I did introduce it as an addition to my opening statement, I did not introduce it as an exhibit in itself.
I shall give this chart the exhibit number "1-Frank" for purposes of identification.
Q Witness, would you explain, please -
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, I have no objection to this chart. I don't see why it can't be introduced in evidence and not merely marked for identification.
THE PRESIDENT: It has been given an exhibit number, Frank Exhibit No. 1, and will be admitted in evidence.
Q Witness, will you please explain to this Tribunal on the basis of this chart that Amtsgruppe A even on the face of it could hardly have had any connection with the concentration camps?
A I believe that the origin of this chart is based upon the wish to recall the old plan which already existed prior to that and which might be found as a document, because it shows that the Amtsgruppe were parallel and not subordinate to each other and because the chart also shows that Amtsgruppe D even after its incorporation in the WVHA remained so to say a foreign body.
Q Did Amtsgruppe D have an immediate channel from the RSHA?
A Yes, as can be clearly seen from this red line, both to the RSHA and also Himmler.
Q Did Amtsgruppe A have a direct channel to both the RSHA and the Reichsfuehrer SS?
A No, as can be seen from the chart, the channel could not be this way. The Chief of Amtsgruppe A as I was for a short while could only have connections with Pohl. We have been told by a particular order of the Main Office Chief that we were prohibited from communicating directly with Reichsfuehrer.
Q Would the tasks of Amtsgruppe A have changed in any way if all of a sudden Amtsgruppe D would have been removed from the WVHA and possibly incorporated into the RSHA?
A No, not at all, because the chart had already been set up before the incorporation of Amtsgruppe D in its structure and it remained the same. Amtsgruppes A, B, C, and W were in the same sequence and they had the same tasks in the organizational chart of the 1st of February, 1942.
Q Do you mean the chart which was also added to my opening speech?
A Yes.
Q I mean for the 1st of February, 1942?
A Yes, I don't have it before me, but that is the one, I know.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, that's the chart that is added. It is in addition to this particular chart you are holding in your hands now. I shall introduce it as Exhibit 2, I mean Exhibit Frank 2.
Q Witness, after you have told us about the relationship of Amtsgruppe A organizationally to the concentration camps in general in the basis of those two charts, what do you say about the chart which is already opposite you on the wall? Could this plan possibly create a wrong opinion in any way?
A I believe that it has already been stated before in this trial and I believe that even the prosecution admitted that by this particular chart on the wall the opinion could be created that the entire mail, for instance, for Amtsgruppe W went to Amtsgruppe A through Amtsgruppe B and soon that it went through all those offices before it hit them and therefore a very erroneous impression can be created and I myself asked you, as my defense counsel, to again use the old chart as it used to be and as it can be found in the documents and to have it reconstructed because according to my opinion that old chart shows clearly how the real and only organization was.
Q What plan and what chart do you mean?
A I mean the chart and document as can be found in the, I believe Budget of the Economic and Administrative Main Office, it is one of the documents.
A Yes. I shall come back to this chart in a different con nection and I shall explain it to this Tribunal or have you explain it to them.
Now I shall proceed to another document which appears to be rather important for us, that is to say, it is Document NO-724, Exhibit No. 472. It's in Document Book XVIII on page 108 of the German Document Book and on page 83 of the English Document Book. Witness, in those over 500 documents that were introduced by the prosecution, there were three documents which were signed by you. Two of those documents deal with the so-called Reinhardt Action. One of these documents is this particular one you have before you now. What can you tell me about the history of this document? You can go into detail in this connection. It is, as you can notice from the prosecution's intonation about this document, one of the most important documents in this trial for you.
A Yes, the serious charge of the prosecution that the accountants of Amtsgruppe A were participants in the murder of hundreds of people will probably entail me to make a detailed description about the origin of this document. I believe I do not have to go into detail about the history of the extermination of the Jews itself. It must have been around the year of 1941 when at a time in the brains of Hitler and Himmler the plan for the extermination of the Jews must have originated and the executing tools became the following persons: the Chief of the Gestapo Heydrich, as well as Eichmann as expert in Jewish affairs, and Reichs Leader Bouhler together with the Criminal Commissioner, Wirth, the former Gauleiter, and SS and Police Leader Globocnik and Hoess. These were the persons who carried out this plan of extermination without any doubt they took care of all measures to grant secrecy that could possibly be expected -
Q Witness, may I interrupt you at this point and ask you why don't you tell the Tribunal beforehand how the confiscation of the Jewish property came about, and who actually confiscated their property?
A I believe that one has to go into detail particularly about that. I didn't want to state it at this point. However, as you are asking this question, I shall on the basis of an example tell you about the confiscation of the Jewish property and go into detail.
Again, one has to differentiate between two periods of time. That is the period of time before the 1st of October, 1942 and the period of time after that date. I shall give an example from life. A German Jew was arrested in 1941 by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Now what happens with his property? What the Jew is carrying along with him when he was sent to a concentration camp, in other words, his own personal property, his watch, his wallet, all his personal belongings, his suitcases and so on were taken into a special store room for the belongings. I do not wish to discuss the question at the present moment what happened to those things in case the Jew should have died. I shall deal with that particular question now, namely, what on the other hand happened with all those valuables and fortunes which that same citizen and Jew left behind at home, for instance, his house, his furniture, his car, his business, perhaps his stock or his estate, his bank account, the following regulation had been used there: By legal Reich regulations under the 4 year plan of Hermann Goering, and also by ordinance of the Finance Minister, a series of decrees had been released in a form of a law which ordered that all those things which I have just mentioned -- all those items were to be confiscated by the competent country finance presidents. In other words, the whole thing occurred in the following manner: The Gestapo sent to the Finance President a report that the owner of the house at Koenigstrasse 10, a Jew, was arrested, and sent to a concentration camp as a public enemy.
The property as such, thus was confiscated. Now, what happened is that the Provincial Finance President--that is one of the officers of the Finance Ministry--assigned a special trustee for that property and then sold that property, that is to say, everything that was there, the house if I may use the same examples--the car, the business, and the stock, and he put the money which he received for that into the Reich account. As to all the values that were still left in the house, the Provincial Finance President also confiscated those, and he sold them to the pawnshops which existed in his district.
Q. In other words, neither the WVHA nor the SS confiscated that part of the Jewish property which had not been taken into the concentration camps?
A. Up until October of 1942, as I mentioned before, the administration of the SS had nothing to do whatsoever with the entire Jewish property or fortune. I want to discuss the case now, for example, that this particular Jew that I mentioned before, had died in the concentration camp. For this case, on the 3rd of April, 1941, the RSHA issued an order which I would like to quote, because it is highly important.
Q. What document is it, witness?
A. It is document NO-1235, and it bears the exhibit number---I cannot tell at the moment; it should be on the original, though, someplace. It is in document book V; the exhibit number is 148-B.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: This document, Your Honors, is on page 150 of the English document book, according to my notes.
A. (Continuing) It is peculiar that this document consists of two parts: that is to say, the first part is an order of the Inspector of Concentration camps, re delivery of gold and valuables (valuables of Jewish inmates). The addition which I spoke about before, that is, the decree issued by the RSHA to which the inspector refers, was not in the German document book, it was only added later on. In this important order to which the Inspector of Concentration Camps refers--and unless I forget, it was at a time when Amtsgruppe D was not incorporated with the WVHA-the following is stated, and I shall quote: