A Little while after that I was called in for a conference by the Chief of the Personnel Office, Obersturmbannfuehrer Bachl. There the details of my employment were discussed. I was told that I might be used in a Budgetary office of the SS Special Task Troops, in order to be used in the Auditing Department there. Furthermore I was told that I might be able to get a promotion later on, if I did all right, and I would receive with the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer in an office which was included in the budget. These assurances actually compelled me to give my consent to join the SS Special Task Troops, because as an inspector my salary was rather small. I had three children who were to be trained professionally and who needed all my money. There was hardly any chance for me to get a promotion in my civilian job, because I was not a member of the Party. However, my transfer to the SS could not take place immediately in 1936 because positions included in the budget were not vacant. That was the reason why I was used as a part-time employee in the Auditing Court. On the 1st of April, 1937, by the Reich Labor Ministry which was my superior authority, upon the application of the Administrative Office of the SS, my resignation was approved, so that I could work in the SS, with my previous salary as an inspector. On the 1st of April, 1938, after having received the approval of the Budgetary Office of the SS Special Task Troops I was transferred to a position provided in the budget as Obersturmfuehrer.
DR. SCHMIDT: Mr. President, After the witness has made this statement I would like, in order to strengthen his testimony with reference to the reasons which caused his transfer to the Administrative Office of the SS -- I would like to show you a document, which is an affidavit by the Ex-chief of the Personnel Office of the Administrative Office of the SS in Munich, whose name is Eduard Bach. It is contained in Document Book No. 1, page 1 of the German, pages 1 to 2. I would like to introduce this document as Exhibit Josef Vogt No. 1.
MR. ROBBINS: I should like to reserve the right of the prosecution to object to these documents at a later date.
I haven't received a copy of them as yet.
DR. SCHMIDT: I am in a position to give the prosecution an English copy of the Document Book.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: I expect you will have to loan me one this afternoon. I may have one in my office.
DR. SCHMIDT: In order to save time, I would like simply to introduce this affidavit by Eduard Bach and I don't want to read it. I would appreciate it if this Tribunal would take judicial notice of the contents of this affidavit.
In this connection I would like to take the liberty of introducing a second document, which is an affidavit by one named Kurt Ihssen, Naval captain retired. From 1932 to 1934 he lived in the same house with the Defendant Vogt in Munich and he is well acquainted with both his personal and family relationship. The affidavit is Document Josef Vogt No. 2. It is also contained in the Document Book on pages 3 to 7. I shall introduce this as Vogt Exhibit No. 2. From this longer affidavit here, which also contains other points, I would only like to read one paragraph. That is paragraph 6 of the German copy. In the English copy it is also paragraph 6 on page 4 at the bottom of the page:
"About the beginning of 1936, - I cannot recall the exact date Herr Vogt approached me with another request, namely whether it would not be possible to secure his re-employment in the military administration, because he was a soldier with all his heart. I discussed the matter with the competent administrative agency, at Corps Area Headquarters VII (Oberstabszahlmeister Rubenbauer). Thereupon, Vogt submitted the appropriate application for re-employment. However, as far as I can remember, when, later on, I inquired at Corps Area Headquarters VII, I was informed that the existing vacancies had been filled."
Q Witness, towards the end you spoke of the fact than from the 1st of April, 1938 on, you were transferred to the SS Administration. To what administrative agency that you were transferred at that time?
A I was transferred to the Preliminary Auditing Department of the Main Auditing office of the Administrative Office of the SS, as an special expert for the SS VT. There I had to carry out the preliminary auditing of the accounts of the Treasury of the SS Special Task Troops and also the extraordinary auditing of the Treasury.
Q What units of the Special Task Troops were subordinated to your Preliminary Auditing Activity in the Office?
A In my field of tasks, the treasuries of the SS-Regiment Deutschland, the SS-Regiment Germania, the Combat Engineer Units and Signal Units were subordinated to me.
Q Did you have to carry out the preliminary auditing of the Death Head Units at the time?
A No, the Death Head Units were audited by some other office. They were audited up by Dr. Lange.
Q At that time did you have to carry out the preliminary auditing of the accounts of the concentration camps?
A No, these also were checked by some other office, to be exact by the Chief Inspector of the Police Hauptsturmfuehrer Heiden.
Q As you just told us, you were in the Main Auditing Department of the Administrative Office of the SS in Munich. Were you at that time appointed the chief of that department or of that main office?
A No, I only worked there as an expert.
Q Were you the deputy for the Chief of that Office?
A No.
Q How long did you remain in the Auditing Department?
A Until the middle of August 1939.
Q And what happened then?
A That department was then dissolved.
Q The Auditing Department was dissolved?
A Yes.
Q And what happened to you?
A I was transferred as an administrative officer to the Death Head Regiment at Dachau. That transfer I refused, because I was not part of the Death Head Unit Budget, so to speak, but I was under the supervision of the SS Special Task Troops. I became sick. Early in September I received a special assignment to represent the Administrative Chief of the Munich Garrison. From there early in October, 1939, I was transferred to the Berlin Office, K-I.
Q What kind of an office was that?
A Office K.I. was the corps administration of the SS Special Task groups and had the tasks of a medium level, and was under the supervision both disciplinarily and administratively of the SS Operational Main Office.
Q Did Office K. I. become the administrative office of the Waffen SS later on?
A Yes.
Q That office was not the Main Office of the SS, was it?
A No, as I have stated before, it was an office of the medium level and it was incorporated into the Operational Main Office.
Q Would you like to tell this Tribunal now what your activity consisted of at the time in the administration corps area?
A Well, I was in charge of the auditing department. My task was to carry out the preliminary auditing of the accounts, of the treasuries, of the newly established SS divisions, at the time. Apart from that I had to carry out the extraordinary auditing of the accounts of these treasures.
Q What kind of newly established SS divisions were these? Could you tell us some names of those divisions?
A They were the Divisions Leibstandarte, Division Reich, the Police Division, and the Death Head Division.
Q You just spoke of the Death Head Division, is that the same unit which formerly dealt with the guarding of concentration camps, or is this some other units?
A No, the Death Head Division was a combat unit and had nothing to do with the guarding of the concentration camps.
EXAMINATION BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO):
Q Originally they were guards, were they not? Weren't the Death Head units originally guards in the concentration camps?
AAccording to my recollection the personnel from those Death Head units was transferred to the Death Head Division. In other words, the Death Head Division was formed from the ranks of the Death Head units.
Q But you just said a moment ago that the Death Head units had nothing to do with guarding concentration camps. I now ask you if they did not originally serve as guards.
A Your Honor, may I point out something here? The Death Head Division which I am talking about had been set up as a fighting unit and it consisted of personnel of the former Death Head units.
Q Which served as guards originally?
A Yes.
Q That's right. Thank you.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q Witness, do you know whether the Death Head Division which you just mentioned consisted of other units also, or did it simply and exclusively consist of the members of the Death Head units who were guards in the concentration camps?
A I am not very well informed about this Death Head Division. If I were to say something here, it would be nothing but an assumption on my part. I couldn't give you any correct information on that.
Q In this auditing department, in Office K. I., as you just said, you had to carry out the extraordinary checking of accounts with the treasuries of the army and also you had to carry out the preliminary checking for the auditing court. Did that activity of yours at the time also extend to the treasures of concentration camps?
A No. The Office K. I. had nothing to do with the concentration camps. The preliminary auditing of the concentration camps at the time was under the supervision of the Main Office Budget and Construction, which was the ministerial level; and to be exact, it was part of the tasks of Office I/1.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, in this connection I should like to draw to your attention the prosecution document NO-620, which was Exhibit Number 33 in Document Book Number 2. That is an organizational chart of the Budget and Construction Office; and from that chart it can be seen that in that office I/1 such a preliminary auditing office for the accounting service had been established.
That is the agency which the witness has just mentioned in his last answer as being competent for the auditing of the treasuries of the concentration camps.
Q Did you have anything to do with the Office Budget and Construction at the time?
A No, the Main Office Budget and Construction was the ministerial level all right. However, my activity as preliminary auditing I had nothing to do with the preliminary checking of Office Budget and Construction.
Q Were you ever active in that office?
A No.
Q Now I shall speak about the establishment of the WVHA on the 1st of February 1942. From that moment on you became the chief of the auditing office A IV. Did your field of tasks of your sphere of activities show a change factually?
A There was a factual change insofar as the supervision of the treasuries, the auditing of the treasuries, was transferred to the subordinated agencies of the medium level. My office retained only the preliminary auditing of the three hundred office treasuries, that existed at the time. The change occurred only in the extension of my sphere of activities due to the fact that the office for preliminary auditing of the Main Office Budget and Construction was incorporated into this auditing office. The extension, however, was unimportant at the time. It amounted to between five per cent, of the entire office.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, I shall now come to those various tasks, and I believe that this would be a perfect moment to call a recess before I touch on this subject.
THE. PRESIDENT: Without objection, the Tribunal will recess until Monday morning at 0930.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 0930 Monday morning the 16th of June.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 16 June 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 16 June 1947, 0940-1630, 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.
JOSEPH VOGT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
DR. SCHMIDT: Dr. Schmidt for the defendant Joseph Vogt. Your Honor, may I continue my examination of the witness on the dock?
I would like to speak now about the field of task of Amt A-IV and that in detail. Before I put any questions to that effect to the defendant, I would like to read to this Tribunal various regulations, legal regulations, which are in close connection with the auditing of accounts. The defendant in his statements will refer to many of those regulations and I believe that the Tribunal will be able to understand the matter much better if it knows these regulations.
First of all I shall introduce an excerpt from the Reich Budget Order or Reich Budget Regulations. It is Document No. 3 in my document book for Joseph Vogt, Reich Budget Report, printed in the Reich Legal Gazette, 1923, Part II, page 17. That is dated the 31st of December, 1922. I shall introduce this document as Exhibit Joseph Vogt No. 3.
Furthermore, there is an excerpt from the Reich Treasury Regulations of the 6th of August, 1927, Reich Ministerial Gazette, on page 357. It is in document book - or rather it is in my document book as Document No. 4 and will become Joseph Vogt Exhibit No. 4. Then I would like to introduce another regulation, which is an excerpt from the Reich Auditing Supervision Regulations in Document Book Joseph Vogt, as Document No. 5. That is a special law for the 3rd of July, 1929, which is contained in the report, Reich Ministerial Gazette, page 349. I shall introduce this document as Exhibit No. 5.
Then we have a report, or an excerpt rather, from the PreliminaryExamination Regulation, and it is Document No. 6 in our document book. The preliminary examination regulations for the provinces are contained in the Reich Ministerial Gazette from page 108 onwards, dated 1937. It will become Exhibit Vogt No. 6.
Finally I have an excerpt from Regulations in Accounting and Auditing during the War. It is a Reich law of the 5th of July, 1940. This law is also called the war-control law. It is contained in the Reich Legal Gazette, Part II, on page 139. In Document Book Joseph Vogt it is contained as Document No. 7 and it will become Exhibit No. 7.
DR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, it is not my intention to read all these regulations. However, I would appreciate it if this Tribunal would take judicial notice of this.
Q. I shall now deal with the question to the defendant and I would like to ask you witness, to please give this Tribunal a short description of the field of tasks of your office A-IV in the WVHA?
A. The auditing office A-IV organizationally was part of the WVHA. However, with reference to its field of tasks it was more of an auxilliary part of the auditing court of the German Reich. With the transfer of the supervision of the Treasury to the medium levels, when WVHA was established, the WVHA auditing office A-IV only had the preliminary checking of the accounting of those various official treasuries, however, was not in the competence of the WVHA but exclusively with the auditing court. In other words neither the chief of Amtsgruppe A nor the chief WVHA could order the prelininary checking themselves. The auditing court only was the one that could do this. The checking office A-IV, therefore, at certain periods of time had to send a report about auditing work done to the auditing court. On the basis of that report, the auditing court then decided which audits will be carried out by the court of audits, which audits will be carried out by office A-IV, and which preliminary checks will not be made at all. The Auditing Court was from the Reich Government, independent and it was subordinate only to the Reich laws. As it can be seen from paragraph 118 of the Reich Budget regulations.
Q. Your Honor, may I read this particular paragraph 118 from the Reich Budget Order. It is just one sentence it reads: "The court of Audits is an independent organization as far as the Reich is concerned and is therefore only under the supervision of the highest Reich authority according to the law."
A. According to paragraph 97 of the Reich Budget Code the court of audits had to supervise the entire auditing matters, with that checked in incomes or expenses of the SS organization. The auditing consists of two parts: First of all, the preliminary checking by the administrative office itself and second, in the checking, which is the final checking by the court of audits. The final checking of the auditing court during the war extended particularly to the following points: First of all, if the incomes and expenses both factually and as a budget matter were justified and if they had a bill for each of the expenses or income. Furthermore, if they had acted economically. I shall refer here to paragraph 96 of the Reich Bidget Code. The dim of the preliminary checking was to prepare the checking of the various dues and expenses by the court of audits. I shall refer here to paragraph 10 of the preliminary checking regulations of the court of audits for the provinces.
Q. Witness, may I interpolate. When you quoted paragraph 96 of the Reich Budget Code apparently you only thought of paragraphs 2 and 3. Paragraph 1 reads that the preliminary checking of the accounts has to extend to the final checking of the budget whether the budget has been complied with. You only spoke of the checking during the war. Did anything change in that respect as compared with the time before the war?
A. I should also like to refer to paragraph 2 here. Paragragh 1 could no longer be valid for the war because there was no such thing as a closed budget.
Q. So that really with reference to that the accounting and auditing during the war no longer had to deal with the M-2-3-HD-June 16-Love-Simha.
Budget?
A. Yes.
Q. In your statements you have repeatedly used the words "accounts and checking of accounts." What do you mean by the word "accounts" in that respect?
A. By accounts I mean are those slips and bills which are to be submitted according to the law and to be submitted with all the other necessary bills, that is to say, to balance the accounts. This can also be seen from paragraph 2 of the preliminary checking regulation for the provinces.
Q. This particular regulation which you just mentioned, did that apply to your preliminary checking activity within the Waffen-SS?
A. Yes, the regulations about the preliminary checking with the Waffen-SS generally speaking were parallel with the orders of the Army but those regulations were coordinated up with the particular regulations for the provinces.
Q. For your preliminary checking activity did you have a special order from the WVHA?
A. No, I didn't have a special order from the WVHA, there was no such thing. As I already stated before the Army regulations were competent for me.
Q. When was it that this preliminary checking activity of your office began?
A. The activity of the chocking office could only really begin when the accounting had been carried out with all the vouchers by those agencies carrying on the accounts and after they had been submitted. The checking office was told about the expenses of those agencies usually several months after the expenses had already occurred.
Q. Did your checking office have the possibility to actually contribute when these regulations were set up?
A. The checking office did not have any possibility to contribute or participate in the establishment of the regulations of the administrative agencies or to influence it in any way. It only heard about the various administrative decisions afterwards, subsequently, when the vouchers were submitted to office A-IV. However, at that particular moment the various administrative decisions had already been made long ago. Administrative decisions without any financial result never became known to office A-IV.
Q. Can you give us an example of an administrative without financial effects?
A. Every regulation which was not in connection with money or money transfers. When Amtsgruppe B, ordered that the clothing store was to give one thousand pairs of gloves to Reserve Batallion then this was administrative action which did not become known to office A-IV.
June-16-M-MJ-3-1-Schwab-(Simha)
Q. Did your office carry out any supervisory activity with reference to various other offices of the WVHA when checking?
A. No. The Office A-4 neither had the possibility, nor the power, to do so, to supervise other agencies of the WVHA in carrying out administrative regulations.
The Office A-4 only would act when the administrative decrees and regulations had been concluded, and had only to carry out the additional, subsequent checking, from a treasury or budgetary side, to find out if there were any mistakes in a formal, factual or accounting direction.
Q. You just spoke of mistakes in formal, factual, or accounting respects. Is it correct that the preliminary checking was subdivided into these three directions?
A. Yes. The preliminary checking actually consisted of the formal, factual and in the accounting way of the bills. The formal preliminary checking, first of all, had to check up and see if the bills were correctly and completely computed. The accounting actually meant the re-checking of the accounts and the finding out that all the figures contained in the bills were correct, as compared with each other. The actual preliminary checking was carried out to the effect to see if the budgetary regulations had been complied with. I refer here to paragraph 16 of the Preliminary Checking Code of the Provinces.
Q. This reference to paragraph 16 here, however, only refers to the factual preliminary checking?
A. Yes, and as far as the formal accounting is concerned, paragraph 14 is concerned. And paragraphs 14, 15, and 16 concerned the accountings etc.
Q. I would like to refer to the details of which the witness has not spoken now; they are contained in those regulations here.
Witness are you in a position to explain to us the reason for the checking carried out, part of which, according to your statements, this preliminary checking was?
And could you explain to us briefly so that we can all understand you?
A. The tasks of the preliminary checking, generally speaking, as I have already stated, are contained in paragraph 16 of the Reich Budget Regulation. The auditing, Office, like any other accounting and auditing has the sole purpose to find certain mistakes or certain violations of regulations, and eliminate them in such a way that they will not be repeated again, by taking the necessary measures.
The existence itself of an auditing office has a good effect in itself. It has preventive effect.
Q. Witness, you were telling us about the accounting as such, and auditing. Was that auditing a regular one? Was it a current auditing?
A. Before the war, at the beginning of the war, the preliminary checking of the agencies who wrote their accounts took place at regular intervals. In the course of the war, however, this activity limited itself because the biggest part of my auditing officials had to join the army. Furthermore, the transportation difficulties, became more and more complicated the longer the war lasted. The results of that was that the vouchers became less and less regular, and that they were submitted to Office A -4 much later. It was thus that the court audits of the German Reich had to carry out spot checks, and they ordered that the preliminary checking take place at longer periods of time.
Q. You told us that the court of audits carried out spot checks and that it had ordered preliminary checkings to take place every once in a while at a longer period of time. According to the law, was the court of audits in a position to renounce a regular and effective preliminary checking?
A. Yes. That was permissible. I shall refer now to paragraph 92 of the Reich Budgetary Code in the War Control Law of the 5th of June 1942.
It went even so far that the court of audits could renounce accounting, as such.
DR. SCHMIDT: (Counsel for the defendant Vogt); Your Honor, I would like to read this particular regulation which the defendant was referring to which is paragraph 92 of the Reich Budgetary Code, It says there, and I shall quote:
"The court of audits may renounce the total or part of the auditing done by the administrative offices temporaily or permanently.
THE PRESIDENT: Paragraph 3, is it not?
DR. SCHMIDT: Yes, it is paragraph 92, No. 3.
BY DR. SCHMIDT:
Q. Witness, what do you understand by spot checks?
A. When I carried out an accounting--that is to say, a "spot" check--the following things were done. First of all, the female workers worked out, with calculating machines the final account. Secondly, female employees also checked up on the fact if sums had been carried forward correctly in the accounts, and if they corresponded with the entries. Thirdly, the factual checking took place by the auditors themselves. Particularly, special expenses such as payer were checked. Factual accounting, did not regard any bills below one thousand marks. As far as other bills were concerned, above one thousand marks, they were checked in a spot-check way, namely, special expenses were checked. Factual checking was also carried out to the effect to see if all the expenses, had been carried out according to regulations.
Q. What was the difference, according to you between that particular checking, which was described by you as spot checks, and those which had been dealt with by codes and also those checking and audits which were carried out before the war at regular intervals?
A. Contrary to the regular preliminary audit, the spot check checking did not take place at regular intervals. In other words, it was not a current checking, and it depended on whether there was the necessary auditing personnel.
Apart from that, however, the spot checking ing was carried out to expedite its procedure, as I have already stated before.
Q. Due to the fact that no regular preliminary checking was carried out, was not the whole purpose of accounting being endangered?
A. No, the restriction was not known to the local agencies. They had to be prepared for a preliminary checking at any time. Apart from that the Court of Audits carried out preliminary auditing, even though there was nothing else but just spot checks. In spite of that fact that would mean a certain super vision, because no agency knew if it would not be the one that would be spot checked.
Q. And where was it that all the bills of all the SS agencies were checked up on?
A. Generally speaking, the agencies concerned sent their bills to Office A-4. In certain cases, Office A-4, would also carry out local preliminary checks. Gradually, however, these local preliminary checks were discontinued, because there we were short of personnel.
Q. This restriction of the auditing activity, how far did that have an influence on the continued existence of your office?
A. During the last months of the war in the agency of the preliminary checking office it was not possible to carry out a preliminary checking so that practically speaking, the activity in my office was virtually eliminated.
Q. Witness, may I interrupt you here? Would you explain to this Tribunal in detail the reasons why this preliminary checking activity was made more difficult?
A. First of all, we didn't have enough expert auditors. What I still had at my disposal was for the greatest part female personnel who just carried out merely, regular routine work; as far as expert auditors were concerned from the middle of 1942 on, or, say, 1944, I only had four administrative officers at my disposal. That situation forced the Court of Auditors to deal with the further existence of my office. That was the reason why I made the request that the office be entirely dissolved, due to the fact there wasn't much work to be done. This dissolution, however, was ordered later on and made effective the 1st of April.
Q. Of what year?
A. In 1945. It was in 1945. I myself was released. My personnel was transferred and the female personnel was released.
Q. Could you tell this Tribunal what the personnel strength of your office was in the years before that?
A. The highest personnel strength I had was in 1942. At that time the number of examiners, in other words, administrative officers, amounted to from 25 to 30; auxiliary forces, 20 NCO's and 30 to 40 female personnel. The period, when the people began getting released, began in 1942, and more radically, in 1943. When in the summer of 1943 my office was evacuated to Fuerstenberg, I had approximately 8 to 10 leaders and about 8 to 10 sub-leaders, or NCO's and 30 female workers. Then the release of personnel went on and on until there was hardly anybody left.
Q. You said before, witness -
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All told, how many did he have at the height of his personnel of his office?
WITNESS: Well, towards the beginning of 1942 there were approximately 70 to 80 people and at the end there was a total of 40 including the auxiliary forces, including about 20 to 30 women amongst them.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Does 70 to 80 include everybody that was in your office or under your command?
WITNESS: Yes.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: How many just before they closed, in April, 1945?
WITNESS: You mean, employees, including the leaders and everything?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Personnel.
WITNESS: You mean, including myself?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Yes.
WITNESS: Well, there were five officers, furthermore, 4 to 6 NCO's.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: We just want the total, just the total when your office was closed, the total.