be taken care of.
Q I am now coming to your Main Department, C-6-3-. That is the preliminary auditing of the bills. Why was this department established and what were its tasks?
AAs I have already mentioned, the construction work for the SS, in part, began already as early as 1934; up to the year 1939, when the war broke out, the construction was carried out on a peacetime basis. The bag constructions in peacetime already, in normal times, needed one, two, three or more years until the construction would have been completed. The accounting for the construction, of course, could only have been worked on after the last payment for this construction had been carried out. The Auditing Court of the German Reich, until the year 1939, did not carry out any auditing of bills for construction work. In the year 1939, it began to carry out its first auditing of the expenses. However, it discontinued that work a short time later because it only had one official at its disposal, and this was Amtsrat Frey. This official, besides the SS also had to take care of the construction done by General Construction Inspector Speer, and he had to audits the bills there. In the year 1940 the auditing court ordered the establishment of a preliminary construction auditing agency-
THE PRESIDENT: This has been going on for about a half hour, and we are trying to get the first inkling of what it is about. Let me ask a couple of pertinent questions.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q If you needed a new roof on the laundry house ... Let us suppose you needed a new roof on the laundry building at Buchenwald. Let us say there was a fire, and the roof burned, and we got to repair it. Now, you start and repair the roof. Tell me who does it; who gets the material; who gets the labor; who pays for it. And keep right on that line. Don't get off into some foreign field.
You have got a repair job to do now on a roof at Buchenwald. Tell me how do you do it?
A For this purpose the administration had to make a request to the competent construction agency of the Amtsgruppe C. In this case, that was the Central Construction Management at Buchenwald. Since we are not dealing with repairs here in that sense, these--we are dealing with maintenance here, this was repair work which was beyond maintenance, and since technical knowledge was required in this case, the Central Building Agency then for this purpose would compile a project. It would try to compile and estimate the expenses -
Q Wait a minute. Where is the Central Agency? What is the Central Agency for this purpose? Was it your department, C-6?
A No, that was not my department.
Q Well where was it, and who was in it?
A The central construction management at Buchenwald--that was the lower construction level of the Amtsgruppe C-
Q Well, it was in Amtsgruppe C of the WVHA?
A That was the lower construction agency of Amtsgruppe C.
Q Well, where was the lower construction agency? Who was in it? What was the number of it?
A The central Construction Management, on its part, was subordinated to the Construction Inspectorate, and the Construction Inspectorate was subordinated to Amtsgruppe C--that is, Office C-5.
Q All right, now we are in C-5, are we?
A Yes.
Q Go on from there now.
A If the expenses for this repair work of the roof which had burned down did not exceed the amount of 100,000 marks, then the Construction Inspectorate itself was competent in this case, and it would make the decision.
Q All right, it only cost 20,000 marks. It was a small fire.
A Your Honor, I don't know what the limit was up to which the central construction management was entitled to make decision. It may be that the amount of 20,000 Marks was within the competency of the central construction management.
Q Well, I don't care how much it costs. Take one or the other. Take a million marks or take forty pfennings--whichever you like, but go ahead and put on the roof, for Heaven' sake.
A If the repair was of a small nature, then the administration which was competent could have the repairs carried out in its own competence.
Q Who did you say was competent?
A The garrison administration itself.
Q All right. That is at Buchenwald.
A Yes, at Buchenwald.
Q All right. Now, if it costs more than that, so that they had to get somebody's permission or authority, what did the garrison construction agency do?
A The central construction management at the garrison would pass on this request to the construction inspectorate in Wiesbaden.
Q And that takes us into C-5, does it?
A Yes. And they passed it on in turn to C-5. If the amount of 5,000 Marks had been exceeded.
Q All right, now. What does C-5 do with it?
A C-5 would appropriate the funds and it approved the execution of that work, and then the inspectorate received the order to take the further steps.
Q C-5 said "go ahead" and it will cost so much money?
A I haven't quite understood your question, Your Honor.
Q It was the business of C-5 to say the new roof will cost 10,000 Marks, "go ahead and put it on!"
A If the amount exceeded 100,000 Marks, Your Honor-
Q All right, we will get a better roof, this one costs 200,000 Marks. C-5 would say, "Okay, go ahead and build the roof", is that right?
A Yes, that is correct, Your Honor.
Q Now, who takes up the job from there?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
WITNESS: C-5 would pass the matter on to the Construction Inspectorate. The Construction Inspectorate would issue the necessary guiding regulations in that matter and, if necessary, it determines the details to be carried out and then it passes the matter on to the lower construction agency.
THE PRESIDENT: No, no. Don't give me that "lower construction agency" without naming it. Who is the lower construction agency?
WITNESS: I want to mention the name. This is the Central Construction Management.
THE PRESIDENT: That's the Construction Management?
WITNESS: Yes, that's the lower construction agency.
THE PRESIDENT: The lower construction agency is the Construction Management. Now that means the agency that gets the lumber, the nails, and the men together and makes the roof, is that right?
WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor, that is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Was that an official agency or was it a private contractor?
WITNESS: That was an official agency.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, the Construction Management had to get material and labor to put the roof on, didn't it?
WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Where did it get the material, the lumber and the nails?
WITNESS: It would procure the material on the open market. Partly it would receive allotments in that matter, as far as allotments were necessary.
THE PRESIDENT: It had to get priorities from the Minister of Economics or some agency which gave priorities for material?
WITNESS: I didn't understand the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Did Construction Management have to get an order or priority in order to get material -- to get lumber?
WITNESS: From the District Commissioner for the Coordination Court No. II, Case No. 4.of the Construction Economy it would receive a certificate for that purpose and with these certificates it went to the dealer and it would obtain the necessary material.
THE PRESIDENT: That was merely a permission to buy material -a certificate giving them permission to buy material?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, now, we've got all the material on the ground at Buchenwald. Now we need labor, don't we? We have got to have men. Where would they come from and who got them?
WITNESS: If this was work in a concentration camp then the Construction Management would request inmate workers from the camp commander.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, now. The Construction Management would ask for help, ask for labor from the camp commandant and then inmates would be assigned to build the new roof?
WITNESS: Yes, that's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, all of this time what was happening in C-VI?
WITNESS: No, that didn't happen with C-VI.
THE PRESIDENT: C-VI had nothing to do with this? Why not?
WITNESS: No, Your Honor, I have already mentioned before that this procedure was carried out by Office C-V, not C-VI.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, C-VI, which was Building Maintenance, had nothing to do with this?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I have already stated that the maintenance was carried out by the administrations themselves, while larger construction repairs were carried out by the construction agency, as far as any building police matters were concerned.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, now to the point. What in the world did C-VI do?
WITNESS: It didn't do anything in that matter at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, in what matter did it do something? Tell Court No. II, Case No. 4.me what it was that C-VI was organized for and what it did.
WITNESS: I have already stated that C-VI/1 -
THE PRESIDENT: I know. Say it again.
WITNESS: Once a year it appropriated certain funds and that not exclusively.
THE PRESIDENT: Once a year you appropriated certain funds? Is that what you did in C-VI?
WITNESS: Once a year funds were appropriated. That was through the maintenance -- through the garrison administration. However, I mentioned before that this was done in peace time and in war time, of course, the procedure was not followed so closely.
THE PRESIDENT: I suppose not. Well, all right. We are now in Buchenwald with a roof burned off in 1943. Would C-VI have anything to do with that?
WITNESS: No, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, tell me something that C-VI would have something to do with. It had some purpose, didn't it?
WITNESS: Your Honor, Office C-VI had several tasks. Construction matters only made up a very small part of the tasks with which C-VI dealt. That was the smallest task of Amt C-VI.
THE PRESIDENT: Tell me the big part.
WITNESS: I am just about to say that, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Go ahead.
DR. VON STEIN: May I ask some further questions, Your Honor. I was just referring to the Main Office C-VI/3. That is the office which Your Honor has mentioned in the question what the main tasks of Office C-VI were -- and in particular this question we were dealing with -- I was just about to explain to the Tribunal what tasks it dealt with, the extent of these tasks and what knowledge the defendant could obtain from all these fields of tasks with regard to the concentration camps and all the other crimes which were committed I was just about to ask these questions of the witness, so that he Court No. II, Case No. 4.could explain to the Tribunal just what he did.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean, you haven't asked him anything about that up to now?
DR. VON STEIN: I didn't understand, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Haven't you asked him anything about the tasks of C-VI/I, 2 and 3 before -- up to now?
DR. VON STEIN: Your Honor, I was trying to clarify the entire Office C-VI. Office C had 3 departments.
THE PRESIDENT: Do that. If you can do that, go ahead. We have been waiting a long time for somebody to clear up Office C-VI. Now maybe you can do it. Go ahead.
DR. VON STEIN: I have tried, first of all, to explain Office C-VI/1 with regard to construction maintenance and asked the defendant what tasks he did with regard to construction maintenance. I don't have any further questions with regard to construction maintenance now that the Tribunal has already asked the witness just how the construction maintenance was carried out in detail. I am now coming to Office C-VI/3, the auditing of bills.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: May I ask just one question, please? In the affidavit of the defendant, NO-2613, paragraph 60 begins "My office dealt among other things -- with the following tasks." Can we accept what is in the affidavit as a resume of what his office did?
DR. VON STEIN: May I ask the defendant a question in this connection?
Q Witness, your affidavit is in Document Book I on page 72 of the German text. In your affidavit you have described your activities in detail. Other statements which you have made in this affidavit are very much in detail. Are they correct or do you want to make any corrections of these statements in this?
A These statements about the activities of my office -- that is, it referred to the end of 1944; before 1944 -- instead of Main Department 3 Audit, we had the Construction Maintenance. That has Court No. II, Case No. 4.been added by inserting the word among others.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You mean that this is correct up to 1944?
WITNESS: The statement in the affidavit is for the time from 1944 on.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: 1944 on?
WITNESS: 1944.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Do you not have in the affidavit what you did before, that is, referring particularly to C-VI?
WITNESS: They appear under the words "Amongst other things."
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Do you remember what you wrote in the affidavit? Do you have it before you? Well, do you stand on what is in the affidavit?
WITNESS: Yes, from 1944 on. At that time a change took place in the field of tasks in my office and it is to that period from that time on, that the affidavit refers to.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, if we don't get anything else from what is being given to us from the witness stand, at any rate, you do affirm what is in the affidavit?
WITNESS: Yes.
DR. STEIN:
Q Witness, now you have explained to us how in case some damage has taken place, the repair work was carried out, I am now coming to the end of this matter. After all, expenses arose out of repair work. What treasury paid it? What agency paid it?
A Well, the garrison treasury paid it.
Q I am referring to the bills for the expenses which were paid; the examination afterwards, what agency carried out the preliminary auditing of the bills?
A. The bills were passed on from the garrison treasury administration, and they were included in the total of the three months expenditures and then were turned over to Amt A IV as the witness Vogt has already told us on the witness stand.
Q. I am now coming to the preliminary auditing of the bills which you carried out. By virtue of what legal regulation did your preliminary auditing of the bills take place, and what bills were included in this auditing?
A. The preliminary auditing of the construction bills followed a different procedure in the administration than the general technical expenses. I have already mentioned that construction projects took years to complete; and therefore we could not audit the expenses from the construction projects within certain periods of time. The construction agency which had completed a construction project could only give the accounts from that moment on. I believe that I shall have to give you an example for that. Let us assume that a barracks has been constructed by the constructing management. The barracks itself consists of fourteen, fifteen, or twenty individual buildings, that is, the whold of the complex. Every individual building renders its own accounts. After the entire construction project has been completed and the last payments have been made to the contractors and the construction enterprises, then the construction manager readers his accounts. That is, he compiles the individual bills. He for the individual buildings. Then he adds up the expenditure books and then compiles the total balance of the bills. He then adds the necessary papers, for example, the order for the construction to be carried out, and gives the other orders which were made during the time of the construction. Then the total account is sent to the next higher agency, the Construction Inspectorate.
The Construction Inspectorate where the treasury and the payoffice were also located. Add a chash book to this entire complex, tho so-called title book, in which the accounts have been closed out, and then the total accounts, after some time has passed, will end up with the Main Department C VI/3, for the preliminary auditing by the Court of Audit to be carried out.
The VI/3 in a factual and technical respect makes spot-checks upon these bills. If there are only corrections to be made, they are carried out there, or the construction management is ordered to carry out these corrections. When everything has been coordinated, then the whole compels of bills as such is submitted to the auditing court of the German Reich. There the final auditing is carried out and the whole matter is dismissed. I have already described that as a result of the special conditions before 1939, and also as a result of the conditions which were current in war time, this auditing took many years to complete. While these personnel expenses were completed every three months ans were submitted to the preliminary auditing agency or the auditing court at that time, the construction accounts could only be sent to the preliminary auditing agency after a long interval of time had passed. The legal provisions in peacetime already gave time limit of three years after the last payment had taken place for these bills to be submitted.
EXAMINATION BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE PHILLIPS):
Q. Let me ask a question. I understood in your examination in May that you listed C VI/1 as Building Marerial and Maintenance. Is that correct?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. What did you say?
A. Main Department C VI/1 was only the agency which took care of the Budget. It had no other functions.
Q. The Budget? Is that what you said?
A. Yes, the budget.
Q. Well, I copied down what you said; and I've got it down as C VI/1, Building Material and Maintenance; 2, Planning Economy; 3, Auditing and Price Control.
Now, if that's not what you said, the translation did not come through correctly. That is what I wrote down. That is what the translation said that you said.
A. Your Honor, the tasks of Main Department C VI/1 are compiled under the concept of that production maintenance. However, this concept only means that this office dealt with budgetary handling with regard to construction maintenance. With the execution of the maintenance this Main Department had nothing to do.
Q. Just a moment. Now, you say again what C VI/1 is, what C VI/2 is, and what C VI/3 is. Now, I'll write it down again. What is C VI/1?
A. C VI/1 had the title Construction Maintenance; and it worked on budgetary questions. That is to say, it allocated funds once a year.
Q. Just a minute. Answer my question. Now, give me C VI/2.
A. C VI/2 had the title Plant Economy.
Q. Planned or Planning?
A. Plant Economy.
Q. And S?
A. 3 was the auditing of bills.
Q. Not Auditing and Price Control?
A. Your Honor, that was up to 1943. Then from 1943 on it changed.
Q. All right, what was it after 1943?
A. After 1943 the Main Department Construction Maintenance was discontinued; and in its place came the Department of Price Control.
Q. Now, after you had received the bills in C VI for the construction for this building, you sent them on, and they finally wound up in Berlin in the Reich Treasury to be paid?
A. Your Honor, the payment had already taken place years before.
Q. I see; and they went there to be approved?
A. No. Approval was not taking place anymore. The approval had already been given with the construction order.
Q. Why did they go up there then?
A. They only went there so that the expenditures could be audited.
Q. All right.
A. Then to see whether the payments had been made correctly.
Q. Now would the same procedure take place if there was maintenance cost of the buildings and the plant in Buchenwald?
A. Your Honor, if repair expenses were concerned for the running maintenance, that is, the regular maintenance, then these bills would have been paid by the garrison treasury; and it would have been included in the general, the factual and personal expenses. There is a difference between construction maintenance and a perfectly new construction project. The bills in these two fields are completely different.
Q. I'll ask you what happened with the maintenance bills. Now, I don't want anything about the construction. We've finished that. The maintenance bills, now would they come to C VI for auditing?
A. No, they would not come to C VI.
Q. Where did they go?
A. They went to A IV as the defendant Vogt has already described it to us.
Q. So no bills came from the concentration camp in to C VI for auditing except that what you have described in construction work?
A. Yes, Your Honor.
Q. None for maintenance?
A. No.
None for any other purpose?
A. Only for new construction projects.
Q. I see. Now, did C VI, either 1,2, or 3, have any other connection, directly or indirectly, within any operational feature of a concentration camp?
A. Your Honor, C VI/1 only appropriated budgetary funds to the administration of the concentration camps, as far as the administration of those concentration camps, had made appropriate request.
Q. Would the appropriation that you made to the concentration camp---would the requisition for that to your department show for what it was to be used?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. They would just ask you for so much money for this concentration camp?
A. Your Honor, I believe that the witness Kiefer has already told us that.
Q. I'm not interested in that now. Just confine yourself to your department.
A. Your Honor, then I must go on to explain in detail and must describe how the construction maintenance funds were compiled in peacetime once a year. The building site let us say of the concentration camp of Buchenwald, would have to be inspected.
Q. You need not go into that. You've been all over that. I remember it very well. I just want to know, when you made an allocation of funds to Buchenwald, did the requisition for this money show for what purposes it was to be used, or did they just ask your department for a lump sum of money for Buchenwald?
A. Well, that's what was done for the most part, your Honor. The funds were allotted in a total sum, certain amounts had been established by practical experience so that at the end of the year no specification of funds for the exact purposes was necessary any more.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: And you made that allocation once a year?
A. Yes, this allotment was done once a year. However, as a result of the opening budget theis procedure was not followed any more during the war and only very careful administrative officers would make such a request at war time.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess for 15 minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. STEIN:
Q Witness, we stopped talking about your Department C-VI-3, which was in charge of auditing, and I now ask you how many people were working in that office in 1942 and from that time on?
A The personnel strength of that department varied a great deal. In 1932 when I established it I started with two or three men, and by the end of 1942 there were about ten to twelve men, perhaps a few more, and it remained at about fourteen to fifteen men, including the assistant female personnel right until the collapse. The personnel consisted of two expertly trained SS officers, three or four noncommissioned officers, and the rest were civilian employees.
Q This Main Department was by far the biggest office wasn't it? Now will you tell us in detail what the tasks were after 1942 which this department worked on?
A I said that in 1941 the Office-I of the Main Office Budget and Construction, and the Auditing Office for construction of buildings had been established. That office never did any actual work; it only made a few spot tests, and then it had to discontinue its activity because of the conditions that prevailed. In 1942 I took over and I got my staff together to plan in accordance with their task. It never happened that construction bills were submitted. At that time the building agencies never rendered their accounts. That was the task of both the SS Building Agency, and also the agency of the Reich Finance Administration which were in charge of SS building funds from 1934 to 1942.
The SS construction agencies, because they were overworked and understaffed, did not have the opportunity to render their accounts. The only accounts which reached me during 1942 and 1943 were those from the Special Task Troops, the Verfuegungstruppe. These were audited in the usual manner with the various simplifications which the wartime measures had granted us. Bills once they had been audited were then passed on to the Reich Treasury, the Reich Auditing Court, and there another audit would be made.
Q What could you see from those building account?
A In peace time one could see how the entire construction matter had been taken care of.
Q In your office were construction accounts of the concentration camps audited?
A Construction accounts of concentration camps should have been audited by my office, but up to 1945 no account of a concentration camp had been rendered. Only as far as the Dachau garrison was concerned, the auditing courts had sent me a number of statements about the auditing there which I had to acknowledge. The actual accounting for the whole of the construction project Dachau, as far as it was paid by Reich funds, was audited by the Reich Court of Audits. Otherwise, as far as concentration camps are concerned, up to April 1944 they never rendered their accounts at all.
Q I put to you, witness, this affidavit by co-defendant Pohl, which is Document NO-2616, Exhibit 523. It is contained in Document Book No. 22. On page 3, paragraph 12, Pohl says that the auditing of bills, such as you did, enabled Kammler to exercise control over the construction carried out by the construction agencies. Will you please comment on that?
A That opinion is incorrect. As I mentioned before, the accounts, even in peace time, were submitted only years after a construction project had been completed. Therefore, they came much too late to permit C-VI to exercise any control.
A man like Kammler could have had through these auditing processes a very bad control over the projects. Control in that sense was not the purpose of Office C-VI. The purpose was to audit the bills as to whether the financial expenditures coincided with what the firms had actually contributed and the agency had spent. Any checking up on the actual construction as such was not up to C-VI but the Central Construction Inspectorate.
Q In paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 Pohl speaks about the construction of gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz. To quote from paragraph 18: "Accounts for these buildings were submitted by the Building Inspectorate at Auschwitz to Office VI of Office Group C for a preliminary auditing for the Reich Court of Audits, or they were submitted to the auditing official of Office C-VI, which was subordinate to Office Group C." Please give us your comments about that.
A I said earlier that I received no accounts for concentration camp constructions and that I did not even preliminarily await such accounts. As far as Auschwitz is concerned, I should like to say that even in the spring of 1944 an expert from my department was sent to the Building Inspectorate at Kattowitz, which is the competent agency there, in order to speed up the submission of bills. That colleague of mine, as I recall it, came back without having achieved anything, and I a few days later heard from Kammler, who gave me the order that I must not carry out any local auditing of the building sites and that he had to give his personal permission first. Therefore, I did not until the end of the war carry out any local auditing. All I did was that in March of 1946 I sent a small auditing commission to the central agencies in Fuerstenberg in order to get hold of the accounts of buildings for the years 1937 to 1939. In other words, in sending out that commission, I did not follow Kammler's order, because at that time it was no longer possible to get the files sent through the post. I do not know what happened to the commission in the end. In March of 1945 I had to leave Berlin in accordance with my orders, and I do not know what happened to these people.
Q Now, how were construction projects audited which were under a secret classification?
A No such case has happened to me, but there is a special order contained in the Reich budget regulations. In such cases, where secret construction work was carried out, a special procedure had to be observed, with special reference to the Fuehrer Order No. 1: Nobody was allowed to know anything about a project unless he had a very direct part in it. Whether that order was observed in Ausshwitz or not I am unable to say.
DR. STEIN: I would like to acquaint the Court with that provision contained in the Reich Budget Regulation. I shall submit it as an exhibit.
Q Under paragraph 20, which refers to the building of the concentration camp at Riga and has reference there to the auditing carried out by C-VI, I ask you, Witness, did you know anything about the construction at that concentration camp, and did you audit the accounts?
AAs far as the construction of that concentration camp is concerned, I was informed about it only through the documents here. The building agency at Riga itself was discontinued in '44 or '45 because the Russians captured it. The building agency for the Baltic and Russian territories had prepared accounts and collected bills. These bills were exclusively payments for the so-called Front Labor Enterprises. These were civilian firms who, with civilian personnel, worked in that area. Any indications that a concentration camp existed in Riga did not become evident from these bills.
Q Now, with regard to the knowledge which you might have obtained from your bills, I wish to refer now to an affidavit by the defendant Sommer. This is in Volume I, Document NO-1577, Exhibit 13.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Counselor, before you leave the affidavit which you are just questioning on, I would like to put one question to the witness.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Your attention has been directed to paragraph 18 of the Pohl affidavit. Is what he states in that paragraph correct or not correct?
A No, it is not correct, your Honor. I never received any accounts from Auschwitz.
Q You will say this is untrue?
A Yes, it is untrue, your Honor. Gruppenfuehrer Pohl was not in a position to know anything about these things. I was concerned neither with Kammler nor with Pohl in talking to them about the auditing.