Q Let us talk about your activities in the WVHA. I shall put single questions to you about that part of the activity with which the indictment deals; I will put those questions to you later, but first of all you might give me a general survey about your activities, your duties, quite generally.
A When the WVHA was established, I remained in the budget department which in the WVHA had been extended to the whole of the Waffen-SS. Apart from that I worked on the Administration of the Allgemeine SS and also the Savings Association of the SS, so that in A-1 of Office Group A we had these three fields of tasks. First of all the budget of the Waffen SS, secondly administration of the General SS, and third, the Savings Association of the SS.
Q Witness, please describe to the Tribunal these three fields which had not become too clear from the interrogations and examinations so far. Perhaps you will begin with the budget of the Waffen-SS during the war.
A It is my intention to speak of the budget of the Waffen-SS here because so much has been said already, and in the latest speech which we have heard, all clarity has finally been eliminated. I would, therefore, like to ask the President that I might briefly say something about the budget of the Waffen-SS so that this business will be cleared up once and for all. May I say all this on the basis of the practical example. For the year 1942 and 1943, and then for 1944 and 1945, because around 1943 and 1944 there was a slight change. I believe that it has been stated that the Waffen-SS in war time had an open budget, a budget which had no limitation on it, in contrast to peace time when any single department had to account for its expenses for a whole year, and the exact sum was allotted. To give you a practical example, I am talking about the Garrison Treasury at Dachau; The Garrison Treasury at Dachau needed for the month of October its funds; the Treasury at Dachau supplied all units with money who were stationed at the Dachau garrison. Let us name the concentration camp Dachau, the clothing works of Dachau, the administrative school in Dachau, and the various other schools there, and the various units of the Waffen SS stationed there.
All those were paid by the garrison treasury as the central office. Now, the Treasury Garrison at Dachau in the middle of September demanded from the various units approximate sums which it would need for the month of October for all its expenses. Let us assume that the total sum involved here amounted to twenty million marks. On top of that, the Dachau Treasury had its own expenses, and by letter or by a teletype, directed to the WVHA, it stated that for the month of October its expenses would amount to twenty million marks. Such statements would come from all agencies of the Waffen SS, as far as they were not under the army, or were located outside of German territory. The Treasury Office of Amt II, which was called I believe A-II-2, would compile the various demands of the individual agencies into a total demand and let us assume that would have amounted to eighty millions marks, and that total demand would be passed on to the Reich Minister of Finance as money,required by the Waffen SS for the month of October. The Reich Minister of Finance transmitted that amount for October directly to the various units and agencies. This was not done through the WVHA. In this case, for instance, Garrison Treasury at Dachau for the month of October would have received from the Reich Minister of Finance on its account in Dachau, or Munich, with the Reichsbank, twenty-one million marks. The Garrison Treasury at Dachau then supplied in turn the various departments with the money they had asked for. This concluded the activity of the Offices A-1 and A-II, as far as the October budget was concerned. As far as spending money was concerned, neither A-1 nor A-II had anything to do with it. That was up to the various agencies.
Q What about the foreign countries?
A I shall talk about that later on. May I briefly say something else, because the heads of administration were able to spend all money they needed for the war in their own competence; they did not have to ask for permission from A-1; thus A-1 had nothing to do with payments, nor did the money pass through A-1. Now, as far as the Treasuries, outside had any income, let us assume that the Treasury of the Dachau concentration camp received money for the work done by inmates.
Let us assume a sum of two million marks. That amount at the end of October at the latest had to be sent to the Reich Main Treasury, because according to the Reich Budget Regulations, all incomes of the agencies had to be transmitted to the Reich Main Treasury, and they were not allowed to spend that money. After 1944 it was yet mere simplified, the previous application and the transmission by the Reich Minister of Finance were eliminated. The agencies received from the Reich Minister of Finance special brown checks, and these checks enabled them to cash the money with their Reichs Bank branch which they needed for the various months. Any previous application was unnecessary after that. The examination and check on expenses, that is to say whether the expenses had been justified, was up to the Reich Auditing Court. It had to examine whether the money had been correctly accounted for, and whether the expenses had been justified. How far Pohl took part in this I am unable to say from my own knowledge. Pohl might be able to say something about that. Agencies in foreign countries or in occupied territories had always received the money through these brown checks. Special regulations from the Reich Minister of Finance existed up to 1943 only for the agencies within the territory of the Reich. I believe that on the basis of this example it will have become clear how these budgetary funds reached the agencies, and that the expenses were not accounted for to the WVHA, but were dealt with independently by the agencies concerned.
Q Now, what about the administration of the money, of the private money which had belonged to the inmates of the concentration camps. Did Offices A-1 or A-II have anything to do with that?
A No. That money had nothing to do with the budget of the Waffen-SS. These were private moneys belonging to the inmates, and as far as I know, there was a special administration for money belonging which was probably subordinated to the commandant.
The budget of the Waffen-SS had nothing to do with that money at all.
Q What about the economic enterprises?
A The economic enterprises had nothing to do with the budget of the Waffen-SS, nor with budget of the Allgemeine SS in any sense of the word.
Q Now, let us talk about the administration of the Allgemeine SS in war time. Give us a brief survey, please.
A The Administration of the Allgemeine SS decreased very much during the war because members of the Allgemeine SS were drafted for military service, and, therefore, service with the Allgemeine SS was hardly possible. I would like to point out one peculiarity of the Allgemeine SS. The Allgemeine SS did not have a legal character; it did not have any property of its own; the property was owned by the party, that is to say, the Reich Treasurer who would decide about all important administrative matters.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Pardon me, do I understand that the Reich Party Treasurer -do I understand that the party treasurer and the Reich Treasurer were the same?
A Well, the Reich Treasurer was the party treasurer; they were the same; that was Reich Treasurer Schwarz; he was treasurer of the NSDAP, and he was called the Reich Treasurer Official.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
The Reich Treasurer had nothing to do with Reich funds. He only looked after the funds of the NSDAP. He had nothing to do with the Reich Ministry of Finance. The designation "Reich Treasurer" was only an expression. That was only a title which might be misleading. He had nothing to do with the Reich. He was only a Party official. He was responsible for the Party throughout the Reich. That probably was the reason.
The Reich Treasurer had reserved for himself the right to make all administrative decisions. He bought all houses, sites, lands, and so on. He had his own auditing department. An auditor of the NSDAP was the only man to audit the Treasury of the Allgemeine SS. He reserved the right for himself to establish telephone installations, and he was so potty in these things that it was hardly bearable.
In order to clear these things up, I would like to tell the Court a very brief episode. The Reich Treasurer in wartime insisted upon giving permission to have certain changes in the telephone installations effected, and only after his approval could the repairs be carried out. Bills had to be submitted to him for payment. Now, an agency once transferred a telephone from one room to the next, which amounted to about RM 3.50. The firm submitted the bill to the Reich Treasurer. Because of that small incident, which had not been previously approved by the office of the Reich Treasurer, there was a correspondence lasting for six months, which illustrates the pettiness of the agency of the Reich Treasurer.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q Witness, what did the administration of the Allgemeine SS do in wartime? Please tell us the main things.
A In wartime the administration of the Allgemeine SS concerned itself first of all with preserving property values, houses, furniture, machines, and so forth. Secondly, it looked after members and relatives of members who were killed or of those fighting at the front.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
The main work arose when a new wage scale was introduced by the NSDAP. It was extended to the Allgemeine SS after April 1, 1942. This was a wage scale with entirely new directives which did not lead to any simplification. There were so-called efficiency grades. It was almost a science to figure out how long a man had served, and it took about a year to learn it properly. The smallest planning agency had to be negotiated with the Reich Treasurer. Pohl charged me with the introduction of these measures, and therefore in 1942 and 1943 I was extremely busy.
I could perhaps briefly describe how Office A-I was staffed. The budgetary department of the Waffen SS from the beginning had only one officer. He was a Hauptsturmfuehrer; because actually in wartime very little was to be done there. The Savings Association of the SS at first had only one officer, one non-commissioned officer and a secretary. In 1943 the officer was transferred and only a non-commissioned officer and a secretary remained.
Q What was the activity of the Savings Association?
A The Savings Association was based on an order by Himmler. All full time members of the SS, Waffen SS, had to save. Compulsory deductions were made from their salaries up to a certain amount. That contribution did not bear any interest. It was kept there without any interest, but on the other hand from these saving contributions loans without interest could be granted. The amount saved there, as far as I can recollect, at the end of the war was about RM 8,000,000 or 9,000,000, which, to a large extent, was invested in Reich Treasury Bonds of three and a half per cent.
Q Witness, you were about to tell us the personnel strength of Amt A-I. Will you please continue to do so?
A We discussed the Waffen SS and the Savings Administration. The Administration of the Allgemeine SS was not situated in Berlin, but in Munich. From 1942 onward, until 1944, it consisted -- although I am not able to say precisely -- of five officers and five or six secret Court No. II, Case No. 4.aries.
In 1944 or 1945 they were reduced to about two or three officers.
Q Witness, were you not also charged with supervision of A-II?
A Well-
Q Will you answer my question?
A It was in 1944 at Easter that the Chief of Office A-II, Obersturmbannfuehrer Eggert, because the administration had to be simplified, was transferred to a unit in the field. The position of the chief of A-II was no longer filled because the administration was simplified, and work became less and less. The Office A-II-3 with its treasury was taken out of Office A-II and was put together with the budget department. I was put in charge of the remaining organization. I took part in the supervision there. I particularly took care of the wage-paying department of the Waffen SS, which was not using machines in order to save personnel, and to simplify all the forms to be filled in by the Waffen SS and to centralize them, that was part of the duties of A-II.
I would like to add here that all forms of the Waffen SS were included in this except the forms needed by the concentration camps and Office Group D. These were printed in the concentration camps especially, and we never saw a single one of those forms.
Q Witness, were you later on charged with the so-called simplification of administration, and what was that simplification?
A From 1943 onwards, in order to save personnel, still more simplification and centralization were insisted on. I was active when this was done from the end of 1943 onwards. I believe that it was in the spring of 1944 that the then Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl was ordered by the Reichsfuehrer to see to it that the Todt Organization be simplified. This was based on an order by Hitler to Himmler. Pohl ordered me to take part in this simplification of the Todt Organization, and I worked on it until the end of the war. That took up about ninety per cent of my total work, and this activity took me away from Berlin Court No. II, Case No. 4.about two-thirds of my time.
The staff consisted of three persons-one Ministerial-Counsellor of the Todt Organization, a director of an industrial concern -- I believe of the VIAG, V-I-A-G, but I can not recall the name, and I had to handle the administrative work which was done on a similar basis as that in the Waffen SS.
Q What was the purpose of that simplification?
A The purpose was mainly to save manpower for the front. That was the reason why the Hollerith machines were introduced when wages were paid in the Waffen SS. This saved personnel to almost eighty per cent.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Mr. President, this might be a suitable moment for a recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 0930 tomorrow morning.
(Whereupon the Tribunal recessed until 0930 hours 13 June 1947.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 June 1947, 0945-1630, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
DR. HAENSEL (For Defendant Georg Loerner): Your Honors, since everything went so quickly I must not forget that Georg Loerner will begin his case on Monday. I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would permit that Georg Loerner could possibly be excused this afternoon from the sessions so that I can speak with him. Could his absence possibly be granted for this afternoon?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the defendant's right to be present is his personel right, and if he wishes to be absent that is his privilege. He may waive his right to be personally present, and the Court will excuse him this afternoon.
HANS LOERNER- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, how were you paid?
A. In the General-SS I was paid according to the wage scales which were in effect for the General-SS and had been issued by the Reich Treasury and that according to the respective rank. In the Waffen-SS, however, I received my pay according to the Reich Pay Regulation "C" which applied to the soldiers. My last pay corresponded to that of a Colonel.
Q. And what was your pay as a total?
A. My last total pay in the General-SS, that is in 1939, before the war, amounted to approximately four hundred to four hundred and fifty marks a month.
My last total pay with the Waffen-SS as a colonel was approximately six hundred and fifty to seven hundred marks per month.
Q. What would have been your pay if you had joined the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the war?
A. I had already stated that at the beginning of the war I would have joined the army as a captain in the reserve. In the course of the years, if I would have been paid as a man who was doing front-line duty, I would have received the same amount as I did in the Waffen-SS.
Q. Did you participate in any Aryanization?
A. No, I had nothing to do with those things.
Q. Did you have any powers to impose punishments, and that in a military or civilian respect?
A. During my membership in the Waffen-SS I had the power to inflict punishment only once, and that right was that of a company commander. That was doing my membership in the Waffen-SS division, as the man in charge of the food office. Apart from that, during the entire time of my membership in the SS I had no powers to inflict punishment, and as chief of an office in the WVHA I could not punish anybody either. I didn't have any powers or the authority to arrest a civilian. I had no authority whatsoever to do so. I only had the authority that every officer in the Wehrmacht had.
Q. Did you participate in the excesses of the 9th of November, 1938?
A. No. During my entire membership in the SS, and also prior to that, I never participated in excesses against Jews or people who had different political ideas than I did. On that famous Sunday, or rather on the 9th to the 10th of November, 1938, I was in Nurnberg. I only heard about the excesses early in the morning when I arrived to my office. I was not on duty. The administrative officers were never forced to be on duty.
In connection with these excesses I can recall one case very well. An administrative officer in Nurnberg, that is an SS-administrative officer, on that particular night had entered a Jewish apartment. He was reported, and he was interrogated by the leader of that particular division, and I was present during that interrogation. He was immediately placed before a regular court, and according to my recollection he was sentenced to three to four years imprisonment.
Q. What sources of information were at your disposal as an SS-leader?
A. In my position as Chief of Office A-1, I only received orders and accepted those which dealt with my field of tasks. Apart from that I know all the general orders which appeared in the current publications of the Waffen-SS and of the army, for instance, the Verordnungblatt of the Waffen-SS, Regulations Gazette of the Waffen-SS, and the Army Gazette, the General Army Information, and similar gazettes. Secret matters were only brought to the knowledge of those officers who had something to do with them, and they were strictly obligated to keep them secret. Apart from that I only had two sources of information at my disposal, namely newspapers and radio. As far as listening to enemy radios and enemy broadcasts was concerned, we were forbidden to do so under punishment. If anyone would have turned me, an SSleader, in and stated that I had listened to an enemy broadcasting station, I probably would have been punished more severely than any other German.
Q. During your activity, did any orders become known to you, the execution of which can be considered to be a crime against humanity and war crimes?
A. No, during my entire activity in the SS I never heard of any such orders.
Q. What was your training, or of what did your training consist as an SS-leader?
A. Well, as far as the actual SS schools are concerned, we hardly received any as administrative leaders. We had so much work to do that we hardly participated in any such courses.
During my activity with the General-SS I can only recall one course, and that was, I believe, in 1938 here near Nurnberg, and that course actually consisted of nothing more than a tale of the ancient history of the Germans, and also of a visit of old ruins in this area. In the WaffenSS and during the war we had no courses whatsoever, nor did we receive any training.
Q. Do you know anything about the preparations for the war, or did anything strike you?
A. No. In the General-SS we only engaged in sports, small-caliber shooting, and shooting with pistols.
Q. What about the invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia?
A. We also only found out in the morning through the radio. Furthermore, I would like to add that the Reich Party Rally in 1939? where I had to see to it that the SS people had their food and their billets, worked out normally until the 30th of September 1939.
Q. You mean the 30th of August, don't you?
A. Yes, I mean the 30th of August. I am sorry. I made a mistake. We had all the food supplies stored here in Nurnberg. All the preparatory detachments had already arrived so that none of us could expect that there would be a war.
I would like to point out one more case here at the present moment, that after the campaign in France I was ordered back to Nurnberg, I believe that was in July, 1940, in order to organize a Reichs Party Rally for 1940. I was in Nurnberg for a approximately four to five weeks in that particular detachment, or rather on that task, and it was only after five weeks the preparations were discontinued and we were told that Hitler's proposal for peace to his enemies had not been accepted.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Did anything change in your official capacity or activity after the annexation of the inspectorate of the concentration camps as Amtsgruppe D into the WVHA?
A There was no change in the administration. The inspectorate of the concentration camps was taken over with its own administration and this administration worked on just as it had before. I had similar work to do with the administrative officers of the concentration camps; namely, insofar as army administration matters were concerned which were a part of my field of task.
Q How was it with the forms of the concentration camps; you mentioned those yesterday.
A I have already stressed yesterday that all the forms of the concentration camps actually were in contradiction with all the other forms of the Waffen-SS. They were printed in their own publishing houses in the concentration camps, and never became known to us.
Q Were you in any connection whatsoever with the economic enterprises of the SS?
A No. I had nothing to do with the Sector W. It did not deal with the budget of the Waffen-SS, and, therefore, I couldn't give you any information whatsoever about that Sector. I only knew the organizational charts and its sub-divisions. However, I never dealt with that matter.
Q How was it with the deportation of the civilian inhabitants from the occupied territories?
A I never dealt with that matter.
Q Confiscation of property abroad?
A I had nothing to do with that either, nor did I have any right to do so.
Q And with the Prisoners of War?
A I had nothing to do with them either.
Q Were you in any connection with the labor assignment of inmates?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A I knew that the inmates in the concentration camps were being used for labor; it was known to me that as far as labor allocation was concerned--certain monetary amounts were transferred to the Reich due to the labor. And that was the nucleus of the Reich Finance Ministry. I was interested in it insofar that the funds that were coming in to the bank were transferred to the Reich. I did not have any influence whatsoever on the amounts, that the inmates were getting any part of their pay, if the inmates themselves received anything at all from all that money, I did not know. Nor did I know anything at all, and nor did I have any influence as to how the inmates were used when working.
Q Didn't you participate in the reorganization of the wagescales for inmates? You saw a document here containing a file note of your co-defendant Baier, according to which your participation had been planned.
A I know that file note from the documents. It says that Pohl wanted to have my assistance while reorganizing the wage-scale. However, I never joined him because shortly afterwards I received the order to participate in the simplification of the administration of the organization TODT; and I can only understand the whole case to be that Pohl wanted to consult me. I had experience in the conditions of the workers who were being used in the Reich enterprises. There was quite a book about it, the so-called TOA, the wage-scales for workers. And I assume that some of these regulations were to be taken over into this new camp regulation book. However, I would like to stress again that I never participated. Who worked out this new regulation, I couldn't tell you.
Q Did you know of the medical and biological experiments of the concentration camps, or the so-called Euthanasia program? Did you know of them at the time?
A No.
Q Witness, I shall now proceed to a few documents which were Court No. II, Case No. 4.introduced by the Prosecution, and which refer to you.
I have one question to ask you about the chart on the wall here; that is the question which I already asked the defendant Frank, which, however, I would like to have clarified by you also. You are mentioned there as Chief of Office A-2 from 1943 to 1945. How is that?
A I have already stated during my examination yesterday that the chief of Amt A-2 was only transferred at Easter of '44 in order to save personnel in that office. After the transfer of Eckert, the Planning Office remained vacant, and from that moment on I supervised along with my other tasks, Amt A-2. If the chart had been shown to me before, I would have drawn your attention to that mistake. However, I only just saw this chart here in this Tribunal when it was introduced in evidence.
Q Did you become a deputy of the defendant Fanslau when in the summer of 1944 he was charged with supervising the affairs as Chief of Amtsgruppe A?
A Yes; I was a deputy according to my position. However, I never was appointed as deputy. At the time due to my activity with the OT, the organization TODT, I was absent from Berlin about twothirds of the time. It practically worked out in such a manner that when Fanslau was absent some other leader--either I or the chief of Amt A-3 had to be present. Apart from that, the activity had been restricted in such a way in the offices A-1, 2, and 3, and furthermore A-4 was no longer in Berlin--that there was not very much deputizing to be done.
Q What was the title which you used when signing for the General SS after Frank had been transferred to the Police?
A The name of it used to be Reich Treasury Administrator of the SS. That name, in the autumn of 1943 was changed to Administrative Chief of the General SS. In other words, in contradiction to the Waffen-SS, when Frank was transferred to the Police, I became deputy in his place in the Administration of the General-SS, and was thus sub Court No. II, Case No. 4.ordinated directly to Pohl.
I signed as such, namely, Administrative Chief of the General-SS in deputizing: I.V. (in Vertretung.)
Q The defendant Sommer in his affidavit, which is is Document Book No. 1, and which was introduced as Exhibit No. 13, Document 1578; on page 64 of the English Document Book and on page 78 of the German text has stated in that affidavit that the income for the use of inmates was transferred through the WVHA to the Reich. Is that correct?
A No; that is not correct. I assume that the defendant Sommer made a mistake here because he probably does not know the budgetary regulations. All income of the Reich had to be immediately transferred by the treasury which received it. In other words, if the treasury of the concentration camp Oranienburg had received an amount of 2,000,000 RM for inmate labor, then that amount had to be transferred immediately and directly to the Reich Main Treasury. The WVHA did not participate in that.
Q In Document Book No. 21, you will find Exhibit 41, Document 504, on page 75 of the German and on page 70 of the English Document Books. There you will find a report by Pohl to Himmler concerning the budgetary negotiations which had been carried out with the economic leader of Germany in 1942. What can you tell us about it?
A These negotiations with the Reich Minister of Finance were the only action in which Office A-1, as a budgetary office, actually appeared. This is the chart for the planning offices during peacetime. Furthermore, it can be seen from this document quite clearly that the Waffen-SS during the war had an open budget because no negotiations were carried out about any fixed amounts during these budgetary negotiations. Furthermore, it was the only and the last budgetary negotiation with the Reich Minister of Finance during the war. Later on, there were no more budgetary conferences. The peacetime planning offices had no influence on anything during the war because during the war they did not work according to peacetime standards, but Court No. II, Case No. 4.only according to war planning agencies.
Those things were not subject to the approval by the Reich Finance Minister. Every main office chief himself could set up this thing and approve it. The SS Operational Main Office was competent for the SS.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q In Document Book No. 3, you will find as Exhibit 75, Document NO-2327 on page 121 of the German and page 109 of the English Document Book, the affidavit of Pister. In this affidavit, Pister states that you had participated in the regular conferences with the concentration camp commandants. Is that correct?
A No, Pister must have made a mistake here, or otherwise it is a lie. At no time did I participate in a conference of the commanders, nor did I participate in any conference of Amtsgruppe D. I was never ordered to do so. In other words, I was never called upon to do so, and, furthermore, I had no business there. Furthermore, I only knew Pister from sight and I believe I only saw him once or twice in my life.
Q Is it possible that Pister confused the official conferences here with some sort of a comradely or social meeting?
A I assume that Pister got those two things confused and that he probably was thinking about that social dinner which Pohl mentioned during his examination when I met Pister.
Q During this dinner did you speak about the treatment of concentration camp inmates and about the conditions in the camps?
A No. No, we were glad we were off duty and that then we didn't have to talk shop. Apart from that, during special meetings all the commanders of the individual office groups were sitting together.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH (ATTORNEY FOR HANS LOERNER): Your Honor, I shall introduce an affidavit by Pister, together with my document book, which will confirm this defendant's statement.
Q Witness, in Document Book No. 4, Exhibit 86, we have Document 517. It is on page 46 of the German and 34 of the English text. There is a file note in it by the defendant Baier and that file note is about some camp regulation of the inmates and it says there, "Furthermore Oberfuehrer Loerner is also to be included in this." When this camp regulation was set up, did you participate in it and did Court No. II, Case No. 4.it deal with the wages of the inmates which we have previously discussed?
A During my previous answer concerning labor assignment, I thought of this document. It's the same matter and I have stated what the reasons are for my assumption that Pohl wanted to consult me. However, this never did happen.
Q Exhibit 78, that is Document NO-2117 on page 4 of the German and on page 3 of the English Document Book No. 4 is a letter dated the 2nd of September, 1942, to the Reich Auditing Court of the German Reich and it deals with the repayment of an amount amounting to 300,000 Reichsmarks to the Police Treasury in Danzig for the Labor Camp of Stutthof. This letter is signed by you. What does it deal with and what do you wish to tell us about it?
A I shall have to go into detail about this. As can be seen from various documents already in the years of 1940 and 1941, by the Amt. A-II, the Office Budget and Construction, conferences were carried out that the Labor Camp at Stutthof should be changed into a concentration camp. At that time I did not participate. I never was a member of the Office of Budget and Construction. After the establishment of the WVHA, a report from the Auditing Court in that matter, was transferred to Office A-IV. It was not a matter which was dealt with by Office A-IV, because it referred to funds for the Police. In that report of the Auditing Court, the repayment of an amount of 300,000 Marks was being asked for -- I believe, to be exact, it was 299,000 Marks and something--which the Police Treasury in Danzig had furnished between the 1st of October, 1939 and the 1st of April, 1940, for the labor camp at Stutthof for the Higher Police Leaders in Danzig. All the labor camps were under the supervision of these Higher SS and Police Leaders. Since this was a budgetary matter, at the time I had a conference with the Chief of Office A-IV, the Defendant Vogt, in Potsdam. I can recall that conference very well, due to the reason that during the conversation, an air raid took place, which lasted for Court No. II, Case No. 4.quite a while and we had to spend half an hour in the air raid shelter of the Auditing Court.