Q. That is the only time?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you familiar with the food stocks of Dachau during the time of April, 1945?
A. In Dachau there was one of our big troop food depots which was in the actual village of Dachau at a distance of two or three kilometers from the camp. That warehouse served to supply our units with food, as I explained yesterday.
Q. During the month of April, 1945, when you were in Dachau, did you go to this food depot?
A. Yes, I went there.
Q. Did you observe the amount of stock of food which was in the warehouse?
A. Yes. The stocks were rather low because we had begun to evacuate that camp and bring these stocks further south in order to supply the troops there.
Q. And you knew at this time that the forces which were fighting Germany were moving closer and closer to Dachau, did you not?
A. Yes.
Q. Why didn't you, instead of evacuating that food, distribute it among the concentration camp prisoners, which you knew to be in Dachau?
A. I knew, of course, that there were inmates in Dachau, but their food was not among my tasks. As a troop administrative official it was my duty to supply the troops, and I carried out that order.
Q. Now, you have stated that you acted in a commendable manner at Dora. Do you mean to tell me when the need existed, you knew the need existed, that you were prevented by your ordered from making a similar distribution of food during the closing days of the war at Dachau?
A. It was not my impression that the inmates were short of food. Nobody told me anything about that, and I was not competent to do anything about it. I would be grateful if the Prosecution would understand that I might just as easily have conceived the idea to feed the civilian population, or railway officials. I do not wish to make the thing ridiculous, but I should have then opened my depot to the whole civilian population, but I had to serve the troops first.
MR. WALTON: The Prosecution has no further questions.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. You say the following in your affidavit: "Rations for concentration camps were not worked by us. I only know that on the last page of the ration table the rations for inmates were also listed, and the list itself, of course, was printed and distributed centrally." What list are you talking about when you say "the ration table"?
A. That was the list of rations yesterday mentioned by me of the Waffen-SS.
Q. All right. That is all I want to know. That is the Waffen-SS. Where was that list made out?
A. It was made out in my office, in Department I.
Q. Who put on that list in your office the concentration-camp menu or list also on the bottom?
A. That was done by Hauptsturmfuehrer Bomann, whom I mentioned before. He worked on that affair.
Q. In your office?
A. In my office, yes.
Q. Who distributed that list to the concentration camps from your office?
A. As I described yesterday, that went automatically through the post offices. Every administrative agency of the SS and police would automatically receive the list.
Q. It would go through the channels from your office to the troops and to the concentration camps?
A. It did not go immediately there, but, for instance, fifty of the lists were sent to Office Group D, Office D-1V, which in its turn distributed the lists to each administrative officer.
Q. I said through channels. I didn't say directly. I said through channels, from your office to the troops and to the concentration camps?
A. Yes, quite.
Q. Well now, if your office had nothing to do with the food of the concentration camps, why was your office preparing a list, on the list that went to the Waffen-SS, for the concentration camps?
A. How that came about originally I am unable to tell you today. When I joined the office an old copy of that list was on my desk, and when new issues were printed, the same procedure was observed. The reason probably was that the administrative leaders in concentration camps had suggested to include them in that list, because it should be a book of reference for the orientation of the administrative officials. I may point out that this list also includes other rations of people for whom we were not competent, for instance, food rations for what was known as armed forces employees, civilian employees of the Wehrmacht, including the WaffenSS, who were to be supplied through buyers, and who were given different food rations from the troops. So the administrative official would be informed it included all those rations, including very possible, although I am not quite sure, rations for prisoners of war, because that might reach the administrative official one day.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Well, regardless of why it was done, it remains a fact that the list of rations for the concentration camp inmates went out on your list prepared in your office to the Waffen SS and to the concentration camps?
A Yes, but that was not the normal channel. These food rations-
Q I didn't ask you anything about a channel; I just wanted to know if it was a fact. You say it is. You answered my question.
What special mission were you on in Dachau in the Spring of 1945 when you went there? You just stated that you were on a special mission.
A Yes, as I explained yesterday, that my office was dissolved on the 31st of March-
Q You need not go over that. I wanted to know what special mission you were on in Dachau. Now, you can answer that.
A I was given the order to help the supplying of the so-called Fortress Bavaria-Tyrol with food. Together with the administrative official of the general staff Boesler I was to concentrate all available food stocks in Bavaria in order to supply the troops with food in the future. This, therefore, was not an actual SS order. I worked on behalf of the entire army there.
Q How long were you in Dachau before you left there in order to go south?
A This might have been a period of a few days.
Q Well, I don't care how long it might have been. I am asking you how long it was.
A Two or three days perhaps.
Q You visited the inmates and saw the conditions of them there, didn't you?
A I am sorry, sir. No, I did not see the inmates; nor was I in the concentration camp proper. I saw a few around the outside camp who were working there as laborers and craftsmen.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Well, why didn't you go in there, if you were there on a food mission, to see those people: how they were looking and how they were fed? You were right there. Why didn't you go and look at them?
A I did not have permission at that time to enter the camp without a special pass, and my order was not to look after the feeding of the smaller circle of persons--but the food units from the point of view of the transport and organization. I was not there to inspect anything.
Q Well, don't you know now as a matter of fact that there were thousands of people literally starving to death in there? And in the few days after you left American troops came in there and found the most deplorable condition that civilization has ever known?
A I know now, but I doubt still that the inmates were starving in Dachau. I think they were starving on the transport from somewhere else to Dachau. It was not my impression that in this Bavarian area there was an acute starvation or famine.
Q Well, you had better inform yourself, if that is your idea now.
Did you destroy the records of Amt B-1 when you left the Office, the office was dissolved?
A Before we left Berlin we destroyed superfluous files which was a routine matter and an order. The remaining files we took with us to the mountains. We burned them there.
Q So you destroyed them all. Now, you could have answered that question by one word, by saying yes.
Who told you to destroy them?
A That was a general order concerning the entire army, to destroy all files.
Q Why were you told to destroy them? Did they give you any reason for it?
A They were not to fall into the hands of the enemy.
Q Of course that; but why didn't they want them to fall into the Court No. II, Case No. 4.hands of the enemy?
A I am unable to judge that.
Q If they were legal transactions you had nothing to hide, did you?
A I must say that it would be a great help to me if I had these files at my disposal now.
Q That is all.
What date did the order come through to destroy the records?
A That was issued as early as March 1945 when the German army retreated. I did not see that order in writing but it was only given to me orally, and it was carried out everywhere.
Q Who gave you the order orally?
A I am unable to say that with certainty. Most probably it was the adjutant of Gruppenfuehrer George Loerner. But it was a generally known order.
Q If his adjutant transmitted it, he must have known about it. I am asking you that: I am asking you, didn't the order come from him?
A I am unable to say that with certainty, that he gave it to me personally.
Q Well, you were his subordinate, were you not?
A Yes.
Q Where were you captured?
A May the 13th 1945.
Q I said where were you captured.
A In Schliersee near Tegernsee.
Q What were you doing when you were captured?
A We were split up in very small groups and we were completely without orders. We wanted to withdraw into the mountains. We joined the unit of the Wehrmacht which had also been broken up, and through that unit we were requested, or heard of the request, that the whole army group had capitulated. We had to contact the American troops and wait for further orders by American troops.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Who were you with when you were captured?
A Some members of Office Group B, but also other office groups. I was no longer -
Q I just wanted to know the names of the people that you were with that you can remember.
A There was a Obersturmbannfuehrer Borsum, Sturmbannfuehrer Stein, several NCO's; there were perhaps ten or fifteen NCO's, and men.
Q The defendants in the dock--how many of these were with you when you were captured?
A Well, among those present nobody was with me at that moment.
Q Your senior, Georg Loerner, do you know where he was at that time?
A Yes; he was a few kilometers away from us in a different area, but I did not know where he was.
Q Did you know where Pohl was at that time?
A No, I did not know.
Q Did you know where Fanslau was?
A Fanslau--I saw him a few days before the surrender, but then I lost touch with him also, and met him here again.
Q Did you know where Frank was?
A I had no idea.
Q You were in uniform when you were captured?
A Yes.
Q That is all.
THE PRESIDENT: If there are no further questions from the Defense counsel, this witness may be excused.
BY DR. PRIBILLA (Defense counsel for the defendant Tschentscher):
Q I have only a few questions. You told us just now that in your office there was a printed list made which contained the food rations for a large number of persons and groups. That so-called ration table was then distributed centrally to all sorts of agencies. Attached to the table there were the food rations of concentration camp inmates.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
I would like to ask you more precisely: Were these rations fixed in your office or were they passed on to you by other agencies and merely computed in your office and printed?
A That is correct. I explained yesterday that these rations had been decided by the Reich Ministry of Food. That Ministry issued informative gazettes, so-to-speak, regularly from where you could see what the rations were. From these pamphlets the concentration camp administrations had to see how high the rations were. The ration table was merely a list and not an order. It could be compared with the railway timetable where you include connections of steamships and busses without the editor of that timetable being responsible for these branch lines. It was merely to serve an informative purpose.
Q So, therefore, you were informed currently by the Ministry of Food, by the OKH and other agencies, what rations had been decided?
A Yes, we learned that from these pamphlets, or even in some cases from the newspapers. We had to look for these bits of information. The Reich Ministry of Food would not write to me or send the pamphlet to me regularly.
Q How often were you given this informative pamphlet? Were you given it regularly?
A These pamphlets were posted automatically once they were printed, like magazines which come out once a month.
Q Do you recall whether your list included food rations of prisoners of war?
A I believe I am in a position to say yes to this.
Q Do you recall any other groups of persons included on that list?
AAs I remember it, it included rations for workers at the front, for the Todt organization, and for all circles of persons who somehow or other were connected with the Waffen SS, or the Wehrmacht, from the point of view of food policy.
Q Did it include food rations for female workers in the Signal Court No. II, Case No. 4.Corps?
A Yes, they were listed as employees of the Wehrmacht, as I explained before.
Q Another question, Witness, You described how when Germany collapsed you were given a special task, a task not only within the framework of the SS but connected with the whole of the Wehrmacht.
A Yes, that is correct.
Q If I understood you correctly, the task was to see to it that at the end of the war the government had the plan of constructing what was known as the Redoubt in the Southern Germany area, Bavaria and Tyrol, a fortress where a last stand was to be made.
A Yes.
Q In other words, that was a purely military task?
A Yes.
Q What was the atmosphere at the time? Had you acted automatically and autocratically at that point? Had you issued orders opposed to that special task? Would anybody have bothered about that, or did the opposite apply, that at the moment of the collapse it was particularly important to observe discipline?
A That goes without saying. I had to follow the order of my superior's administrative official, SS Brigadenfuehrer Zimmermann, who was also connected with this task and who asked me to account for my actions to him. We had to account for every quantity of food which we disposed of, which was an important point for the higher leaders. Since you asked me about the atmosphere and the views held at the time, I could explain that perhaps by an example. The way we worked was the same as the crew on a sinking ship, which still works the pumps although they know the ship is sinking. But they believe that they must do their duty to the last in order to save what can be saved.
Q Was the position not that every symptom of dissolution was so strong that, without taking a personal risk, you could have acted against orders, or was your observation such that you saw what happened to people who acted against orders at that moment?
A It was generally known at that time that every officer had the right to shoot an officer who had not done his duty--hang him or shoot him.
Apart from that, I was not a small rifleman who could put down his rifle and walk away. I was responsible also for the fact that in this highly unpleasant state of affairs complete chaos should not break out. I had to remain on my post in order to look after the food policy to the last moment. Nor can I reproach myself with the fact that I offered senseless resistance because I was not on the fighting job. I was merely supplying people with food.
Q Did you yourself observe what happened to people who at that time acted against discipline?
A No, I did not observe anything of that sort; that somebody was shot in my presence.
Q But you knew that might happen.
A It was widely known at the time. It was broadcast even.
Q Witness, when you carried out that task to supply the troops with food when they took their last stand, you evacuated food stocks from Dachau. Was that food which was earmarked for the troops, or did you also take food stocks from the concentration camp?
A May I say first of all that I did not only evacuate food from Dachau but also from all food offices of the army and the SS. What I evacuated from Dachau was purely food for the troops. Food supplies for the concentration camp were outside my competence; and I knew nothing about it.
Q These stocks were not near the concentration camp but at a certain distance?
A It was entirely impossible to mix these two stocks up. I said that the food depot at Dachau was at a distance of about three kilometers from the concentration camp in a totally different part.
DR. PRIBILLA: If the Tribunal please, I have no further questions on redirect examination but I should like to say that Document No-2331 in Document Book 21, which is Vieweg's affidavit, referred to just now by the Prosecution, in the German document does not contain Tschentscher's name.
I saw just now that in the Prosecution's copy that passage is contained.
THE PRESIDENT: How does it happen that the German document doesn't correspond with the English?
MR. ROBBINS: I believe that a paragraph must have been omitted from the stencil on the German. I feel certain it is in the original files with the Secretary General. I will check it at the recess to make certain, however.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it a whole paragraph apparently omitted?
MR. ROBBINS: Apparently, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
EXAMINATION BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO):
Q Witness, did I understand you to say that in the closing days any officer could shoot any other officer without giving an accounting to any body just because in his mind he assumed that the man he was going to shoot was not doing his duty?
A That is how it was announced. He had the right to bring the man before a court martial, a rather rapid court martial. The way it was done was that the court martial was formed by three officers. One was usually equal in rank to the defendant. It was a very rapid trial but its legal forms were observed.
Q Oh, it wasn't then, that one could on his own volition whip out a pistol and shoot down another officer.
A No, I didn't think it was like that at all.
Q When did this order come through?
A I heard of that order when the Russians reached the Danzig area, which was at the beginning of 1945.
Q Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: The marshal, may remove the witness from the box.
The next witness for the defense?
DR. PRIBILLA: This is witness Walter Hoyer, who was a colleague of Tschentscher's in B.I.
WALTER HOYER, A Witness took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Witness will you raise your right hand and repeat after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, I should like for it to appear on the record that notice was not given to the prosecution as required by the rules for the calling of this witness. However, we do not press any objection.
DR. PRIBILLA: I'm very sorry. Mr. President, that I informed the Prosecution too late about this witness, but on the other hand it was-
THE PRESIDENT: No objection is made. Go right ahead.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q Please give us your full name and the date of your birth.
A My name is Walter Hoyer. I was borned in Tilsit on the 3rd of November 1907.
Q Tell us very briefly your career.
A I was trained as a merchant until 1927. I trained to be a merchant. My training was finished in 1925. Then I was an employee in various places of the Reich. When war broke out, I was called up; and in January 1940 I was transferred to the Waffen-SS. I was greatly interested in an administrative career; and I took part in a brief training course at the SS Administrative School in Dachau. Having completed that course I was dismissed as an administrative non-commissioned officer and transferred to the troops. In March 1941 I was promoted to SS Untersturmfueh rer of the Reserve, and shortly after that I became the administrative officer of a battalion in an SS division.
Q. Is it true that you joined the party and SS only after 1933?
A. Yes, that is true. I joined the general SS in July of 1933 and the Party in 1937.
Q. When and how did you contact the WVHA for the first time?
A. My division in the spring of 1942 was withdrawn from Russia. I had to report to my reserve unit which was the personnel office of the Main Office. From there I was transferred to Office B-I.
Q. Is it true that in WVHA, you were assistant in Office B-I, and from October, 1943, the defendant Tschentscher was your superior?
A. Yes, that is Correct.
Q. From when until when did you work in B-I?
A. I joined the Office in May of 1941 until the beginning of April 1945.
Q. You were there for a longer period of time than Tschentscher was?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know precise details of the tasks and duties of Office Group B and in particular, Office B-I?
A. Yes. I am very precisely informed about that.
Q. What was your special field?
A. In B-I, I worked on supply and food questions. I worked according to the directives of the OKH as Office B-I was part of the Wehrmacht organization in respect to food.
Q. Tell us, briefly, the duties of Office Croup-B, such as you knew them.
A. Office Group B consisted of Offices B-I, Food; B-II, Clothing, B-III, Accommodations; B-IV no longer exists; B-V, Transport. All those offices which supplied troops were concentrated in that office group. Office Group B, therefore, was also called Troop Economy. Special details of the offices II to V are not known to me. I did not have the opportunity or any reason to know that. I know, for instance, that up to a point there was collaboration with Office B-V, Transport.
B-V worked on the formal request for railway wagons. It supplied trucks to transport our food, but I did not know any more details.
Q. Tell us, please, all about Office B-I.
A. The competence of Office B-I was concerned with the proceasing of food and PX matters for the units of the Waffen-SS and the units of the regular police. I mentioned before the close collaboration with the OKH. Directives issued by the OKH had to be strictly followed by B-I. The directives had to be observed most strictly so that food would be distributed equally among all units of the troops whether they were members of the Navy, the Army, the Luftwaffe or of the Waffen-SS. In order to calculate the food rations, Office B-I was given strength reports which, as far as the Waffen SS was concerned, came from the Operational Main Office.
An important task was to adapt OKH directives to the needs of the Waffen-SS and Police and to issue the ration lists to the agencies of the Police and Waffen-SS. Extra supplies of food were obtained through the food depots of the troops which then sent the food to the units of their district.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Would you say that the food for the Waffen SS was superior to that furnished to the Wehrmacht in quality and quantity?
THE WITNESS: The food supply to the troops by the food depots was just what the OKH had decided for the units of the Army.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well. Office B-I then had to supervise the food supplies and check up on the depots. That, roughly, is what Office B-I did.
Q. Witness, I was also struck by your remark that the directives by the OKH had to be adapted to the requirements of the WaffenSS and the Police. Why was that necessary if the rations were the same?
A. I meant by adapting, that the OKH directives, of course, had used Army terms. Now we simply changed that to Waffen-SS terms in connection with the terms used by the Food depots. The actual contents remained the same.
Q. I think we can understand only if you will explain to the Court that all terms from a simple man to the highest leader were completely different with the SS and Police than they were with the Army.
A. Yes. That is quite correct. Ranks had different titles in the Waffen-SS.
Q. Did Office B-I have any official contacts with concentration camp matters?
A. No.
Q. Can you say that with the utmost certainty, particularly, that food supply for the concentration camps was not effected by the B-I?
A. B-I did not have that duty. It was not competent.
Q. who was competent for that, in your opinion and knowledge?
A. As I see it, the food supplies for concentration camps was up to the actual concentration camp itself in connection with the regional agencies, the food offices. I think when a concentration camp had its doubts, it had to apply to its superior agency.
THE INTERPRETER: If the Tribunal please, I have a message that the film has run out, the recording film.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, we will have to wait until additional sound film has been installed. We have come to the end of a role. We will suspend. We will not divide the recess. We will take a recess now for 15 minutes or so.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess for 15 minutes.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal wishes to announce that - I am sorry the other defense counsel are not here, but perhaps those that are will take the message - we will be in session this coming Saturday from nine o'clock until one, but on Monday, July 7th, we will not be in session at all. We will recess on Thursday night, July 3rd, the following day is a holiday, the Fourth of July, and we will resume sessions on the following Tuesday morning, that will be the 8th of July, at the usual time. But this coming Saturday, Saturday of this week, we will be in session from nine o'clock, not nine-thirty, until one.
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q What can you tell us from your knowledge, about the fact, that some witnesses testified here to the effect that the Defendant Georg Loerner is the main food chief, also with respect to concentration camps?
A I hear this expression here for the first time. In any case this expression is wrong. Amtsgruppe B for "Baker" was not an agency in charge of Amtsgruppe D for "Dog". That was the reason why a connection in that sense is not possible.
Q Who was it that fixed the food rations for the inmates in the concentration camps?
A The Reich Food Ministry.
Q How do you know that?
A That is a fact which became know to me in the office.
Q In your office the so-called ration list was set up. Do you know that list, what it was all about?
A Well, yes, that is correct. In Office B for "Baker" I, a ration list was set up. It was also published. That list existed already at the time when I, in 1942, joined that office. That list in its contents was about the same as, for instance, an army regulation containing the number 86/1. It was the same or similar to that army regulation. I can only understand the publication of that list by the Office B for "Baker" I by saying that all the regulations which apply to that field, which, of course, were rather complicated, and varied and had been arranged so as to enable the experts who handled such matters to have all the regulations condensed.
Q Did you or did Tschentscher or anybody else from Office B-1 have any influence or participate when fixing the rations?
A No, in no way.
Q Did Office B-1 receive food statistics and food situation statistics about the concentration camps?
A No.
Q Did you think that Office B-1 would have been able to use the food stocks; for instance, for the benefit of the concentration camps? Or were those tasks, were those stocks only used for a specific task?
A Office B-1 could not do whatever they wanted with the stocks. By that I mean they couldn't do it for the benefit of the concentration camps. Office B-1 had certain allocations which had been set in advance and which were to be distributed to certain army units, and, according to the personnel strength of these army units. The personnel strength, as a total towards the end, amounted to one million men and, therefore, this office was in charge of the procurement.
Q What you just said is only to be understood basically -
A Yes.
Q Now, did you have a certain margin in which you could move freely in certain specific cases?
A Yes, there was a small margin. The personnel strength varied at times. In any case, the change of personnel strength did not amount to very much, and the margin itself was not very large either.
Q Could one say then that the Army Economy stocks were certain installations which were at the disposal of procurement of food for the concentration camps?
A No, that is not correct. The army economy stocks were not at the disposal of the concentration camps.
We supervised that, particularly to the effect that clear separation of tasks could be reached.
Q Such a supervision of the army economy stocks --- was that necessary? Were any attempts made by any other agencies to draw food from those army stocks?