Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Did you contact anyone in Amtsgruppe A or B yesterday in addition to the defendants? Strike that "yesterday". Did you at any time contact anyone in Amtsgruppe A or B other than the defendants?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A May I just look at the organizational chart about that? No, I cannot remember that any contact existed, with the exception of Oberfuehrer Dr. Salpeter who was in charge of A-3, but the contact there originated from the time when he was manager of the DEST.
Q Did you at any time contact Office D-2 in connection with the assignment of concentration camp inmates?
A There was some contact with Obersturmbannfuehrer Lechler, but I think that this contact with Lechler existed with regard to his position as the manager of the Textile and Leather Works, Limited, not with B-2, as I remember it.
Q Well, were any inmates assigned to the production of clothing for B-2?
A For the manufacture of clothing only as far as the company for textile and leather products was concerned.
Q That is shown by the chart?
A Yes, it is; the chart shows under Office Group W, Office W-6, Obersturmbannfuehrer Lechler.
Q Did you have any contact with Office B-3 in connection with the construction of buildings or quarters?
A Office B-3 was located, in the end, north of Oranienburg, and employed inmates.
Q Didn't they have contact through your office?
A Who requested the inmates, I don't know, but I assume that it must have been the chief of B-3.
Q Witness, I have asked you to be sure to enumerate all the people and all the offices in either Amtsgruppe A or B that contacted you for inmates. I don't think there is any ambiguity in that question.
A I said that Office B-3 employed inmates in its office near Oranienburg.
Q That is all I asked you originally: if there were any persons--Whether Offices A or B had any inmates assigned to them; and you said only what you told me yesterday. And now it develops that there Court No. II, Case No. 4.are additional ones.
A What you asked me yesterday was whether there was any contact between D-2 and the co-defendants in the dock. You called the names of the defendants and you did not ask me about Office B-3 yesterday.
Q And this morning I asked you about what other offices in B-2 other than the defendants you had contact with--you didn't tell me about either Lechler or Office B-3-
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they are not defendants in the dock. That is what is confusing him.
MR. RUDOLPH: No, I asked him for persons other than defendants.
THE PRESIDENT: This morning?
MR. RUDOLPH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he is telling you.
MR. RUDOLPH: But only after I had to pump it out of him.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think that is fair. I think the witness is trying to answer the question.
BY MR. RUDOLPH:
Q You stated yesterday that the affairs of your officers were cleared once a week with Pohl, did you not?
A Yes, Maurer went once a week, together with Gluecks, to see Pohl.
Q And Oswald Pohl at all times was aware of the activities of your office, particularly with respect to the allocation of concentration camp labor?
A I am bound to assume that, yes.
Q What were the functions of Office B-4, and did they at any time require any concentration camp labor to be assigned to them?
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say B-4?
MR. RUDOLPH: Yes.
A B-4...no.
Q And B-1?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A B-1, as I said yesterday--I know that the troop depots and main depots employed inmates. What B-1 did when inmates were requested, I don't know. As I remember it, its requests came from the main depots and the troop depots themselves.
Q Although you didn't contact all the defendants, do you deny that each Amtsgruppe had concentration camp labor allocated to its offices?
A Office Group A certainly did not have any inmates. Office Group B, as I told you, had them in the main depots and troop depots under B-1. Office B-2 had inmates in the clothing works and for sometime in the clothing treasury. Office B-3 had inmates in its offices near Oranienburg. And B-3 never had inmates, as far as I know. Office B-5 had a large garage--that is to say, the WVHA had a large garage. And I think that B-5 was in charge of that garage, and inmates were working there.
Q Does that cover all of the Amtsgruppen that employed concentration camp inmates?
A Only Office Groups A and B.
Q Did Amtsgruppe D, W and C also employ concentration camp inmates?
A In the WVHA itself, under Eicke, a lot of construction work was carried out. I believe a private firm was used there called Arag. To what extent that firm was under Office Group C, or not, I do not know. I said yesterday that, as I remember it, inmates were used for building projects if Office Group C requested them. And then Office C-5, of which Kammler was personally in charge, at least for some time, would request them. There an Obersturmfuehrer Prinzel would request inmates from us. Usually inmates were requested by the local construction managements through the building inspectorate as the central office.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, start with Amt C-1 and go right down through the Amtsgruppen. Then take D, and do the same. And the question Court No. II, Case No. 4.is, were concentration camp inmates used in connection with that office, witness--or the work of that office.
Amt C-1.
WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President. Your Honor, I do not know much about the inner workings of the various offices of Office Group C. I see here that Office C-1 was responsible for the construction of the Waffen-SS, concentration camps, POW camps and construction work for the German Police and the Allgemeine SS. I do not remember that at any time there was from Office C-1 any request for inmates, although in the three years of my work with C-2 such construction work was carried out. Quite obviously, Office C-5 had a central agency which centralized all requests for labor and which would look after the labor allocation for office Group C, which was not limited solely to concentration camp inmates.
Everything, therefore, which came from Office Group C came from Office C-5. As far as the other offices are concerned, I do not know that inmates were requested at any time. Office Group D, in its own building in Oranienburg, had two detachments of inmates. Once there were ten female Jehovas witnesses for cleaning work and work in the canteen, and ten to fifteen male inmates who worked in a radio repairshop.
As to Office Group W, inmates were employed by W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4, W-5, W-6; W-7 never had any inmates.
As for W-VIII, I am not quite certain that Sudelfeld Recreation Home, for instance, was under W-VIII from an organizational point of view, and inmates were used there, but I know that the man in charge of the home would address his wishes exclusively to Pohl and Pohl would then pass them on in the form of an order to us.
Also, for the construction detachment in Wevelsburg, when inmates were required, they would be requested by Bartels who was in charge there. Wewelsburg itself was under Obersgruppenfuehrer Taubert, who also participated when requests for inmates were discussed. How they stood in relation to W-VIII, I am unable to judge. Of course, when these requests turned up, the chief of W-VIII, Klein, never appeared on the scene.
Q.- I call your attention to Exhibit 360, included in Document Book 12 on page 37, Document No. 597, a plan for the Documentary Unification of the Filing System, marked "top secret." This plan was prepared by you, you stated yesterday, isn't that correct?
A.- Do you mean Document NO-597, sir? Yes, this document consists of two parts. The first part is the File plan of June 1944 and was drawn up by me at the time.
Q.- Where does the part that you prepared stop?
A.- On page 45 of the German Book with the Concentration camp Plassow allocation for SS agencies. The new file plan of 1 October 1942, which starts on the next page, was not drawn up by me.
Q.- Are the two plans intended to fulfill the same purpose?
A.- The plan of 1 October 1942 had become obsolete through the events. It was rescinded, and was replaced by the Plan of June 1944.
Q.- All the facts set forth in the first plan were incorporated in some phase or another in the one you set up, were they not?
A.- When this file plan was sent to the concentration camps, the second plan was not attached. It had already been in the camps for two years.
Q.- But when your plan supplanted the first one, it was intended to keep all the items that were set forth in the original plan, was it not?
A.- No, what it says in the letter is that the Office D-II in the WVHA had compiled a certain plan for labor allocation of inmates. That is the same plan, and later on it says that the concentration camps as far as the allocation of labor was concerned had to adjust their procedure and adhere to that plan and use the same file notes. They listed the whole file system of concentration camps as far as they concerned allocation of labor which had to be read justed according to this plan.
Q.- Who compiled these records within the camps?
A.- I assume the labor allocation officer or any official appointed by the camp commandant.
Q.- Can't you be more definite than to assume? You must know who compiled these records.
A.- No, I'm not able to know this, because the labor allocation officer did not have to account to us and the camp commandant was in a position to give orders to anybody else. I said yesterday that the labor allocation officer worked according to the ideas of the Assistant Camp Commandant, but each camp would do it in a different way. I never noticed this because the mail was almost exclusively signed by the camp commandant.
Q.- On the Table of Operations was this officer under your jurisdiction?
A.- You mean, the agency labor allocation within the concentration camps?
Q.- Yes.
A.- No, that was not under our jurisdiction. This was a department of the concentration camp and the camp commandant was in charge.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: I just want to be sure that I understand your po sition about the allocation of labor.
This is the way I understand by now from your testimony. If I am wrong, I want you to correct me. Your office, D-II, when you received a request from headquarters or from any other agency that was entitled to have labor allocated to them, and would request of your office a number of inmates for a certain purpose to a certain place, you would grant that request in your office, and send the order for the inmates to the concentration camp. There, the allocation officer in the concentration camp, together with the camp commandant, would select the inmates that would be sent on the allocation order issued by your office. Now is that correct?
WITNESS: It is correct, approximately. If a request reached us, the camp commandant would be asked to see how many people he could allocate and find out whether any allocation was available. If he answered that question in the affirmative, the request was made part of a new list, was submitted to Pohl, and Pohl decided yes or no and then the camp commandant would receive orders from us whether inmates had to be transferred or not. That is how it worked.
Q.- I would like to ask one question in line with that put to you by the Judge. In what detail were these requests for inmates filled out by the requesting agency?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't understand the question. "In that detail" -
Mr. RUDOLPH: What did they describe, the type of work that it was to be for, the construction project -
A.- The man who sent the request, submitted a form, which is Exhibit 362, submitted by the Prosecution. That form had to be filled in and he had to sign it and set forth how many inmates he wanted to have, what type of work was to be carried out, and the camp and the camp commandant had to write on the back of that page in great detail how the food would be handled, what guards, there would be, about billets and transportation, if transportation should be necessary. That request was then sent by the commandant to D-II and there it was handled in accordance with Pohl's order, signed by Maurer and sent back to the camp commandant.
Q.- would this apply to all applications whether a part of the WVHA or whether it was private industry?
A.- Yes, up to May or June, 1944, because after that there was the arrangement with Speer's Ministry whereby requests for inmates had to be passed through the Speer Ministry exclusively.
Q.- Then you know in fairly good detail what the concentration camp inmates were being used for on the basis of the applications, did you not?
A.- The last concentration camp inmates were transferred two and a half years ago. I knew it very well at one time and I believe, if I read the names of the firms again, I would remember again to what they were transferred.
Q.- No, I was asking you the type of work done, different construction and projects that they worked on, not the names of the firms.
A.- Construction measures were handled in the following manner: The building managements at the beginning of the year were given a certain number of inmates and the building agencies would then make the necessary construction with those inmates. If a new construction project appeared, therefore, an old one had to be completed first and then the new one could be started. It had to be handled in that manner, because Mauer endeavored to concentrate under himself as much labor as possible and took over any orders on them. Therefore, for construction measures, approval was given once at the beginning of the year and it applied until the end of the year. Only in exceptional cases when enormous additional labor was required, it was handled differently. A different thing determined such measures carried out by Kammler, but he did not carry them out within office groups. All these things were called A and B measures and for these special measures a special procedure was followed.
Q.- Then you say that you don't know what the inmates were used for, is that your answer?
A.- A building agency could use inmates only for building operations.
Q.- I was not limiting my question to building inmates. I was making my question broad and comprehensive. Is it that you do not know what inmates were used for by the requesting agencies?
A.- No, as I said just now, that I knew in great detail at one time, because I was very often asked about it, but now that two and a half years have passed I cannot improvise an answer, but I believe I would remember it, if I heard the name of a firm, for instance.
Q.- You received these reports required under The Plan for Documentary Unification for Concentration Camps regularly?
A: If you please, I didn't understand your question.
Q: How often did you receive these reports from the concentration camps with respect to the plan for the documentary unification? They filed reports regularly, I believe. How often did you receive them and who sent them to you?
A: The request for inmates would reach D-II when a detachment was being put together.
Q: I asked you, witness, how often you received reports on the camps. This Exhibit 360 called for certain information to be submitted to you. How frequently were they submitted and by whom in the concentration camps?
A: In these files which are being mentioned in the file plan, all correspondence which concerned itself with a special detachment was filed. This was, one, the report by the camp commandate about his findings before the detachment was being put together; then the approved request, and in addition, any additional correspondence which might occur. Reports about the actual work done by the inmates would reach D-II on the 20th of each month about all camps. These reports described who was employing inmates, how many they were employing, and in most cases, production figures, and the report from the firm about the work done and the amount of bonuses paid out. These reports were then put together by D-II for a report which had to reach Pohl by the 25th of each month.
Q: I call your attention to Item 14 KL D-II/03 on page 3 of that exhibit, page 2 of the English, Allocation of Prisoners for the Camp Purposes within the Camps Economic Setup and to Office Group D. Will you kindly explain that particular account?
A: Certainly. Here it became necessary to file any additional correspondence which might concern inmates and production. I said yesterday that the figure of inmates used there amounted to ten percent of the total of the camp. Pohl paid great attention to this point whenever he received the list about the whole labor allocation on the 25th.
Therefore, it became necessary and occurred that correspondence was carried out.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Let me ask one question, please. In addition to the reports made by the various industries, labor that was allocated by D-II, did D-II have any other follow-up procedure in regard to the inmates that it had allocated to the various places where they were needed?
A: Do you mean another way of making out the reports?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: No, no, did you have any further supervision, or any further information after you allocated labor other than the reports that came back to your office to be transmitted to Pohl? Was that all?
A: Your Honor, Office Chief Maurer went frequently on official trips and very frequently saw on the spot what was going on before a detachment was being put together. He looked into all these details and as I remember it, he always preceeded the camp commandant.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: In other words, Maurer, Chief of D-II, inspected the labor after it was allocated for D-II?
A: Usually he visited the firms, but also afterwards, after the inmates had been transferred.
BY MR. RUDOLPH:
Q: What is meant by the term "Camp Purposes within the Camp's Economic setup," and what types of labor would that include, and what types of assignments would that include?
A: The term "Camp Purposes" is contained in Document NO-1961, which is Exhibit 364 in Book 13. It is explained there in great detail. Camp Purposes are, as I remember, kitchen, stables, libraries, inmate potato peelers, repair shops, and so forth. They are, in other words, all those detachments which are important for maintenance of the camp.
That means maintenance for camp purposes.
THE PRESIDENT: Including crematoria? There are 18 men there, you see, assigned to the crematorium.
A: Eight inmates belong to the crematorium, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Eight?
A: Yes, eight.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't it 18?
A: In the German document book, it is 8, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that at Buchenwald for July?
A: Yes, July, '44.
THE PRESIDENT: You are looking at Exhibit 364, are you, document book 13?
A: Yes, Your Honor, and on the German photostatic copy it also gives the figure 8 inmates for crematorium.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I am looking at the photostat, and it is indefinite. It may be 8 or it may be 18. I am not sure that makes much difference.
BY MR. RUDOLPH:
Q: You forgot to mention that medical experiments were included in Camp purposes, did you not, witness?
A: No. For the medical experiments it says explicitly -- I believe it was in Book 9 -- yes, Book 9, Exhibit 186, there is an order from Maurer that it had to be listed under Camp Economic and Camp Purposes as a special item. It says so on the inside page. It says, "Inmates for medical experiments and nurses for medical experiments." It was given there.
Q: Well, Camp Purposes would include medical purposes, would it not?
A: No, they exclude them. They are not set up under Camp Purposes.
Q: Well, where would they be listed?
A: They are handled as a labor allocation item for the reason that they had nothing to do with Camp Purposes. They were completely outside of that term.
Q: Where in this summary would they be included?
A: They were included nowhere. On the inside page of this survey, on the left, they were listed the various firms which employed inmates. That column began with the term "Total Figure", then underneath it says, "Unable to work". They deducted the total figure. Then "Capable to work", then "Camp Purposes", then "Camp Economy", then "Inmates for experiments," and then "Nurses for experiments." And then the various firms which employed inmates were listed in a definite order. It started with Office Group C and it ended with the SS agencies.
Q: Well, they don't appear in Document 597, do they?
A: No, that is the file plan; and as I said before, that office D-II had no idea for what purposes these inmates had been ear-marked. The fact that experiments were carried out was known to us, but any close preponderance about the kind of experiments an and so forth never reached us. That is the reason nothing is said about it in the plan.
Q: You know about the fact that experiments were conducted and you still made no provision for this in this file plan that you yourself prepared, is that correct?
A: In a file plan, all I can provide for is a file if any correspondence arises in my office. As no correspondence reached our office about the experiment, I had no cause to start a file in my file plan for that.
Q: But you were aware of the fact that inmates were being assigned for that purpose, it was your responsibility to know that disposition was being of the inmates, and you did not see fit to undertake to setup an account which would show that, did you?
THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by setting up an account?
MR. RUDOLPH: Setting up some sort of a title, which camp was using them for that particular reason.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has said there wasn't anything to go into such a file because there was no correspondence, no documents relating to the medical experiments.
MR. RUDOLPH: I understand that, Your Honor. I am merely trying to bring out the fact that it was deliberate on their part that they didn't set this up in any way, or take cognizance of the fact, and were disregarding that fact and didn't show it in any way. It was a concealed item of war. This particular defendant was the man who could set it up if he had wanted to set it up.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, you may ask him that. It strikes me it is a great deal like my setting up a file for correspondence on copper sulphate. I haven't got any such correspondence, so I don't provide for a file for it; but let's see what the witness says.
A: I said that in Office D-II no correspondence came in about the experiments which was the reason why it did not become necessary to start a file. I said yesterday that in the Sievers' diary a lot is said about experiments, but not one word is mentioned about negotiations carried out between Maurer, myself, and Sievers, because no reason existed to do so which is the reason why the file plans couldn't say one word about experiments -- we had no correspondence about it.
Q: Witness, you know about the fact that Dr. Clauberg conducted experiments on sterilization? I believe you also mentioned artificial insemination?
A: No, I did not know that, artificial insemination. I heard something about it after November 1944 when I and my wife visited Clauberg.
Gluecks told me about this, but about sterilization he said nothing.
Q: When you were interrogated by Alfred Booth on the 4th of October, he asked you if you knew about sterilization by Clauberg, and you said, "Yes, it was madness." What did you mean by that?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Mr. Booth and I talked about this point, and I said that I had heard something about artificial insemination. But as far as I remember it was Mr. Booth who said that the sterilization was carried out there, too.
Q And your comment on that was that what he did was madness. That certainly indicated you had knowledge of that, witness?
A I believe, Mr. Prosecutor, that if you were to read to me the interrogation the entire text would become clear. I believe that Mr. Booth asked me had this been done this would have been madness, and I said, yes, in that case it would be madness. That is how it was, I think.
Q Let's start at the beginning. The question put to you is do you consider it a crime to sterilize people, and your answer in referring to Dr. Clauberg, was that what he did was madness?
A Yes, he talked about it before that, if sterilization had been carried out then it would have been madness.
Q Do you consider medical experimentation a proper assignment for concentration camp inmates?
A No, I don't. You mean, somewhere -
Q But you knew absolutely nothing about it, did you?
A I knew nothing of the kind and the consequences of these medical experiments.
Q You told us a long story Monday about an inmate named Schenk who was imprisoned at Oranienburg whom you were able to have released. Did you after being informed of his criminal record discuss the matter with him when you saw him later?
A I did not release him. I advocated his release as an employee of the DEST, toward the RSHA, or toward the Reich Criminal Police Office, and I myself went and called at that office. Before that request was made, I talked to the inmate Schenk for a long time. I did not see him afterwards, or talk to him.
Q Did you inform him of the fact that he had committed these Court No. II, Case No. 4.crimes, and since you were responsible for his release, didn't you feel an obligation to investigate the truth of these statements?
A Yes, the Criminal Director Andechser told me of this when I went and called at the Reich Criminal Police Office.
Q My question is, did you affirm this, or attempt to verify this by talking to Schenk?
A I asked Schenk why he was in a concentration camp, and he told me he did not know, and then I found out later on that he had a considerable criminal record.
Q That is not the question I asked you. I am asking you, did you have this story affirmed, or did you try to verify it by talking to the man who had knowledge of all these crimes?
THE PRESIDENT: After you found out about Schenk's criminal record, did you confront him with it?
WITNESS: No, Your Honor. I said yesterday that after ten days, roughly, the man misbehaved again, and that later on he received more punishment. After Schenk was released, I did not see him or talk to him. I only heard about him from the work manager.
BY MR. RUDOLPH:
Q And you don't know the reason of his re-imprisonment?
A When he was released he did not turn up for his work, and I don't know what the reason was, because the DEST wished to employ him as a foreman because he was a good worker. Why he was again incarcerated later on, I don't know.
Q In your opinion did the Gestapo ever arrest an innocent person, and acknowledge it as such?
A I don't know that. All I heard was that he once again went back to Sachsenhausen, or some plant of the DEST, but I don't know where he was seen after that.
Q Was an innocent person ever arrested by the Gestapo, yes or no?
A I was never with the Gestapo. I never arrested anybody, and Court No. II, Case No. 4.I am unable to answer your question, Mr. President.
Q Did you ever hear of the brutal methods being employed for the purpose of forcing companies to use victims of the Gestapo?
A No.
Q Coming back to the filing report. Will you explain Item 14-K-L-D-2-04, entitled "Allocation of Prisoners to Office Group-C, and other concentration camps."
A Yes, the basic file report of allocation of inmates for Office Group-C was to be established as a matter of principle with concentration camps, because there all correspondence might reach us. Apart from that the camps in Office D-2 filed the various subdivisions. For instance, Office Group-C Building Brigades, Armament Industry, etc. was so and so here, and it explains it.
Q Now what type of labor were the prisoners required to perform under this Section 04A to 04B?
A Under 04A the files concerned the Construction Brigades. That is to say, these brigades repaired the bomb damage in Cologne, Duisburg and Wuppertal, and the Construction Brigade was also sent to Hamburg and to Berlin. The 5th SS Construction Brigade was constructing launching sites for the reprisal weapons on the Atlantic Wall, and the 1st SS Construction Brigade worked on fortification on the island of Alderney, I believe. That, as far as I know, was under the supervision of the Todt Organization.
Q Approximately how many men were assigned to this particular project, or these projects?
A Each Construction Brigade contained an average of 1000 inmates. When the 5th SS Building Brigade went to France, then the building management lent some of their inmates to the 5th Construction Brigade, and then I believe it consisted of about 2,500 inmates in France. Whereas, the Construction Brigade of Alderney consisted of about six or seven hundred men.
Q Then the total would be roughly about 7,500?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A I think that estimate is too high. I think there were about five thousand or six thousand.
Q Now, were punitive companies located in any of these particular groups?
A I said yesterday on direct examination that the punitive companies, as I recall it at the beginning of 1943, had to be dissolved, and therefore, no punitive companies can form part of these Construction Brigades.
Q Were there any PW's employed in any of these Construction Brigades?
A I said yesterday that all I know was that prisoners of war who had volunteered for the Zeppelin works were housed for sometime in the concentration camps. They were not used for work, nor do I know anything about prisoners of war being used in concentration camps on labor assignments, including the SS Construction Brigades.
Q How many male Russian prisoners did you have?
AAs to any proportion between various groups of inmates, I never knew anything about that.
Q Weren't those records kept at any place?
AAbout the type of imprisonment you mean, and the nationality?
Q As to the nationalities yes?
A I assume by Office D-1.
Q And did you have any access to those records?
A No, I did not. I had no access to them.
Q Do you deny any knowledge of the number of Russians or Poles that existed as inmates in the concentration camps?
A I had no access to these records. However, I knew that there were Poles and Russians in the camps.
Q Do you know whether there were a great many?
A I believe that there was a very large number of Poles and Russians.
Q And did you think they were all civilians?