To the best of my recollection, at that time, there were in the concentration camps within the Reich territory, with the exception of Auschwitz, approximately 1,500 Jewish inmates. They were then afterwards actually transported to Auschwitz, with the exception of 200 inmates who were used as a masons detachment in Buchenwald, where a rifle factory was built for the armament industry.
Q. As far as the order was concerned which cleared the concentration camps in the Reich of Jews who were transported to the East, did that not give you any cause for misgivings?
A. No, at the time I asked Maurer just what the reason for this measure was, what purpose it had; because, after all, these people were in concentration camps, and therefore they could not cause any damage there of any kind. Maurer said that Himmler had ordered that Jews were to be located exclusively in the concentration camps in the East, and that, therefore, this measure would have to be carried out.
In this connection, I would like to point out that also in the camps in the East frequently groups of persons were transferred to camps within the Reich territory; for example, Polish or Czech inmates who were sent into the Reich in order to prevent the danger of escape.
THE PRESIDENT: You said that Poles and Czechs were sent into the Reich to prevent them escaping?
WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor; they were sent from the concentration camps in the East -- let us say Auschwitz in this case. They were transferred to the Reich in order to keep them somewhat more distant from their homelands and, therefore, to have less risk of their escaping.
THE PRESIDENT: I see BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, what did you know about the Action Reinhardt? And what did you have to do with it?
A. In the spring of 1943 the branch of training of inmates was dissolved because in the meantime it had been realized that the war would not be over as soon as had bean previously expected, and it was discovered that the work of the inmates in the armament industry was more necessary than to have them work in the construction industry. Stumpf, who worked in this branch, was transferred to a combat unit. Before he left the office, by order of Maurer, he turned over to me a depot of watches. In the ground floor of our office building there was a large chamber where sealed boxes and other containers were located. Stumpf told me at the time that these containers were filled with watches which had to be repaired in the watch repairshop at Sachsenhuasen. At the time I already knew that such a watch repairshop existed. I had to supervise this stock of watches from Spring, 1943, until the spring of 1944. As far as I can remember, during this time we received four or five shipments of sealed containers which were filled with watches. As far as I can recall, we received them from Hauptsturmfuehrer Mellmer from the office treasury of the WVHA. However, I believe that we also received watches directly from Lublin and Auschwitz.
Whenever they arrived the watches were counted, put in sealed containers, and stored in the storage room downstairs, A non-commissioned officer was directly in charge of the chamber. When the watch repair master in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen needed further watches to be repaired, he would come to see us and in his presence and in the presence of the non-commissioned officer a container would be opened and the watches were counted; then they were turned over to this watch maker. Then these watches were repaired in the watch repair shop in Sachsenhausen. At that shop approximately 80 prisoners were working. After having been repaired, the watches would again be returned to Amt. D-II. There they would be stored. These spare parts for these watches were procured at the expense of the Reich and also the cleaning materials and the necessary tools for the watch repair shop. Already at that time when taking over the stock this matter became know to me as the Action Reinhardt, or a little later, I cannot recall. Of clothing, machines, shoes, glasses, gold from teeth, and so on from this action I have heard here for the first time in this court.
Q. Did you know about the origin of these watches?
A. Well, when I took over this stock and this depot I asked Mauer where these watches were coming from. Mauer told me at the time that these watches had been confiscated from the enemy. They now had become the property of the Reich and every theft of any one of these subjects would be very severely punished. Actually, in the Spring of 1944, a member of the watch repair shop --- he was a member of the SS -- was sentenced to five years in jail, because he had exchanged various watches. That is to say, he had put inferior watches in place of better watches which he took away. In this connection, I would also like to say that we were dealing with watches of all trade marks. We had wrist watches. We had pocket watches. There were modern watches. Then we had watches which could only be wound up with a key. Then we had wall clocks. We had alarm clocks. That is to say, we had clocks of all types. They were old and they were second hand. On some of these watches we could still see the trade marks.
A. Therefore, I assume from your answer that from the type of watches which were being repaired here one could not draw the conclusion that these watches had been taken away from inmates who had been killed?
A. No, that assumption could not be drawn. I myself tried on one occasion to see an order according to which these watches had been confiscated. As far as I can recall, I talked to Melmer about that on one or two occasions. As far as I remember, it was Melmer told me at that time that these watches had been confiscated by virtue of a decree which the State Secretary Reinhardt in the Reich Ministry of Finance had issued, and that was the reason why this action had been given the name of Action Reinhardt.
Q. Did you yourself receive a fountain pen or a watch from these stocks?
A. No, never. By order of Himmler, these watches were distributed to the combat units of the SS and they were also given to the units of the Luftwaffe and the Navy. They were distributed without any charge. The same thing was done with the fountain pens. I myself never received any of the watches out of this action.
Q. After these detailed questions, I want to come back to your actual activity with Office D-II; in your position with the DEST or in Office D-II did you ever have the thought that the work which was being done by inmates was slave labor?
A. No, I have already stated that in the concentration camps and in the allocation of labor I saw a certain type of work for the inmates. A certain man by the name of Scharnweber, who was a legal expert, was working at the DEST when I entered there. His deputy was Dr. Schneider. He was a lawyer who worked in the Legal Department. In the DEST at that time Dr. Salpeter was a business manager. He also was a lawyer. The Protective Custody Specialist for the RSHA was Dr. Berndorf. He also was a lawyer with the Criminal Police Office. The Specialist Dr. Andechser was active. He also was a lawyer. I therefore could not believe that something irregular was being done here and that the work which was demanded of the inmates was slave labor.
Q. The President of the Court has stated towards the Defendant Pohl the Tribunal sees slave labor in the fact that the inmates were forced to carry out work without receiving a single cent for their work. What do you have to say about that?
A. It is correct that the inmates up to the beginning of the year, 1942, approximately hardly received any money at all, and then very gradually they received some money for their work. I do not know just why this was done. I had to assume at the time that this was done in assimilation to measures which were taken by the judicial service, which I found when I entered the DEST. One of the decrees set forth that the amount of payment for inmate labor was to be turned over the the Reich. However, I believe that for the conception of slave labor it would also be necessary that these people had only been brought into the concentration camp just because labor was needed. However, I am still convinced today that the inmates in the concentration camps had either violated some laws or they were automatically arrested because otherwise they were endangering the security of the occupation troops. I believe that this opinion of mine is supported by the document which the prosecution has presented, 1063-PS. It is in Document Book XII. It is Exhibit 340. This is a decree of the Chief of the Security Police of the SD and it is signed by Mueller, the Chief of the Gestapo Office. This decree states under paragraph 1, "Effective immediately, that is, until the 1st of February, 1943, workers from the East, if they have broken their contracts or if they have tried to escape from their work, should be sent to the concentration camp which is nearest to the spot where they are caught." Well, this also happened to any German who broke his working contract and who did not show up for work. Therefore, this was nothing in particular.
THE PRESIDENT: Don't you see any difference between a German who refuses to work for the Reich and a Pole who refuses to work for Germany, the country who had overrun his native land and had destroyed it? Do you see any difference between these two?
WITNESS: Your Honor, unfortunately, I am not a lawyer, and, therefore, I cannot judge this matter from the point of view of International Law.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't want it to be according to International Law. I just want it according to human common sense.
WITNESS: My opinion is, Your Honor, that the population of an occupied country can be used for that sort of work.
THE PRESIDENT: I see. You understand then that if Germany overruns a country it can force the people of that country to make munitions of war to be used against their own people?
WITNESS: I have heard here, Your Honor, that prisoners of war were not to be used for the manufacture of ammunition. However, at that time I thought that the population of a country could be used for work.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean to make bullets to be shot at their own people --- Let's put it so you can't misunderstand it -- you think it was all right for the civilian population of Poland or any other country to be forced to make guns to shoot against their own people? That seems all right to you, does it?
WITNESS: Well, Your Honor, at the time we were not at war with Poland any more. Poland had been conquered.
THE PRESIDENT: Had you concluded a peace with Poland?
WITNESS: No, as far as I know, the Polish Government had escaped from the country and no Government existed any more in Poland with whom we could make a peace.
THE PRESIDENT: Poland had an Army, not much of an Army, but they had an army in the field at that time, did it not?
WITNESS: I don't know anything about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, this is an interesting comment you make. It was your idea that after the --- was it 21 days of the Polish Campaign -- about 21 days it took to overrun Poland, didn't it?
A. Yes, your Honor.
Q. It is your opinion that at the end of those twenty-one days Germany owned Poland; is that right?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. Well, it's your opinion that Germany owned the Poles? That's what you just told me.
A. No.
Q. Well, what do you call it when you say that they could be forced to make war munitions to be used against their allies, if not against themselves? Don't you call that owning the Poles?
A. No, your Honor. I believe, your Honor, that it can be demanded that these people should work. The question then remains where they should work and what kind of work they should do.
Q. They must work for nothing?
A. No, the Poles in Germany who came to Germany as voluntary workers always received their pay.
Q. We're talking about the people that you say can be compelled to work. You say you have a right to compel the people of Poland to work for Germany--not the people who came voluntarily?
A. Up to now I understood your question in a general sense, your Honor. The Poles who were turned over to the concentration camps actually did not receive anything for their work for a certain period of time. However, I have already said that this condition changed after a while and that even these Poles were to receive a certain amount of money. Of course, this was not in any relation to the amount of work which they performed, but -
Q. Wait a minute. You're getting away from the point. You believe that Germany had a right to compel the conquered Poles to work; to compel them, I say?
A. I think yes, your Honor.
Q. And to work for nothing; without pay? It's getting a little difficult, isn't it?
A. Your Honor, would you like me to answer this question in general?
Q. No, not in general. This is your own proposition. I am seeing how good it is and how much you'll stand behind it. It was all right for Germany to compel the Polish civilians--to compel them--to work for Germany. Now, without pay?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. That's what was done, wasn't it?
A. Of course, they were to be paid for their work.
Q. Were they paid for the work?
A. If they came voluntarily, yes.
Q. No, no. You're just running me around the ring. I'm not talking about the ones who came voluntarily. The ones who were compelled to work for Germany because they had been conquered, were they paid?
A. Your Honor, the Poles were not turned over to the concentration camps because they had been conquered.
Q. Well, you just referred me to this document, Exhibit 340.
A. Yes, your Honor. It states here that the foreign workers or those from the East who had broken their contracts, who had escaped, that is to say, workers who were used at a certain place of work and who had left that work, whenever they were apprehended again they were to be turned over to a concentration camp. However, it goes on to say, Your Honor, that all inmates, if they are capable of working, if it can be done factually and from the humane point of view, are to be turned over to the concentration camp which is closest in the vicinity.
Q. That's right.
A. In my opinion that says that everyone who sends them there has to deal with a very difficult task as to whether the case of the escaping or their breaking of the contract is such a severe crime that this measure can be taken. Therefore, it seems to me that not all those who escaped were sent to concentration camps.
Q. All right, here's your own proposition. If you couldn't compel them to work for Germany, in Poland, if they refused or rebelled, then you sent them to concentration camps where they couldn't refuse or rebel because they were under guard; and that, you think, was all right?
A. I didn't quite understand your question, Your Honor.
The translation didn't come through very clearly.
Q. If Germany could not compel captured Polish civilians to work for Germany in Poland or wherever they were captured, that is, if they refused or rebelled, then you sent them to concentration camps where they could be compelled to work?
A. Well, this document doesn't mention that, your Honor.
Q. Never mind the document. What do you say about it? Is that all right?
A. I understand you to say, your Honor, that when they escaped from Poland or if they tried to cause a revolution -
Q. Or if they just wouldn't work for you.
A. No, then in my opinion not. Then, of course, one could not send them to a concentration camp in my opinion.
Q. Well, this document says "or who have broken contracts." You mean a contract with a conquered people? Well, let's not get into that. That is a little involved. Do you think it is ever right to force people to work?
A. During a war which will bring a result of life or death, I believe that can be done.
Q. And you think it is all right to capture people, civilians, not soldiers, to capture civilians, compel them to work against their own nation and pay them nothing?
A. If they are arrested just because they are potential workers, then, of course, that is not correct. However, if they have been arrested because they have violated laws and then they are forced to do some work, then I believe, your Honor, that is quite all right.
Q. No, they are not arrested because they are criminals or have violated any law. They are arrested because they have been captured, that's all.
A. No, your Honor. After all, they had a working contract before, and they must have signed a working contract out of their own free will.
Q. You don't believe that, do you? You don't believe that the captured Poles signed contracts to make munitions for the Germans?
A. The picture in wartime in Germany was such that it was hard to see a German worker. It was typical to see a German worker in the streets but there were many foreign workers, and they did not look unhappy at all. They did not look as if they were suppressed. I had the impression at the time that they had come to Germany to work quite voluntarily. After all, they were able to walk about the streets freely.
Q. There's no doubt that some of them did. The ones that were walking about the streets were quite happy; the ones that were in the concentration camps were not. Well, I'm holding up progress. Maybe I am making some progress, though.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Counsel.
BY DR. BEIZER:
Q. Witness, did you have any observations to make?
A. May I say something with regard to the previous question? After all, the situation was such that the concentration camp inmates represented labor which was very much in demand, and many visitors came constantly to Oranienburg, or applicants made written requests to have their firms supplied with inmate labor. The Office D II never referred a request for labor to the RSHA in which it had been stated that the German armament industry needed an additional number of thousands of workers. That was never done. A request of a firm was disapproved if inmates were not available; and it was approved whenever the prerequisites were fulfilled and inmates could be furnished. The whole development of the so-called pay for inmates I have seen only from the sidelines so to speak. It is correct that the plants in 1942 paid thirty pfennigs per inmate per day.
This amount, to my knowledge, had been set by the Reich Ministry of Finance. Later on the Reich Ministry of Finance urged for an increase in these payments because it maintained the point of view that the concentration camps should finance themselves. The increase of the pay for inmates then took place gradually, step by step, just as the Reich Ministry of Finance had urged. In the end, the pay for an auxiliary worker would amount to four marks, and for a skilled worker to six marks per day. The Reich Ministry of Finance was satisfied with the wage scale. However, all of this money went into the Reich treasury.
Q. Witness, in this connection can you tell us whether you know what scales the Reich set for the food and maintenance of the inmates?
A. I don't know the exact allotments.
Q. I now come to a different question. Did you make any observations about a systematic extermination of concentration camp inmates through work, in particular by turning them over to so-called punitive detachments or punitive companies? Please take a look at Exhibit 13, in Document Book I. This is your own affidavit; and I want you to look at it first and read Paragraph 6, which is the last paragraph.
In my affidavit I have testified, and I quote: "I know today that when I entered my position in May, 1942, so-called punitive detachments existed in the camps, and that these punitive detachments which officially were dissolved at the end of '42 or the beginning of '43 were listed in a camouflage manner in the labor assignment reports, and that in the individual detachments more workers were furnished than were actually listed. I know that in some of these punitive detachments, especially in stone quarries, work was so difficult physically, and the inmates were driven to work in such a manner that it can be said that many inmates were worked to death in the truest sense of the word. I also know that those inmates which were sent to punitive detachments mostly were unpopular inmates in the concentration camps."
With regard to this statement in my affidavit I would like to say the following: I know that punitive companies, so-called punitive companies existed in the concentration camps. If I remember correctly early in 1943 Gluecks, by request of Maurer, ordered that these punitive companies were to be dissolved because inmates were constantly withdrawn from the production who had committed some minor offense, and who had therefore been transferred to these punitive companies. Consequently they were not able to perform their work any more. That was the reason why the punitive companies were to be dissolved. At the time the camp commanders in person had to report that these punitive companies had been dissolved and discontinued. This happened in all camps.
In April of last year I was a witness in the Neuengamme trial. On that occasion I heard for the first time that even after these punitive companies had been prohibited, in the camp of Neuengamme a punitive company remained in existence. I heard that in the following manner. On Friday morning we had to wash our laundry, and one of the witnesses told me that he was suffering from pain in his heart. He told me that he as a member of the punitive company he had been maltreated. That was in the fall of 194.
When I told him that this could not have happened because after all the punitive companies had already been dissolved a long time before that, he told me that until the end a punitive company had existed at Neuengamme. A member of the headquarters commandant's staff then confirmed this fact to me afterwards, and he told me that the punitive company had been maintained by order of the camp commander, and the inmates had been reported in a camouflaged manner. This former inmate who told me about this matter of the punitive company also told me that inmates who were unpopular were put into that punitive company, and that he also had only been transferred to the punitive company because he had been unpopular.
The phrase which refers to the stone quarries was included in the affidavit because the interrogator, in the course of a pre-trial interrogation, told me that Mummenthey had made that statement, and that I certainly should be able to confirm it. At that time I said that I didn't know anything about it. However, when I signed the affidavit I did not know that the fact, of which I said that I only know it today, would be conceived in such a way that I had ought to have known it before also. I shall refer to this affidavit later on again.
However, from Document Book 12 I would like with regard to Exhibit 333, Document 654-PS, I would like to make a very brief statement with regard to that document. This is the file note of Thierack where he states that antisocial elements are to be turned over by the judicial system to the SS in order to be exterminated through work. I have seen this document for the first time here in this court. I have heard of it for the first time during the Neuengamme trial where I was a witness. Later on in the internment camp I have talked to the former Minister of Justice, Thierack, about that matter. Thierack, first of all, denied that such a document existed at all. Later on he admitted it, and he stated to me that he did not mean by that that these inmates were to be exterminated through work. He only meant that these antisocial inmates were to be used for work which was particularly dangerous.
At the time he told me that he -- and I asked him about that in particular -- had not submitted a copy of that file note to Pohl. I also want to point out that Thierack was never a member of the SS. The entire document is a terrible nonsense in itself, because after all in Germany we needed more and more workers. People were mobilized up to the last woman, and they were made to work at the machines, We therefore all of us had to be interested in keeping every single worker as possible.
When the Document R-129, Exhibit 40, in Document Book 2, which represents the order of Pohl to the camp commanders when Amtsgruppe D was incorporated into the WVHA was discussed, the Prosecution has alleged here that his expression "labor allocation" must be exhaustive in the true sense of the word," could be interpreted in that sense. At the time when this order was issued to the agencies, the word "exhaustive" was understood to mean a phrase which was very common at that time, and which was exclusively used by the labor assignment authorities. What they meant to say was the last man was to be used. It did not mean that every man was to work until he was so exhausted he could not perform further work. Actually in another document the working hours were set at eleven hours a day. I know that many firms in Germany did not work these eleven hours, and their inmates did not work eleven hours either.
Q You, therefore, meant to say that the statements in the affidavit, Exhibit 13, are not based on your observations during the course of your activity in Office D-II, but they are based on experiences which you had after the collapse?
A Yes, that is correct. I knew that punitive companies had existed, but I did not know what effects they had. I therefore stated expressly that I know that today.
Q Do you know anything about particularly brutal methods which were used to drive the inmates to work? Please take a look at Document NO-1544, Exhibit 137, Page 104, and English, Page 190.
That is in Document Book 5.
A This is the order that inmates are, under no circumstances, to be beaten, and that the prisoners are only to be driven to work with words. I must say that this order in its tendency was already included in the camp standard order of procedure, and that it was known to the prisoners, because the former inmate, Gross, in his book, "2,000 Days in Dachau," on Page 227 has quoted this order in detail.
Q Were you able to make any observations that from Amtsgruppe D, or any office within the Office Group, orders were issued to the concentration camps which directly or indirectly were to effect the extermination of inmates?
A No.
Q Were any orders issued which demanded that the inmates should be treated humanely?
AAll measures which came to my attention and which dealt with the treatment of inmates aimed at the maintenance of the working potential, using workers, and of course, decent treatment of the inmates was mandatory in that respect.
DR. BELZER: Your Honor -
THE PRESIDENT: Before you request it, yes. We will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1 July 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg Germany, on 1 July 1947, 1930-1630, Justice Robert M Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will show that the defendant Scheide is absent from this session of court upon request of counsel and with leave of the court.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, yesterday I asked you whether any orders had been issued which improved the treatment of the concentration camp inmates. You answered this question in the affirmative. I now want to ask you what measures were taken in order to maintain the potential working power of the inmates?
A. An order was issued that only healthy inmates should be used for work. Inmates who were sick and who were released from the inmate hospital after having recovered--they were only given light duty, weaving for instance, during the time of their convalesence so that they slowly would become used again to work. The working hours were to correspond to the working hours which were demanded of a German civilian worker. Any work for inmates after their return from a working detail was fundamentally prohibited. Skilled workers were only to be used in their special fields, and they were to remain at their places of work once their had been assigned such work. I know that Maurer, the Chief of Office D-II, placed particular emphasis on clean and well ventilated accommodations. I can recall a case when he found that the inmates were not billeted properly.
He then called the owner of the firm to Berlin and he ordered him in a very short time limit to establish a barracks where the inmates could be accommodated properly. For this measure, additional guards were needed and there was a big shortage of guard personnel at that time. In spite of this, however, the execution of this measure was demanded.
If it was customary in the plant that the firm had to furnish protective clothing to their civilian workers, then they had to provide this protective clothing also for the prisoners. I have already stated before that 90 per cent of all inmates received the heavy workers' ration. They even received that additional ration if the prerequisites were not given for that.
There was an order according to which the morning and evening roll-calls fundamentally should not exceed the time limit of ten minutes.
In the year 1942, the State carried out a collection of textiles and shoes. That is to say, the German population was requested to contribute shoes and clothing and to turn then over in order to alleviate the shortage of materials. At the time, a member of the Shoe-Group appeared at Oranienburg. That was a Reich agency which had to supply the population with shoes. He told us that the collection of shoes which originally had been estimated to bring in 3 million pairs of shoes actually had resulted in 12 million shoes being turned in. He requested that these shoes should be taken apart by the inmates in the concentration camp and then they should be turned over to the various factories in order to produce glue fertilizer, clothes and so on.
At the time we assured then that we would use inmates for this sort of work and at the same time we made the reservation that shoes which still could be worn could be purchased by us so that they could be given to the inmates.
When I entered the office D-II, so-called transports detachments existed in the concentration camps. Vehicles with rubber tires were drawn by the inmates. At the time it was immediately ordered that horses should be procured to do this work. Later on, these horses were actually procured and they drew these vehicles fron that time on. Inmates were not used for that purpose any more.
I know that, beyond that, sports were carried on in the concentration camps and that movie houses were located in then. They were for the benefit of the inmates.
I request the Tribunal to permit me to quote briefly from the books of former concentration camp inmates. I want to quote two places which refer to these measures. The former inmate, Gross, in his book, "Two Thousand Days in Dachau"-- makes the following statement on page 217, and I quote:
"From time to time we actually have a holiday crowd on a certain street in the camp, especially when, after roll call, thousands of people return to their barracks, or when they rush to the football match or *** the concert. They always carry their little folding chairs along. What a change has occurred now when compared to the time before. Two years ago we laughed at the rumor that football, thearer and movie facilities were to be installed. Today these facilities have become part of the life in the camp as formerly the hanging."
The former inmate, Weissruettel states in his book, "Night and Fog", Nacht und Nebel: "The Sundays and off duty hours now were not as cheerless anymore as they had been before. Daily only one roll call took place. In the spacious drying barrack of the laundry a theater had been installed." And he goes on with some further statements.
In this connection I want to refer briefly to a letter which came into my hands accidentally. This was a letter of the plant foreman of the firm Rheinmetall at Berlin. The firm Rheinmetall complained in this letter that a foreign worker who had been working in this plant and who had been sent to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen by the Gestapo because he refused to work, returned again after two months and then he again refused a work which had been assigned to him. At that occasion the worker had stated that he preferred to return to the concentration camp rather than work with the firm Rheinmetall. He stated that he had been treated pretty well in the concentration camp.