Q. Didn't you know that there were thousands and thousands of people gassed there and burned there the three years that you were there?
A. I only found that out slowly, it was only in 1944 that I found out about it, and not prior to that.
Q. Well, you were there in 1944, were you not?
A. I didn't get that.
Q. You were in the camp at Auschwitz in 1944?
A. No, I was not in the camp in 1944. That is a mistake I had the entire area outside of the camp. I was not a member of the Kommandanturstab.
Q. You were in the area around the camp and were in charge of the area around the camp?
A. The area of the camp was not subordinate to me, no.
Q. I didn't say anything about the camp being subordinate to you.
A. Then I probably misunderstood your question, your Honor, I am sorry.
Q. You were doing the same work in 1944 at Auschwitz that you were doing in 1943?
A. With certain changes, yes.
Q. Well, you were there any way.
A. Yes, indeed, I was.
Q. How did you find out about people being gassed and being burned to death in 1944?
A. Yes, I found out about it already.
Q. I say, how did you find out?
A. I am sorry, I didn't catch that question. I was not asked how. I heard of rumors. I tried to listen to those rumors and to investigate them. On the occasion of a visit of the then gauleiter, his name was Bracht, I heard him asking Hoess, who was commandant at the time, something to the effect that there were so many rumors around here about Auschwitz, and Hoess told him those are false ones.
Later on I heard other rumors. After those rumors repeated themselves all the time I myself could not check up on them because every time I tried to investigate those rumors I had failed. That is the reason I had the assumption there was something to those rumors.
Q. Did you see the transports come in there, full of weak people, and see them sent right on to the gas chamber, and then burned?
A. No, I didn't. I saw transports from the station to the camp only three times altogether, and I had no knowledge whatsoever of those transports.
Q. Were you there in the fall 1941 when Pohl came to inspect the camp?
A. In 1941 I had not been in Auschwitz as yet.
Q. I said 1943. I beg your pardon.... I meant 1943.
A. In 1943, yes, I was there, I imagine.
Q. What time in the year did he come?
A. I recall a visit in the spring.
Q. Do you recall a visit in the fall of 1943?
A. No, I cannot recall any accompanying circumstances. However, yes, that is quite possible there was a second visit around that period of time.
Q. Do you remember a visit in 1944?
A. Yes, indeed. That was in the summer of 1944.
Q. How many people did Pohl bring with him on his inspection tour in 1943 -- either the spring or the fall?
A. I cannot recall the exact number.
Q. About the number.....
A. There were a very few there. Very few, particularly, participated in the visit. There were several installations there.
I can only recall having seen Pohl.
Q. Do you remember him going over to the crematorium and inspecting that while he was there?
A. I don't know that because I only participated in those visits when agriculture was concerned.
Q. I understood you to say that he inspected all of the installations of the camp while he was there.
A. That is absolutely correct. However, I did not participate in the entire visit. I only participated in that inspection in so far as my own agricultural enterprises were concerned.
Q. The crematorium was there when he visited and inspected the installations, was it not?
A. At the time, yes.
Q. Do you know whether anybody was burned that day in the crematorium or not, the day he inspected the camp?
A. I cannot say yes, because I don't know that. I can't answer that question. If I wanted to answer that question I would have had to see it myself.
Q. How long was Pohl there, on this inspection tour?
A. During the spring inspection of 1943 I believe he stayed there for one day and during that visit, in spring or in the fall, I cannot recall how long he stayed there. In 1944 I believe that he was there for a day and a half.
Q. It took from a day to a day and a half to inspect all the installations of that camp, and the surroundings, did it not?
A. Well, the visit of the agricultural installations alone, if one only wanted to see more or less everything that was there, would take over a half a day.
Q. I am talking about all of the installations of the camp.
A. I am sorry, Your Honor, I did not know the entire installations of the camp and therefore I cannot judge myself how much time was taken up in order to see the entire camp. What I wanted to say was that for the agricultural installations alone you needed a half a day.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will recess until Monday morning at 0930 hours. The witness will be removed to the Marshal after the Court recesses.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours Monday, 30 June 1947.)
Official Transcript of Military Tribunal II Case 4, in the Matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 30 June 1947, 0930, Justice 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 Courtroom.
KARL SOMMER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, 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.)
Be seated, please.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, will you please tell me your first and last names, please?
A. My name is Karl Sommer.
Q. Where and when were you born?
A. I was born on the 25th of March in Cologne on the Rhine.
Q. Would you please give the Tribunal a short description of your background and your curricula vitae until you joined the RAD, the Reich Labor Service?
A. My father was a merchant in Cologne, For my first education I attended the local school. At the same time or after that the Oberrealschule in Cologne. In 1928 my father's business collapsed and in 1929 I had to leave the school. On 1 April 1929 I joined the firm Richard Jacobi in an Apprenticeship. I finished that apprenticeship on 31 March 1932. I remained with that firm up to August 1934 as an employee. Approximately September 1933 I volunteered to the Allgemeine-
SS, the general SS and on 30 January 1934 I became an SS soldier, SS man, and in 1935 I was promoted to SS-Rottenfuehrer, an NCO rank. Between August 1934 and approximately May 1935 I was out of a job. It was in the month of May 1935 that I became a digger when they were excavating a pre-historic settlement near Cologne. The City of Cologne was employing me at the time.
On the basis of that work I was transferred to Berlin in September 1935 and again I was digging near Berlin. Again I was working on a pre-historic settlement. I was being employed by the State Museum in Berlin. On 1 April 1936 I was drafted into the Reich Labor Service under the labor conscription law.
Q. Witness, were you a member of the Hitler Youth during that time?
A. No, from 1928 to 1933 I was first a member of the Buendisch Jugend and then later on I was a member of the German Boy Scouts. However, these organizations were transferred into the Hitler Youth in 1933 I resigned from all of them.
Q. Would you describe to the Tribunal briefly your career with the Reich Labor Service and after that, your service in the Army?
A. I was in the Reich Labor Service up until 26 October 1937 and after that I was conscripted effective 11 November 1937 and I had to report to infantry regiment 68 in Brandenburg. On 1 November 1938 I became a corporal and at the same time a cadet. On 1 July 1939 I was promoted to an NCO in the reserve. On 31 August 1939 my service with the Army would have been over. However, the war broke out. I started out in the Polish campaign together with my unit and at the end of the Polish campaign together with my unit and at the Polish campaign, that is to say, from November 1939 to January 1940 I was sent to the War School in Dueberitz. On 1 December I became a Sergeant in the Reserve. At the end of my service in that War School I was transferred back to my troop and I participated in the French campaign. On 1 June 1940 I was promoted to a Lieutenant of the Reserve. On June 9th 1940 I was wounded severely when we crossed the Aisne. Then I was transferred into my home-land and I was in an army hospital for seven months.
On 26 March 1941 I was released from the army after I had been declared 4-H, not fit for service.
Q. Will you tell the Tribunal something about the nature and the results of that wound?
A. I was shot in my leg, that is to say, the right joint of the foot was shot out. That part of the foot is missing.
Q. Witness, what were your connections with the SS during the time between the 1st of April 1936 and up to your release from the Wehrmacht?
A. My membership in the Allgemeine SS was resting. That is to say, I didn't do any service nor did I pay any contributions nor I wasn't sent to any special course nor was I used for anything else.
Q. Were you a member of the NSDAP?
A. No.
Q. How was it then that when you were a member of the SS you were not a member of the Party?
A. When I applied for my participation in the Allgemeine-SS in 1933 the Party was closed, so to say. No new members would be conscripted in the Party. In 1936 I was called on for service and according to the prevailing regulations I couldn't join the Party while I was a volunteer. In July 1941 I was relieved from the army according to the prevailing regulations. I would have had to join the Party if I would have made the necessary application for that. However, I never applied because I wasn't interested in it and I was never forced to write out such an application.
Q. Witness, would you tell this tribunal how you got a job with the German Earth and Stone Works, when you started working, what your official position was, what your official tasks were you had to perform in that organization, that is to say, the DEST?
A. After my release from the army hospital I was transferred from the Army Release Center in Cologne. I reported there and it was a task of the Army Release Center to find me a job.
The Army Release Center was not in a position to do so in Cologne. That is the reason why in January or February 1942, 1941 to be exact, I went to Berlin because I had spent my service in the labor service in the Army near Berlin and I knew Berlin very well and I tried to got a job there through the Veterans Welfare Service and to be transferred to some specific duties somewhere in Germany. The Veterans Welfare Office refused to do so because I was domiciled in Cologne and therefore they couldn't help me. I then went to the Labor Office Berlin, Wilmers-dorf and that office also told me it wasn't possible to get me a job in Berlin because Berlin was a closed city. That means that nobody from outside could go and live in Berlin, and That, therefore, I couldn't even get a job.
During that time I lived in the Hotel Am Zoo. Walking around in Berlin I saw a sign on one of the houses, "SS Veterans Welfare and Care Administration". As I tried several times to get a job with the SS Labor Office and the other labor offices and I didn't succeed in doing so I walked in that agency there and I was received very cordially. The man who received me there told me he was very glad to see somebody whom he could get a job and if I would have been a member of the Waffen-SS I wouldn't have been released from the Army due to my wounds. He told me there were quite a number of vacancies there and I was given about ten addresses of firms in Berlin which were looking for labor. I went to see those firms one after the other. Most of these people were looking for men to look after plant security and ARP. As I was still limping at the time with the help of two walking sticks I was received rather coldly.
The last firm I went to was the DEST, the German Earth and Stone Works. I went to see a civilian there, the personnel chief, and that man told me that he needed somebody for this Department Bookkeeping in the DEST. That, he wanted an assistant and that I could actually enter that department if I wanted to do so. It was satisfactory for me and I agreed. I returned to Cologne then in a few days later I received a letter that the DEST G. m. b. H. where the agreement had been laid down and confirmed. The letter was addressed Lieutenant of Reserve Karl Sommer. Approximately 14 days later I received an additional letter headed the "Reichs Leader SS, the Chief of the Main Office Administration and Economy." That agency informed me approximately of the following:
"The DEST G. m. b. H. which was under my subordination has appointed you an employee of that organization. I agree with appointment and would appreciate if you would start your service on 1 March 1941. However, you are not employed in the Department Bookkeeping as agreed but you will be employed in Inmate Labor Assignment."
Well, on 1 March 1941 I started my position in the DEST. The Department Inmate Labor assignment at the time was occupied by 3 civilian employees when I entered and one typist. The man in charge was a man by the name of Scharnweber. The other civilian was a soldier who was on leave, the third was a civilian also and I was the fourth civilian member. The task of Department Inmate Labor consisted of typical office work. No local inspections were carried out by that department. The tasks were laid down in an organizational charts. They were the supervision of the Inmate Labor Assignment as laid down in labor regulations in 1938 to the effect that should there be difficulty between the Kommandanturs and the Labor Manager which could not be taken care of locally, the managers would have to report those incidents to us and we would try to eliminate those difficulties through the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps and Department 1-5 there. At the same time I had to get the protective clothing. Such as, leather aprons for the people who were cutting the stone, stonecutters, I had to get additional food as bonuses. I had to get additional tobacco as bonuses. Also, later on I had to work out regulations and directions concerning payment of bonuses to the inmates. Furthermore, according to the organizational chart I had to participate when establishing labor camps when it became necessary. Then I had to carry out negotiations with agencies in Berlin.
The DEST G. m. b. H. approximately in the Spring of 1941 had received an order to train stone-cutters and masons in order to eliminate the hardships that prevailed among the masons. The aim was to put at the disposal of the Reich well-trained masons and stone-cutters. We knew ever from the beginning that that work could only be useful if the inmates would also be used as masons or stone-cutters in their civilian profession after they had been trained and released. That was the reason why in June 1941 negotiations were started with the Reich Labor Ministry, which are contained in Document NO-2309, Exhibit 315, in Book No. 11 which book was introduced by the prosecution.
At the time that worked out in that way where that every German citizen had to have a labor booklet. According to regulations he was only allowed to be used at a specific profession which was contained in that booklet.
Now, if somebody's labour booklet, which was issued before he entered the concentration camp, showed that he was a worker or a messenger on a bycycle or delivery boy then he was used as such regardless of the fact that he was trained at something else in the concentration camp. Therefore, all the things which he learned in the concentration camp were lost. That was the reason why we carried out those negotiations with the Reich Labor Ministry at the time. The difficulties which afflicted inmate labor assignments were, first of all, caused by the fact that Commanders transferred trained specialists and used them for their own purposes, furthermore, a disinclination on the part of the Commandants to help out Reich industries, etc. Those difficulties were set down in a memorandum and sent to Pohl. Pohl, thereupon, took the following measures by going through Himmler that a special order be sent to the Commander advising the Commander on the importance of this training, so to say. That document was also introduced by the prosecution as Document NO-385, Exhibit 54 in Document Book No. 3.
Q. Witness, would you take a look at Document Book No. 16, please, and so take a look at document introduced as No. 427, which is contained on page 1 of the Organizational Chart therein. The exhibit number is 427, Your Honor, That is the first document in the book of No. 16.
A. I would like to look at the organizational chart on page 14 there. It is contained on page 14 of the German, page 13 of the English Document Books. I would like to discuss that chart. The Department which I joined at the time, was called the Department for Inmate Labor Assignment. The tasks of that Department was established in 1940, just exactly as they were to be developed, and as they were fixed in this organizational chart before me now. Approximately in October 1941 Scharnweber resigned from his position in the DEST. The soldier who was employed there on leave from the Army, had been called back to the Army, and the third civilian employee was in a sanitarium for "TBC." When Scharnweber resigned from his position I was appointed business manager, and I was told that I was in charge of that department; that I had to be in charge of that department. Thereupon we used German workers on those particular jobs at the time. We discussed those various things with the Department which thereupon was called the Labor Assignment Office, because Inmate Labor assignment, or, rather the form of Inmate Labor Assignment no longer applied. In this organizational chart for the Department of Inmate Labor Assignment is also contained the labor assignment for foreigners. I can not recall that foreigners were used anywhere in that Department after I joined. The racial German workers came much later, as I had mentioned before. In the Departmental Labor Assignment outside of the framework of this organizational chart, we worked on the program training of civilian apprentices, that is to say, young people who had been released from school to learn stonecutting, in other words, we devised to recruiting measures we worked on a program of accommodating of these young people and the Department took care of all these basic things.
Q. Witness, you are now holding Document Book No. 16 in your hands. Please take a look at Document NO 789, Exhibit No. 434, on page 31 of the German Document Book and page 32 of the English Document Book. I would like to ask you now about this exchange of correspondence which was introduced by the Prosecution here, and it is signed by you. Did it have anything to do with Inmates?
A. No, it did not. This concerned welfare of racial German workers which one had become sick due to the TB" and he had to report to the army hospital, and there the driver who was supposed to send that letter to the business manager did not bring it to him.
Q. Witness, during your activity with the DEST, did you ever enter a concentration camp?
A. During my activity with the DEST during the German assignment of Earth and Stone Work, I once entered the sphere of a Kommandantur of a concentration camp. However, I never did enter a Protective Custody Camp.
Q. I can recall that you told me at one time that you were sent to a camp commandant on special orders. Will you please tell us now what was the reason for that, who was the camp commandant, and what were the negotiations about?
A. The man in charge of the Stone Works in Oranienburg called up the business management of DEST one day and complained about the fact the commander of the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, Loritz, had suddenly withdrawn four carpenters from the camp, and, that, therefore, he could not proceed with his work. He said that the labor of these four carpenters was absolutely urgent, and Dr. Salpeter, who was business manager of DEST ordered me to drive up to Oranienburg in order to speak to Loritz, and I was to try to have these four carpenters returned to their original place of work. Thereupon I drove to Oranienburg, reported to the adjutant of the camp commandant, and I was not received very well, due to the fact I was civilian. They looked at me in a bad way. I spoke to the adjutant about those various things of which I had been told, and he passed them onto the camp commandant and the camp commandant told me through channels that he did not have time to see me about those things, and I had to return to Berlin without having achieved anything.
Q. Was that a single occurrence, or did DEST have several complaints of this nature?
A. The DEST did have frequent complaints, that is to say, to the effect that trained and skilled specialists no longer appeared for work and that in a few weeks had come back to the original place of work, in the meantime they had worked for the camp commandant. Most of the time these complaints were sent in writing to the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camp, Department 1-5 there. In this particular case it was tried to take care of that thing immediately and directly, because the business manager there said the whole matter was rather of an urgent nature. Apart from all here were several complaints that inmates were still being used in the camp after they had returned from their work, and that they would appear to work the following morning in a very tired condition, but an additional factor was the sudden release of skilled workers who simply did not appear at the working place, and of course, there was a decrease in production, as a result. In this connection I would like to refer to Document NO 1972, Exhibit No. 429, in Document Book No. 16. It is contained on page 19 of the English Document Book, Your Honor. In this document it is stated that inmates who are engaged as skilled workers, and who represented important workers, and who should thereby be released, from that would create a decrease in production, were to be reported to the camp commandants; who would then inform the Reich Security Main Office. This letter which was introduced by the Prosecution as a document under their number, is of Branch Office. 1-5 in Buchenwald, and refers to orders issued by the Inspector of Concentration Camps. The idea was that inmates were not to be used or employed outside, or in excess of the time in which they were supposed to serve in the camp, or otherwise the Gestapo had to report their release to the concentration camp fourteen days in advance, and then they would have to shorten, or to give an order to the effect that the release contained therein be shortened.
The way it worked was when a release slip came from the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, the inmate would then be withdrawn from the general camp, and therefore he didn't know what was going on, and then he would be placed in a release quarantine for four weeks. The reason for the release quarantine was that the smuggling of information from the camp was to be prosecuted. In other words, if, the RSHA knew, for instance, that this or that inmate was classed as skilled labor and issued an order for his release they then shortened the period of time in which a man had to serve in the release quarantine, and that it would not have any effect upon the time served by the inmate. The camp commandant did not like the idea very much because they said that from the position of the inmate they would know they would be released at that particular moment when he was to teach somebody else what the idea of his work was. Thereupon while studying these documents here, I asked myself why we had such great difficulty at the time, if the Main Department 1-5 would have been subordinated to the Main Office Construction and Budget. It would have been very simple for us if we would have gone either Loerner or Pohl, and, let's say, raised hell against the man in charge of 1-5; Burboeck. But how it really worked out was that we had to go to Oranienburg with our troubles and here Burboeck did not show us much sympathy with our difficulties.
Q.- Witness, can you tell us even today details about the question of the treatment of inmates with the BEST? By that I mean with reference to food and release.
A.- I stated before that the DEST -- the German Earth and Stone Works -- received a special training order in addition to its normal labor order. Those inmates who were to be trained were to be induced in some way or other to volunteer for the training because that training necessitated the work on the part of the inmate outside of the normal labor time. That is to say, he did not have to work for a longer period of time, but he had to learn the theoretical questions of his training in the evenings for instance.
As far as the training itself was concerned, civilian stone cutters were employed as teachers. These men actually built up a regular school. The thing that DEST did in order to induce the inmates to work was to give them additional food -- not, to be sure, the usual one-pot-stero but potatoes, soup, and something else, separated. I can recall that at the time we purchased enormous quantities of potatoes in addition to the normal foods and that one of the racial German workers went to Berlin every day to one of those large butcheries to get some sausage soup there. That was a soup that was very fat and which, generally speaking was issued to the Women in Berlin. We secured those sausage soups in Berlin, and they were taken to Oranienburg daily and issued to the inmates. I myself went to the Reich Tobacco Agency -- that is to say, the Reich agency that was issuing the tobacco to civilians -- and I had several negotiations there and finally succeeded in receiving large amounts of tobacco for our inmates for the purposes described before.
Apart from that, we had our own vegetable plots, and in most of the DEST factories vegetables were issued to the inmates as bonuses.
The inmates were fed in accordance with the Reich Food Ministry regulations, which had been issued by them. How far they received heavy workers' and very heavy workers' ratios we did not know because when we wrote to the administrative department of the concentration camps and also the administrative officers inquiring as to what they received, we did not receive any information whatsoever about it.
Inmates who worked particularly well were reported by those enterprises to the Reich Criminal Police and the Reich Security Main Office in order to obtain their release. I myself had negotiations with the Gestapo office, to be sure, with Dr. Berndorf, who was the man who was in charge of the protective custody inmates, in order to receive their release as inmates and their use as civilian employees by the DEST.
Unfortunately I can recall only very few names, that is to say, only those names of the inmates whom I met later on. I would like to describe to this Tribunal very briefly what I went through on one occasion. The manager of the Earth and Stone Workers at Oranienburg had submitted in writing an application for the release of a man by the name of Schenk because that man was being used as a foreman with the Earth and Stone works and because he was a very good worker. The manager expected to have more profit from that man if he was assigned to them as a civilian employee. He told me by telephone to please effect the release of that man. What he meant by that was that I should make a social application to the Gestapo. As I had no knowledge whatsoever about that inmates and his background and as I had to gain some sort of a picture of that man before I could go and negotiate for him, I went to Oranienburg and had this inmate come to see me.
The innate was wearing a green triangle. That is to say, he was a professional criminal, and his camp number was One. I started speaking to him, and I asked him why he was in the concentration camp. He told me, looking very much surprised, that he did not know that himself. He told me that he was simply picked up by the Gestapo and was then taken to a concentration camp.
The impression that I gained of this man was a very good one, I went back to Berlin and made an application in writing, and I had this application signed by the business manager. I went to see Dr. Berndorf personally. I told him all about the case. He wanted to see the files on that inmate, but there were no files. I had to tell him that the man was wearing a green triangle. I found out then that the Gestapo was not responsible for these men with the green triangle but the Criminal Police. Dr. Berndorf called up the man in charge there and asked him to see me. I thereupon went to the Reich Criminal Police Office, to Dr. Andechser.
When I arrived there, the man had that inmate's record on his desk. I told him what I had come to see him about, and I told him that I had a very good impression of that inmate, that inmate had told me personally that he did not know, why he was in the concentration camp. Dr. Andechser opened that inmate's record, and he read me 30 previous convictions which that inmate had gone through. They ranged from theft to rape, and he told me that it was impossible to release that man during the war, in his opinion. I thereupon asked him please to release was actually carried out. That inmate became a civilian foreman with the DEST.
Approximately ten days after that he was then to report back to work. I believe that he returned on the 12th or 13th day. He apologized saying that he had gone to Berlin, had met some old friends there, and that they had got drunk together. That was the reason he had borrowed some money from a number of workers in the DEST.
I did not see that man again. All I know is that a half a year later he was returned to the concentration camp because of another violation of the law.
I can recall in connection with inmate's release just the name of Kranebuhl, who was a foreman in the brick works of Oranienburg, and who was later on also sent back to a concentration camp because of the black market slaughtering.
Then I can recall the name of Fischer, who was a technical draftsman in the main department of the DEST in Berlin, and also a Stabinger, who was working in the -
BY JUDGE MUSSMANO:
Q.- What do you want us to draw from this long story that you have told us about the individual who was released and then returned six months later? What do you prove by that long recital?
A.- Your Honor, it has been repeatedly mentioned here that the inmates were sent to the concentration camps without any reason and were not guilty and that we were supposed to know that.
Q.- Then you conclude that this individual was really a criminal?
A.- Yes, indeed.
Q.- Well, if he was such a criminal, why did you advocate hie release when the Police Chief showed you the record on the table of the various crimes that he had committed, running the whole gamut from thievery to rape; yet you recommended his release. How do you explain that?
A.- Your Honor, due to that restriction to the area of Oranienburg and due to the fact that man made a very good impression upon me personally, I believed that in spite or his record -- or due to his record and due to his stay in the concentration camp, he would behave differently in the future. I mentioned before that was not the case and that later on he was again punished.
Q.- Very well, then; from this incident and two or three others that you adverted to, you conclude that those who were in the concentration camps should be there because of their criminal records?
A. Your Honor, those were not only two or three instances, but there were quite a few instances.
Q. Yes, but from those which you had occasion to investigate, you now conclude that there were no innocent people in concentration camps, that is what we are to draw from this story?
A. Well, I shall come back to that later on, your Honor, also my conclusion that these people were either sent to the concentration camps due to punishments, or then because they were endangering the security of the Reich as it said in their protective custody order.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, can you tell us anything about the comparison in numbers between the inmate labor and free labor which was employed at the DEST?
A. The number of inmates is no longer known to me. I only know that the number of the skilled workers with the DEST was a very low one, and in order to increase that number we currently tried to get more personnel by releasing inmates all the time, since no labor was available in the open market.
Q. Witness, during your activity with the DEST did anything change in your position or your relationship towards the SS?
A. I stated before that my membership with the SS had rested since the first of April, 1936. After my release from the Wehrmacht sure I tried and after I was a member of the DEST. I didn't serve any longer in the SS. Approximately in July, 1941, Mummenthey saw me wearing a uniform of a lieutanant of the army one time, and that was on the occasion of a luncheon in the officers' mess. On that particular evening I had agreed to participate in one of the regular conferences of reserve officers.