Back in 1942 we already had to start improvising. Everywhere we had to economize. We were entering the fourth winter of the war. At the time, I had hardly anything to do with the concentration camps. It was a time during which we, that is to say, my comrades and myself, who had no knowledge of the tragedy of Majdanek and Auschwitz -- what did we know about the cruelties and tortures behind the Gestapo walls and behind all the big things that the sadistic commandants committed, that the unterfuehrers committed. I should only mention SS-Oberfuehrer Loritz. That was one of the first concentration camp commandants. Every docent SS man and leader disliked this man and he had to be transferred by the Reichsfuehrer under that pressure and, in spite of that, he was re-instated of his rights by Himmler, after that and to our great astonishment. We were said, we men from Amtsgruppe A, -- our people were speaking about it --- that we would also have been guilty and that we wanted to pass the buck to those already dead. I ask this Tribunal, those dead men, weren't they really responsible -- men like Himmler, Gluecks, Lolling, Grawitz, Globoenik, Loritz? All these men committed suicide and that could only be under the pressure of their guilt. If I myself had wanted to leave Germany, I don't think it would have been difficult for me to obtain a passport as chief of the passport section and to go abroad, if I was under the impression that I had such a guilt of blood on me. Eicke, Heydrich, Hoess, Kammler are dead. I believe that I can assert -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Hoess didn't commit suicide.
WITNESS: No, he was executed. Koch also was executed, what I wish to say by that is that these men are dead and I believe that I can say that, if this dozen of men would be sitting here in the defendants' dock today, then the bookkeepers of Amtsgruppe A would not be sitting in the first row of the defendants' dock.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: I understood from your enumeration of these names that you were indicating that those who were really guilty realized their culpability before the world and took their own lives and in that list you mentioned Hoess, that is, H-o-e-s-s, the mass butcher of Auschwitz, but everyone knows that he was tried and convicted and hanged.
WITNESS: Yes, indeed. I did not mention Hoess amongst those who committed suicide. I only mentioned him among the dead.
Q Witness, we don't want to go too far from our subject. We shall have to come back to the question which results from the contention of the prosecution that the concentration camps, as I said in the opening speech, were the bones and the brain of the WVHA. What can you say about that?
A I deny that absolutely, namely that the concentration camps were the bones and the brains of the WVHA and of Amtsgruppe A; for Amtsgruppe A, at least, which I am talking about, the troops, the Army, the soldier, was the back bone. The prosecution has an enormous case of evidence and amongst those you probably also have the Army Regulations of the Waffen-SS and particularly those of the WVHA. Thousands of orders were contained therein and I believe that only approximately a dozen refer to specific concentration camp questions. I may, for instance, draw your attention to the fact that when the orders of the RSHA, which were established or appeared in 1942, in other words, almost exactly at the time when I signed this document, NO-724, and I mean that it was no longer possible to send the urns of the deceased Jews back to their homeland. Another decree orders that the death of a Jew in a concentration camp is to be reported immediately with an explanation of the reason for it to the RSHA by first class mail. Then, I, as a man who standing on the side in a military ministerial capacity, could not see any motive of the mass extermination.
Q These orders which you just mentioned, can you identify them more clearly?
A The first order which I have mentioned is Exhibit 157.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this is Exhibit 157 which is Document NO-1543 on page 11 of English Document Book No. 6
Q What can you see from this document? Just a moment until the document will be given to the judges.
A There are two documents, 156 and 157.
Q I mentioned 157 and also 156. Exhibit 156 is on page 1 of the English Document Book 6.
A May I refer to Exhibit 349 in Document Book No. 12, in which document the RSHA is complaining about the fact that in the East there is too good a relationship between the SS and the Jews. They are speaking explicitly of Jewish camp inmates.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this is Exhibit 349 on page 88 of the English Document Book No. 12.
Q Now, witness, what were the conditions at the time when this decree was issued, that is, what you knew about the conditions at the time as you could possibly understand from those decrees and reports? Wasn't there really any reason at all at the time just to assume that this Jewish property that had been confiscated originated from Jews who would have been killed?
A No, I could not possibly have that impression. In this connection, I might perhaps repeat the names of Funk and Krosigk. I am terribly sorry that I have to mention these names again and again in this trial. Please try to put yourself in my position and assume that the President of the Bank of England is covering some sort of business, regardless of the nature of that enterprise or business. I don't believe that an official would possibly take the liberty to make some sort of a criticism about the business itself, and it was known to me that the President of the German Reichsbank and the Finance Minister of the German Reich placed themselves before this business, I couldn't possibly criticize it.
I would not be able to criticize as much then as I would have been able to criticize if I had known it. I had nothing to do with the planning of this whole action, not did I have anything to do with the procurement of the valuables. The decree which I signed was merely the order about the utilization of already existing things.
Q Witness, you said at the beginning were we started talking about this document here that you received the draft of your decree from Lublin. How did the whole thing work out?
AAs I already said before, towards the middle of September 1942, the WVHA received this draft of an order, which can be described as fateful today. It had an accompanying letter, from which, according to my recollection, the following could be understood. Globocnik wrote the following: Through the resettlement of the Jewish population which has been ordered by the Reichsfuehrer from the towns of the Government General, and particularly from the Ghettos, larger amounts of foreign exchange, money, goods and other valuables, which upon the Reichfuehrer's SS orders have been confiscated were available -- I would like to correct myself and say that they will be available -- not that they were available -- the future, rather than the past.
Q And was there anything mentioned in the accompanying letter, about the utilization of these valuables.
A Yes, apart from the foreign exchange.
MR. ROBBINS: I am not exactly clear as to which document this letter accompanied. You are speaking about foreign exchange.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: This is not a document, this does no longer exist, but we are talking about a letter which the Defendant Frank at the time received, and the contents of which he explains here. That is neither a document in the books of the Prosecution, nor a document which should be in a position to offer.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Will you please explain this, so that it becomes quite clear?
A. This draft of an order which I am talking about now, so to speak, was literally the same as what I had signed. Globicnik, as I already said before, added this draft order to the accompanying letter in which he informed me that himmler on the occasion of a personal visit to Lublin, that must have been around that time, reached an agreement together with him, and that Himmler had told him to issue this order as an economic order, which actually happened.
Q. I shall repeat the question which I had already asked you, witness, in this accompanying letter was the nature of things to be utilized, described in detail apart from the money which was for exchange in cash from the Jewish property?
A. The nature of the things could be seen from the draft of the order.
Q. Could you enumerate them?
A. If you want me to list them in groups, all right.
Q. Yes, please?
A. First of all we have the personal property which due to lack of space were taken away from the inmates. Then the store of goods which Globocnik had confiscated in the Ghettos, and taken from there to Lublin, whatever was left from the Jews who had died in the concentration camps.
Q. Can you say from this accompanying letter which you received from Globocnik that the WVHA was to issue the decree announcing the utilization of this property?
A. As I had already said, Himmler issued that order. That could be seen from the fact that in this particular draft of the order there was a hand written notation, by himmler which according to my recollection read as follows: "To be issued by the WVHA to be extended to Auschwitz, and with the words' Stolen property and hoarded goods' were also written down in green pencil with Himmler's handwriting, because how else was I to use the expression and I can also add how was I to know all the details because the order comprised everything what one could think of.
Q. Witness, can you describe to us, in particular make it in such a way that we can believe you, that this decree of Globocnik was submitted to the Reichsfuehrer-SS. Do we have any document which we can possibly empire with what you just stated?
A. I am sorry but the original document apparently is not here, but it can be proved, I might point out document NO-059, Exhibit No. 488.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Now, Your Honor, this is Exhibit 488 in Document Book No. 19. Unfortunately I can not give you the English page in this case. It is Document Book 19 in English.
MR. ROBBINS: It is page 27.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: It is page 27 of the English Document Book, as I have just heard.
THE WITNESS: I have also read this document here for the first time. This is Globocnik's report about the administrative development of Action Reinhardt, dated January 1944. I myself at that time was no longer with the WVHA. From the second paragraph of this letter it can be seen and one can actually see the confirmation of what I have stated.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Read that paragraph, please. Read the paragraph.
THE WITNESS: The second paragraph: "The use and materialization of the valuables were carried out according to the directive of 26 September 1942, and 9 December 1943, and the Economics and Administration Main Office was entrusted with the settlement as against the Reich Offices."
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. You deduct from that that the decree which you signed later on originated on Globocnik's own initiative, and was approved by the Reichsfuehrer, who issued this order?
A. Yes, this attains Blobocnik, first of all seemed to have acted according to the regulations which were issued by the Reichsfuhrer. Thus the regulations would not have come from the WVHA. Then I know that Globocnik always discussed everything directly with Himmler.
Q. Was his relationship with Himmler especially good?
A. Yes. Well, let me talk about Globocnik's person in one or two sentences. What I know about Globocnik personally myself, is the following: Globocnik was one of the oldest Party members of Austria. As far as I knew he was a Nazi before the seizure of power in Austria. He was locked up in the concentration camp of Woellersdorf in Austria. A short while after the seizure of power he was the Vienna Gauleiter.
It is surprising that a man of position like his was sent as SS and Police Leader to Lublin. Today I have my own personal opinion why Globocnik went to Lublin. He was sent to Lublin only for the purpose of exterminating the Jews, with the agreement between Himmler and Hitler ---
JUDGE MUSMANNO: When did you come to that conclusion?
THE WITNESS: Because I know that Globocnik immediately at the conclusion of the action he was sent to the Adriatic Sea, as I can see from the document.
Q You knew that at the time?
A No, I already said that I deduced that from the documents, I know that today. I deduced that today.
Q That is what I want to know.
A That Himmler had a very good relationship, also from the documents, because when I read this particular letter, dated January 1944, which he is writing to Globocnik, he addresses him as "Dear Globus." I can only interpret these words "Dear Globus" as a rather friendly way of using his name, it is an appreciation of his name, and he only does that if one has personal relationship with a person.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q Witness, you said that you read this document NO-059 that we are talking about here for the first time. I take it then, you probably read about the "Action Reinhardt" here for the first time, is that correct?
A No, as I have already stated before, the word "Reinhardt" was not known at all in the WVHA, at the time. It also can be seen from the particular order which I signed myself; there is not one single word of "Reinhardt Action" in there. Today the word "Reinhardt" receives a special and horrible sense.
At that time the few people of the WVHA who knew about Reinhardt, understood by it the utilization of the Jewish property. This Tribunal will possibly ask me why was the whole matter dealt with so much secrecy. All I have to say is that it was certainly necessary not to make too big a story about it at that time, because I admit frankly that it was not a very fair deal.
Q Now then, you say it was not a fair deal. I can only interpret that on way, namely, it did not feel as a fair deal to you even at the tiem. What did you in order to be spared in the future to have anything to do with the entire matter?
A. This question cannot be answered so easily. At that time when I signed that document there was no doubt left in my mind that such a decree, apart from the fact that it was in connection with the killing of human beings - I say that at the time I did not know about it anyway, but the pure fact that their property was taken away from them had to create some sort of a conflict in my own personal attitude about the term of property. It was exactly the contrary of what we in Amtsgruppe A particularly told our young leaders, namely, about the fact that personal property was taboo.
At the time I did not understand why Himmler requested that his administrative people on the one hand adhere to the principle of loyalty concerning other people's property, and that on the other hand he charged the same people with the taking away of personal property.
It was written down in law, undoubtedly, but in spite of that fact, for our men who had to deal with those things, there was an immense danger of corruption. That was the reason, possibly, which made me deal with those things, because I said to myself, "If such valuables are not exactly seized in a proper manner and regulated accordingly, then nothing else will result but a throwing around and corruption on a large scale."
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. Witness, some time back you said that certain conflicts arose within you, certain doubts, when you contemplated the seizure of these articles from deceased Jews. It wasn't clear to me whether in your declaration you intended to tell us that you had some doubts as to whether these Jews had died a normal death or had been violently done to death.
A. This question, Your Honor, can be answered in the following manner, that is, that it should have been quite clear to me that these things originated from people who had died a violent death. If I had seen the total amount or a list of the number of things that were confiscated, if I had seen the 26,000 eyeglasses that were among them which had been confiscated in Lublin and transferred to the Medical Inspectorate, then I could not have possibly told myself that those eyeglasses had come from people who had died a normal death.
I absolutely agree with you there. However, up to the 1st of September 1943 - that was the date when I started dealing with those matters - I never saw such a list. Rather, I must state again that it was not that way that Action Reinhardt became a word used quite commonly in the WVHA; it was an incident which was absolutely at the very extreme edge of the WVHA, of which I heard nothing at all for months, which only moved along official channels.
Q. But there came a time when you were aware of the vast number of eyeglasses which had been accumulated, and when you became aware of that, then did you conclude that they could only have come from people who had been done to death through violence?
A. Your Honor, I have already stated that as to this particular list in which these 26,000 eyeglasses were itemized, I read that here in this Tribunal in these documents. This list, as can be seen very clearly from the documents, was set up by Globocnik in January of 1944 and sent to the chief of the WVHA. In other words, it was at a time during which I was no longer in the WVHA. The only thing I saw in connection with the list was a listing of the confiscated watches. That can be seen from the letter which was written in May of 1943 which I wrote to Himmler while representing Pohl.
Q. Then are we to understand that the closest that you came to a realization that these articles came from killed people is a state of grave doubt in your mind as to whether that was not the fact?
A. No, my doubt went to the effect - or shall I say my misgivings went to the effect that a person's property was not to be taken away, generally speaking, in that period, and not to the effect that these objects came from hundreds and thousands of people who had died. Those were my misgivings.
Q. At several times in your testimony it seemed that you were debating with yourself, with your conscience, as to whether there was not something quite irregular about this vast quantity of articles, and it appeared that at times you were on the verge of concluding that they had arisen from violent action.
Is that correct or not? Is that impression that I received correct or not?
A. No, Your Honor, not the amount; it was not the amount that made me stop and think. I did not know the total amount at the time; I did not see the things in the first place. I did not see the jewels, nor did I see all the diamonds. That was not known to me at the time. However, the fact that a large number of people were apparently being brought together into one camp and their watches and all their things were taken off, that was the thing that I had misgivings about because it was unusual.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Thank you.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. And this particular fact, namely, that you had misgivings about those things, did that finally lead you to the fact that you got sick and tired, so to speak, of your work in the office? Because you told us before that at all times you were an administrative leader, an army administrative leader, and you became the same later on again.
A. No, my misgivings or my doubts did not go as far as that. However, I did reserve myself the following, namely, that I would seize the next occasion in order to resign from my official position in the WVHA. It was not only because of this order, the fact that this property was channeled through the administration of the Waffen SS - I wanted to say Jewish property - that was not the only fact, but, generally sneaking, all those facts so that the concentration camps were brought into closer connection with the WVHA and came closer day by day.
Amtsgruppe A had to deal with the money from those actions; I did not like that. Therefore, when, in July of 1943, a confidential letter was sent to me from the Chief of Staff of the Order Police as to whether I would like to take the position of administrative leader of the police, I immediately agreed.
Q. I shall come back to the document itself and ask you this. What did Himmler actually mean by those words which he added in the draft of the order, "stolen property and hoarded goods"? What did you think about that at the time and how can you explain it today?
A. It is difficult for me to tell you, about it. However, today, at the present moment, I can only explain those facts myself by saying that at the time I must have assumed that those were confiscated goods from the Ghettos.
Q. What kind of goods were they?
A. At the present moment I would not like to speak against the Jews who were in the East and in the Ghettos, nor do I wish to charge them with black marketing. It is clear to me today that those people were actually forced to carry out their business deals in such a manner that would not be an official manner, because officially they were not permitted to do so. At that time I found out from a police official that in the Ghettos in the East there were large stocks of goods; that there were houses in the Ghettos which led three to four stories underneath the ground. They were subterranean buildings which were filled with goods.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
I knew that the Waffen SS employed certain men who purchased those goods, and who paid five to ten times the regular price for goods which they purchased in the east and of which there was a lack. It is a known fact to every soldier who was in the east that in those various cities one could purchase everything, and from big necklaces of pearls all the way down to a fat goose which one needed in order not to go hungry. That was no secret.
Q How do you believe then that those goods which you have just mentioned came under the Utilization within the Reinhardt Action; wasn't it just personal property, personal effects of those inmates, or were there also stocks of goods that were seized in that manner?
A Well, I had to have that opinion at the beginning, and I believe that opinion of mine was justified, because it can be clearly seen from the documents that large stocks of goods were probably confiscated. Several documents deal with the facts that in one workshop of the Globocniks, for instance, I read in one of the documents here that one and a half million of clothes were made in those workshops and that perhaps fifty-five thousand pairs of shoes were made; all this raw material to produce that has to come from somewhere for Globocnik.
Q Witness, we will not have to go into detail about those things. I have a different question to you. Why was it that the order of the 26th of September, 1942, in other words, the order which we are talking about all the time, why was it that it was sent to the leaders of the administration of the concentration camps and not to the commandant; does that have any particular or special meaning?
A Yes, one can deduct from this fact that it did not deal with confiscations itself, because otherwise the order would have had to go to the commander, respectively to Globocnik himself.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q If the authority for this order came from Himmler, I understand you to say that it did -- is that correct?
A I did not quite understand your question.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q If the authority for issuing this order came from Himmler, and you say that it did -- is that correct?
A Not only the authority, the order itself, it was an order of Himmler.
Q Well, if it was an order of Himmler, why didn't you put on this order -- by order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS?
A It was not absolutely necessary.
Q That was done in all cases in which he made an error, was it not?
A Oh, no.
Q Haven't you seen in all these documents here, numbers and numbers of them, where an order was transmitted from the ReichsfuehrerSS, the order was headed -- by order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS?
A This was not an order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS which was sent from the headquarters of the Fuehrer to the main office; it was simply a draft of an order, you see, which was set up by Globocnik, and which Globocnik apparently submitted to Himmler during one of Himmler's visits; and which Himmler simply approved -- possibly just checking it; and the order itself said nothing at all, namely, that the order came directly from Himmler. It was issued as an order of the WVHA, while the confiscation order dealt with the things itself, and that -
Q But I understood you to say that the order originated from Himmler, and Himmler ordered that the WVHA issue this order.
A No, he simply wrote I agree that the WVHA is to issue that order.
Q And the draft of the order was made by Globocnik?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Then you issued the order as a result of that chain of authority?
A Yes. The order was changed a little bit because we had to add the Reichsbank accounts, and of course we had to add the various Court No. II, Case No. 4.addresses; but generally speaking the order which was signed by me was almost literally word for word the same as the draft.
Q Well now, if you issued this order by virtue of the authority which you have mentioned for all of this mass of goods, all kinds of personal property, and you didn't know anything about the origin of this property, why didn't you find out something about it? You were a high ranking officer there in charge of one of the branches of the WVHA. Why didn't you find out what you issued an order about?
A Well, I did know where the things came from; it was right in the accompanying letter exactly that they came from the Jews who had been resettled in Lublin, and that those Jews were there, well, that was no secret at all. In July, 1943, for instance, it can be seen that Globocnik -
Q I am now talking about September '42, not 1943.
A Even at that time there must have been large numbers of human beings there because how do you think that Globocnik would be able to operate his workshops, his enterprises?
Q Well, he didn't have much left for his people to use while they were there if he was using these people, because everything had been taken away from them.
A Certainly, your Honor -- I said that everything was taken away from them; that fact that personal property was taken away from the Jews who were working there and assigned to labor there, was a thing I had misgivings about.
Q And you thought that this was the property taken away from the people who were working there in this camp?
A Of course. At that time it became known to us from various orders that Jews, together with their families, were resettled in the east, and I find a confirmation of those facts in one of the documents, in which it says the Jews together with their wives and children were to be transferred to various places around there on farms; and it was known to the WVHA that in the east hundreds of border Court No. II, Case No. 4.farms had been established for that purpose, and which were used as such, which were operated by Jewish laborers until the end of the war.
Q How did you think that these people were laborers -- when, under "E" in your order you say women's clothing and women's underwear, including footwear; children's clothing, and children's underwear, including footwear, have to be handed over?
A Yes, I believe that would come from camps, and it must have come from camps because Globocnik himself reports that he had fifty-five thousand pairs of shoes manufactured and over one million and a half of clothes; in other words those things had to be manufactured; they must have been manufactured; and they were manufactured for those resettled persons.
Q I am not talking about manufacturers; I am talking about turning over goods that they already have and what you have to do with it in the future.
A In that accompanying letter it was stated expressly that it was property of the persons who were in the camps which was to be taken away from them due to lack of space; then, there was stocks of goods, so I could not possibly assume that the people had been killed before those things were taken away from them. It is quite clear, that if today -- it would not be different here in Germany either -people are sent to a camp and they take along two, three, four, or five suitcases, they cannot possibly carry those things around with them, and that only a certain amount can be used; a second suit or some underwear for changing.
Q Well, if that was what you thought, why did you preface your order with this statement: Property which will in all orders in the future be called goods originating from thefts, receiving stolen goods, and hoarded goods. If that was true then, you ordered in all orders in the future about these goods to be false, were you not?
A Yes, that was in the order of the Reichsfuehrer, and I have stated before that those things mostly originated from camps, and among Court No. II, Case No. 4.those there were also certain camps which had been confiscated by the agent of Globocnik, the Gestapo as blackmarket goods and that is where that particular term originates.
I do not deny that the fact that these people had to give up all those additional things, that is, for instance, the skirt or their underwear which they could do without easily, that those things were taken away from them, and that this was a violation of the principles of property; I do not deny that.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q If you say that you reconciled yourself to these articles in the assumption that they could work without this underclothing; that they could do without watches; that they could do without fountain pens -- how do you reconcile yourself to the fact that these people had to work without their eye-glasses and eat without their teeth?
A Your Honor, excuse me but you are saying eye glasses and underwear at the same time -- that the glasses had come from those people who had died, that was clear to me. I did not see if there were five hundred glasses or five thousand, but the thing was clear to me, namely, that underwear was taken away from people who had too much of that stuff, and which went over -- far over the normal requirements of the person. For instance the same thing would be true today if a person is sent to a camp, he receives a second suit, and whatever is over that suit, apart from the one you are wearing, those will be put away.
Q. I don't know of anyone going to a prison or a concentration camp or any place of internment that he travels with extra gold teeth and that therefore you must take away from him the superfluous gold, and your decree actually refers to gold.
A. Yes, your Honor. All these gold teeth also had to originate from people who had died. I used tooth gold in my order, and at the time I understood not the gold teeth, not that these teeth had been torn away from dead people. It was known to me that in the concentration camps examplarily equipped dental stations existed, and that at those particular dental stations people could possible have their teeth fixed, and that a certain amount of gold was left behind when bridges were altered, and that people broke away gold teeth from dead persons is something which I would not have done myself, but I certainly did not consider it a crime in that, it is a matter of taste.
Q. It did not occur to you that might be a desecration, did it?
A. I believe that in civilian life also it occurred that before the dead was burned, and upon the wish of his relatives they had removed his teeth, and gold teeth. That is something that has to do with taste. Now that teeth are torn away from a dead man appears to me as horrible as it appears to Your Honors. I never did see any such gold teeth in my life.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, may I point out a difficulty which has arisen in the translation before the recess. The witness had described in detail where these objects were coming from, and he also stated they came from the concentration camps and they came from storage camps. In both cases, this has been translated as "camps", so that the impression that has arisen is as if everything had come from camps where human beings were located. Here in most cases we are dealing with stocks.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal was not misled. The witness stated plainly that he considered that some of the personal property received came from stocks of goods, and he mentioned the large warehouses underground in the ghettos and the black market. We understood that he believed that part of the goods came from that source.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, there is one point which you will have to clarify as far as it has not been done yet. Was the WVHA able to order any seizures? Could you issue any orders whereby you could have seized Jewish property; that is to say, could you cause an action to be carried out which as you said would have bothered your conscience with regard to the concept of property and goods?
A . In this connection, I would like to say that I have already stated yesterday that the action of seizing property was already under way since 1940. This was done through an order by the RSHA, and it had already been announced in that manner. It was about the question of seizing property. But from the human point of view and personal point of view, I only had to decide the question to what extent the WVHA through the transfer of these confiscated goods participated in this action. It was not a seizure by the WVHA but was only the landing on of the object.
Q. Thank you. I think that will be sufficient.