A. According to my recollection, it was a factory for the manufacture of ignitions for hand grenades or shells. I myself never visited that factory.
Q. Who made the request for labor at that particular camp?
A. I really can't recall that. The general conditions were such that Amtsgruppe C constructed or built for those armament industries which I mentioned before. Who made the application, I really don't know.
Q. Well, the applications weren't signed by Kammler, were they, in every instance?
A. I said generally speaking they were signed by Kammler; or then, if they actually came from Amtsgruppe C, it worked out that way. The channel was that the people who needed the inmates had to apply for themselves. For instance, if someone wanted some inmates at his house, he had to apply for them. Now, who applied for those inmates in this particular Krupp-Auschwitz, I really can't tell you.
Q. How many times did you visit Auschwitz?
A. I was in Auschwitz twice.
Q. And one time was in the -
A. One time was in the summer of 1943 on the occasion of a labor assignment leaders' conference; and the second time in November 1944 together with my wife.
Q. That was in the winter of '44, the period that the witness Bielski testified to as being the period in which he thought he saw you, is that correct?
A. No, it isn't. The witness Bielski, according to my recollection, stated that he saw me in the winter of 1943 in Auschwitz.
Q. Was it '43 or '44?
A. And I was in Auschwitz in the winter of '44 and '45.
Q. Well, then, you contend that you were never at Auschwitz during the period that Bielski testified to, is that correct?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. You believe it was this other summer that the Witness Rammler testified to, do you not?
A Yes, I am absolutely convinced about that.
Q And his name was what?
A We never did know than other man by the name of Sommer, nor did I ever meet him. The first time I heard about his name for the first time was when Bielski had made those charges against me from Pook. Pook had told me about that. He was in internment where Rammler was in charge, and he met the man Sommer there. That is the reason why I know there was a Sommer there.
Q You knew he was not an officer then?
A I was told and Rammler also testified to that effect he was a NCO.
Q And the man that Bielski testified about was not a NCO, was he?
A The man Bielski mentioned, and who he allegedly saw in the Winter of 1943 and '44 was described by him as having the rank of a Hauptsturmfuehrer. However, in his further statement he mentioned the fact that there were two more NCO's along with him, and the other NCO that was a Hauptsturmfuehrer.
Q At the time that Sommer was NCO, in his opinion Sommer was an officer?
A He said it was a Hauptsturmfuehrer in the Winter of '43 and '44. I was not a Hauptsturmfuehrer.
Q But neither were you a NCO, is that correct?
A Yes, that is correct. I was an officer.
Q I draw your attention to the next item D II-04-4 of the concentration camp Buchenwald. How often were you at the Camp Buchenwald?
A I was at the Camp Buchenwald on one single occasion. I think the first time in 1944 after a return from the labor camp in Gustloff, that was in the Fall of 1944.
Q What does this item indicate, allocation of prisoners to Office Group-C Building?
A May I ask to what you are referring, Mr. Prosecutor?
Q I call your attention to D II-04-4, Concentration Camp Buchenwald, Allocation of Prisoners to Office Group-C Building?
A In that particular item it states 14 KL II 04-4, labor assignment for Amtsgruppe-C general correspondence.
Q Yes, but what was meant by the term Allocation of Prisoners to Office Group-C at Buchenwald?
A Yes, the Gustloff factory, or the Gustloff works, which I mentioned before, which was contained in a previous page of the document; I can not think of any other construction project in Buchenwald.
Q How about Dachau which was set forth in D II-04-5?
A Will you repeat that please?
Q How about the concentration camp of Dachau, which was set forth in the next item 14 KL D II 04-5?
A There also it is just general correspondence we collected.
Q Would this include complaints about the billeting, or of any infraction of the regulations pertaining to the treatment of inmates?
A If there were any complaints about billeting, then it would have to be sent to Amtsgruppen Chief Gluecks, and he probably would have forwarded it to the administration, which was responsible for the billeting within the concentration camp limits. What I mean is I can only see a general correspondence which goes to Amtsgruppe-C, to us, and where general things are contained therein which refers to the concentration camp of Dachau in construction matters, but all the things were put in detail. Of course, I can not tell you even today, at the present moment, about that.
Q I still don't know what that particular item covers. What kind of correspondence was it, this letter which they had, of so many prisoners allocated to building for Office Group-C, or did it refer to some particular matter? Will you give us some particular idea what it covered?
A It could be for that, yes, such a letter could be for that, but if there was any correspondence in that folder, and if the folder existed at all I really can not tell you. I tell you that it was a file charge which contained all the possibilities which could actually occur in the case there should occur such a thing, and there would be a file number for it, the type of organization, or rather the file in charge would not have to be changed basically.
Q Is that the file in which you would keep a letter from the concentration camp commandant requesting you not to send any more inmates to that particular camp because they were overcrowded?
A No, in that file I would put a letter which was addressed to Amtsgruppe-C from Office D-2, where they ask for something just in a general sense. That is when the correspondence was entered into one of those folders.
Q How many times were you at Dachau?
A I was in Dachau on one occasion. That was in the Fall of 1943, after I had submitted the mail to Maurer on the Sudelfeld.
Q That was an indirect way to go to Sudelfeld, wasn't it?
A No, not at all, Mr. Prosecutor, I left Berlin on Saturday nights, and I had to change a train at Augsburg, because Munich had been attacked over night, the night before rather, and then I had to fight my way through Munich, and from Dachau I had to get a car and proceed to Sudelfeld, and return from Sudelfeld on the same evening, and I could not return because the station at Munich was still destroyed, and I spent the night at Dachau, and on the following morning I went through the camp, and at eleven o'clock in the morning I returned to Berlin through Munich.
Q I believe you stated on direct examination that your visits to both Buchenwald and Dachau were at night, is that correct?
A No, that is to say, my arrival in Buchenwald was eight o'clock in the evening, and I was at the camp itself between nine and twelve in the morning. I arrived at Dachau in the evening, and again I visited the camp at eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and approximately at eleven o'clock I returned from Munich to Berlin.
Q What did you notice at Buchenwald with respect to the conditions of the inmates?
A In Buchenwald I went to a special room which contained statistics and reports. It was quite a barrack which contained all the files and records for the inmates. I spoke to one of the inmates in the presence of the Labor Assignment Leader, he demonstrated to me with tools and certain parts, how a job allocator would check the inmates for their abilities. Thereupon we left the camp, and I inspected the bomb damages at the Gustloff Works.
Q What opportunity did you have to observe the inmates there. You were there in the camp proper, so you must have seen some inmates around there. You must have had some idea what they looked like, and what the conditions were there, did you not? Did everybody look happy or well fed?
A They looked just as normal as a normal human being could look.
Q And the same thing I presume was true with respect to Dachau?
A Yes, indeed.
Q Coming to the item of 04-6, I understand that is the next one after Dachau, concentration camp Flossenburg?
A Yes.
Q Will you explain that to me, please?
A I can. We have labor assignment for distribution tasks which were being carried out by Amtsgruppe-C, and which also deals with the various files where inmates were being used, and they were stated in there.
Q How many inmates would you say were allocated to these particular groups of projects?
A Mr. Prosecutor, it is absolutely impossible for me to tell you that today, how many inmates were given to those various projects.
Q Witness, you have demonstrated in a remarkable manner on different occasions when you were submitting singular list of Mr. Booth. You gave figures in approximately five-hundred companies. I am not asking you too much to tell me what this particular group contained approximately?
AApproximately, I say, so far as I Can recall, at Schloss Neubuerstein near the Elbe, there were approximately two-hundred to threehundred inmates; with the SS Karstwehr Company there could have been one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred; with the Engineer Reserves Brigade in Dresden I say it had been approximately the same number; for the SS-Barracks in Nuernberg I don't believe we had more than fifty; while on the parade grounds in Beneschau there were possibly five-hundred. I say, possibly.
Q Making a total of about eleven hundred, is that right?
A I didn't count them over, Mr. Prosecutor. I don't remember the exact figures.
Q What particular assignment did these prisoners have? Will you explain to me what SS accommodation Nurnberg entailed?
A They had to carry out construction tasks.
Q In what part of Nurnberg did this take place, and what type of construction?
AAccording to my assumption I believe that they worked at the SS Kaserne here in Nurnberg near Soldiers' Field.
Q How often did you visit Flossenbuerg?
A I was never in Flossenbuerg.
Q Turn to the next page on camp Gross-Rosen. Pardon me just one moment. Who requested the inmates on D-II/04/6, will you tell me?
A I should think the construction manager who was competent for the area.
Q Well, who would that be? You have a very good memory for names.
A Mr. Prosecutor, we have here five construction sites and there were five managers whom I didn't know personally, and they were subordinate to a construction management which was higher up. I didn't know these people.
Q Who made the request, the construction manager who was higher up, or the individual who wanted the labor?
A No, I stated before that man in whose house these inmates were to work, the man in charge of the construction, sends an application to the camp commandant, and he forwards the order to Berlin, the application, and that is the normal procedure.
Q Someone in Amtsgruppe C would have known about that and would have had to request it, would he not?
A Yes, Office C "5, that is to say, the man Prinzel whom I mentioned before, who was in charge of the labor assignment of inmates, that is to say, as far as the bureaucratic set-up was concerned, he should have known about it.
Q That is Office C-V of which Lenzer was the head, is that not correct?
A That is Office C-V, yes. I know that Kammler himself was in charge of that office. I can see on the organizational chart that two more names are contained there, but I am still of the opinion that Kammler was always personally in charge of that office.
Q But it would have had to go through Lenzer in every event, would it not?
A If it came through C-V, then Prinzel, who was in charge of the labor assignment there, would have had to report it to his chief. Maybe it was Lenzer there.
Q With respect to the camp of Gross-Rosen, will you tell me approximately how many were employed in the three projects, or the two projects listed there, who requested the labor, and what the general nature of it was?
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Mr. Rudolph, I presume you have some definite plan in cross-examination on this long document.
THE PRESIDENT: It isn't coming through.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: It is not apparent to me just what design you are following in this long detailed cross-examination on this document. We are not endeavoring to audit the accounts of this office which is involved. Now, unless there is something which you are seeking to obtain which is going to help us decide the issues, just merely taking up item after item and going through it in this routine fashion isn't going to help us very much.
MR. RUDOLPH: Well, there was one important reason that I was taking it up, and it was primarily an informational purpose for our own use. We have never had this explained competently or thoroughly by anyone. This man is the proper man to inform us about that. What I will get out of it, I can't say.
Insofar as the information is relevantly concerned, it is apparent that I am getting very little, but I think that the Prosecution should have the opportunity of pursuing this through. I know it is tedious. It is very tedious to me, and I am reluctant to do it except for the informational purpose that we have in mind.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, if the information that you hope to obtain is going to help finally in the disposition of the issues, then, of course, it is highly relevant and profitable, but if it is just merely to get information which is not going to help us in determining the issues, then it is time lost.
MR. RUDOLPH: One of the things I am trying to show here is the fact that Office Group C used this labor for these various purposes, and that the members of Amtsgruppe C were aware of it. This man should also know about that, but his very convenient memory always slips him on these important things. I am sorry I can't help the type of information I am getting from him, but I do believe it shows a very definite pattern. It shows knowledge on the part of all the defendants of the actual use of concentration-camp labor for the projects which they themselves were interested in.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Proceed.
MR. RUDOLPH: Thank you.
Q (By Mr. Rudolph) I think we stopped with Gross-Rosen. Will you briefly tell me what the nature of these particular projects were, how many people were approximately employed, and who made the request?
A Mr. Prosecutor, Amtsgruppe C could only have carried out construction tasks, and I believe that applies to all the units in Amtsgruppe C. According to my estimate, we detailed three to four thousand inmate details in those three years. It is impossible for me to know who applied for all those labor units or the details. The WVHA, according to my estimate in 1942, I repeat, according to my estimate, used approximately sixty percent of the concentration-camp inmates, and at the end of 1944 or early in '45 it was at the utmost five percent.
That is to say, the labor assignment for the WVHA, seen from my point of view, was very uninteresting. That is the reason why I cannot tell you in detail who applied for those details.
MR. RUDOLPH: I think that covers it fairly well, your Honor.
Q (By Mr. Rudolph) I would like to skip to your Page 10 of the exhibit, Item 14 KL D-II/04/C, allocation of prisoners to Office Group C, special measures A. What does the term, "special measures" mean as used there?
A By special measures they mean the special construction measures carried out by Kammler. That is to say, the transfer and evacuation of the German industry subterraneously. Those are the special measures described here. Unfortunately and erroneously they were taken into Amtsgruppe C, because organizationally they could only fit into that framework. Kammler, according to my opinion, in those matters was subordinate to the Reich Ministry Speer.
Q Let us skip to Page 12 of your copy, the Item 14 KL D-II/05, allocation of prisoners to Office W-I Dest, for the present not to be further filed 14 KL D-II/13. Will you please summarize in the way you did with respect to Amtsgruppe C, the use of labor made by Amtsgruppe W, and break it down into offices as best you can?
A Under that file note all the details for Office W-I were carried, which according to our opinion, could not be used for armament purposes. Here also, as with all the other W enterprises for DEST, economic enterprise means that the manager of the workshop was over the commander, and who, according to Pohl, was to relieve the work managers of their work.
Office W-II, according to this file chart, only had one labor assignment unit at Golleschau.
Office W-III had meat factories and bakeries where inmates were working, and they worked on supplying the army and picked details of concentration camps. Office W-IV, those were the wood factories. This applies to them also. The same goes for Office W-V and W-VI. Office W-VII never did employ inmates, and Office W-VIII was described by me before. Whether labor assignment was carried out on the Oberschloss Kranichfels I don't know if there were any labor inmates there than for only a short period of time. Does that answer your question, Mr. Prosecutor?
Q No it does not. Will you tell me whether Mummenthey had knowledge, whether Mummenthey approved the labor requisitions for Amt W-I, and how much labor he required for his purposes?
A If Mummenthey considered orders to his work managers they should apply for inmates or not, I don't know. The applications came from the factory managements through the camp commander as business manager, and according to my opinion, Mummenthey only interpolated when the inmates applied for by the business manager had been disapproved by us or by the camp commandants. That inmates were used he knew.
Q You worked for Mummenthey for some considerable time.
A Yes, for a year.
Q As a matter of fact he suggested that you step into Amtsgruppe D-II for the purpose of taking care of the interests of W-I, did he not?
A Yes, when he told me that Maurer had requested me, there was a plan to dissolve the department labor assignment, and Mummenthey told me if the labor goes to D-II it will be wonderful because then you will be able to represent our interests to be sure with reference to the elimination of the difficulties which arose constantly between the commandanteers and our work management, that is correct.
Q Then you know for a fact that Mummenthey was aware of the fact that they were using prisoner inmates and the number that were used?
A Yes, of course.
Q And how many inmates was W-I assigned?
A Mr. Prosecutor, the number cannot possibly be told directly. I assume that with all the tasks there were from between fifteen to eighteen thousand of them.
Q.- And you yourself were familiar with the labor conditions and living conditions of these inmates, were you not?
A.- With reference to all the plants mentioned here, I only knew the large brick works at Oranienburg and the stone plant, and I knew the conditions there as far as I saw them. As far as other ones were concerned, I knew that they were brick factories and other things, and granite plants, where the inmates were being employed.
Q.- Will you tell us what you observed at the various plants of the W-I that you actually did have an opportunity to inspect or examine?
A.- As I stated before, I know the brick works in Oranienburg, and the stone works in Oranienburg, I have no possibility to compare other granite works with the ones I knew, or other brick works with the ones I knew. But I did not see anything at all which would make us conclude that the inmates were working particularly hard or unhumanely.
Q.- What did the inmates have to do?
A.- They had to carry out those tasks which are normally carried out in a stone quarry or in a brick factory. First of all, the clay itself was prepared and it was finished with the bricks.
Q.- Will you tell us what the nature of the work is, please. You have an idea of what it was. You were there; don't just generalize about the type of work they do in a stone quarry. Try to describe what they did.
A.- I went through that large hall in the brick factory -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Mr. Rudolph, now, he has explained that it is a stone quarry and a brick factory. He has told about the preparation of the clay, and we have a general idea of what is done in a stone quarry. Now, to ask him to give us more in detail what is done, I don't understand why.
Mr. RUDOLPH: Well, according to the version that he has given, Your Honor, one would think that a concentration camp was a very pleasant place --
JUDGE MUSMANNO: But all right! Ask him a specific question: how many tons do they carry on their back? Or did you see them being without food or without water? Direct his attention to something specific. But just to say: tell us now what they do in a stone quarry seems to me opening a door to a lot of unnecessary monotonous details.
BY MR. RUDOLPH:
Q.- What type of labor did these particular inmates perform in the stone quarry?
A.- The inmates broke up the various sheets of stones and they cut the stone in those large cutting halls. The number of inmates in the stone quarries was rather small, and the number of the inmates in the stone halls was rather large.
Q.- And did they carry the broken stone up to any particular point after breaking it?
A.- I only know the quarry in Gross-Rosen. There were the rails there; they had iron towers; and they had certain little wagons running up and down. And that is the way they carried those stones around.
Q.- Who pulled the wagons?
A.- Nobody pulled the wagons: they were pulled; they were operated on machines.
Q.- How heavy were the rocks that they had to lift into the wagons?
A.- Only a man who is an expert in quarry questions can answer you that. I don't know that, Mr. Prosecutor.
Q.- Did they appear to be very heavy, or did they appear to be very light?
A.- Well, as it dealt with stone it probably was heavy. The machine didn't mind that a bit, I presume.
Q.- How far did they have to carry them to the machine?
A.- According to my recollection, they were not carried at all. But those cranes led right across the quarry and, as far as I can recall, it went straight down into the quarry.
The stone was attached to it; the cable went up again, and the crane transferred it into the little wagon.
Q.- How long did they work a day?
A.- You are talking about the inmates, aren't you, Mr. Prosecutor?
The inmates were to work eleven hours a day. This did not work out in winter in open quarries because it became dark early and the inmates had to be transported to the camp in daylight, because there was a danger of escape. That was the reason why the work amounted to approximately eleven hours in summer and in winter it was much shorter -- and that was after the total war was declared in 1943.
In all the plants the work was to amount to approximately eleven hours. However, it was directed by the conditions in the factory, really. I know that it varied between eight and eleven hours, depending on the work and the orders in that factory.
Q.- Were these billets heated in the winter time?
A.- In the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, when I visited the German armament factories, all year long I saw inmates who were splitting wood and piling the wood, and there was a whole hall full of coal. I have to presume that the billets were heated in the winter.
Q.- You don't know whether these billets received that coal and coke or not? You don't know where they went, of your own knowledge?
A.- No, I don't.
Q.- How much did these laborers receive at -- How much did these laborers receive to eat a day at these stone quarries?
A.- It seemed -- theoretically speaking; I didn't see that myself -the same food which they were to receive. They received the normal food and the heavy worker's rations, as had been directed, and that was the same food which the German civilian worker was receiving with which he simply had to do.
Q.- What was the mortality rate of prisoners assigned to W-I?
A.- I told you yesterday already that in those particular synopses concerning the labor assignment all the movements in the camps could be seen. On page 1 of that synopsis, the deaths had to be entered. From those figures it could not be seen what the inmate died of, where they died, and what factory they were with before. That was unknown to me. We never received the name or the report of the death, and, according to our knowledge, they went to the leading physician, Dr. Lolling.
Q.- But you worked at W-I for the better part of a year, and you have knowledge of that from your own personal knowledge. Now, will you tell us what the mortality rate was at W-I?
A.- I don't know that because the plant manager was not told by the commander what the death rate was. I stated before that we had difficulties quite often because the inmates were transferred once in a while for others, and, therefore, they would return after a few weeks to their own work. And, partly, they were transferred to other managements. That is the only reason why the work manager could not have any insight into the death rates, and, therefore, we couldn't either.
Q.- But you did know that there were a great many who did die in the course of their work from the fact that you had to constantly obtain new sources of labor. Is that not correct?
A.- The number of the inmates in the concentration camps always increased from May, 1942, when, according to my knowledge, there were approximately 50,000 inmates in the concentration camps, they increased to 700,000 in December 1944 -- from 50,000 to 700,000.
Q.- Witness, I am speaking of W-I during the period that you were there -- not during 1944, or what happened later. Will you try to answer the question, please?
A.- I already told you before that the tasks of office inmates and, later on, the Labor assignment of the inmates -- there were difficulties between the work managements and the commandanturs which could not be dealt with locally, and they had to be eliminated.
As long as the number of inmates which could be used for work was placed at our disposal by the commandanturs, there were no difficulties. That the inmates themselves changed, I told you before. They returned after a few weeks or after a few months. Therefore, it could not be seen if inmates had died or if they had been transferred to another camp -- or simply why they had not returned to their work.
Q.- You have testified about penal commandos having existed at the camps. The phrase you used was that they were "drilled to death through penal commandos." Will you explain what you mean by that phrase: drilled to death through these penal commandos"?
A.- On the tenth of January, 1947, I was interrogated. In the course of the interrogation -- which was interrupted repeatedly by the interrogator by telling me that we don't have to write it down; that we can discuss the thing -- the man told me that Nummenthey had testified that there were quite a few death cases in connection with quarries, and that people were worked to death there. And he knew that I was just a "small man" and still he expected me to know that thing and confirm that fact. I told him at the time I didn't know anything about it, but I knew from things which I had been told about the punative details in my internment time, namely, that the punative details had not been dissolved in many camps and that they still existed.
That is how this statement came about. I added in the affidavit that I had found out about it today.
Q.- But you indicated that you were aware of the fact that they existed, and you were under the impression that they had been eliminated. Will you tell me what you understood about their existence -- who told you -- and give us briefly some idea of what the phrase "drilling to death" means?
A.- The term "worked to death" was not originated by me, but was originated by the examiner. I stated explicitly that the punative details according to my recollection, had been dissolved in the spring of 1943; that all the concentration camps had reported the execution of the dissolution, and that while I was interned I found out from an inmate that, for instance, in Neuengamme there was a punative detail up to the very end, and that inmate had told me when I asked him why he was in the punative detail that he was an inmate who was not liked at all, and that one wanted to actually eliminate him, work him to death in there. That is the only knowledge I know about a punative detail.
Q.- What kind of punishment was inflicted on the inmate assigned to these punative details?
A.- The punative details in itself was a punishment which was contained in the camp regulation, According to my opinion and according to my assumption, it consisted of the fact that inmates had to carry out a physical, difficult work, and that he was being kept in a special, inclosed barrack within the camp, and, therefore, he had no contact with the other inmates. That was what one called "an increased arrest, including work" in the army.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until one forty-five.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until one forty-five.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, July 2, 1947)
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Tribunal is again in session.
KARL SOMMER - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RUDOLPH:
Q: By whom was the original order establishing penal commandos issued?
A: As far as I can remember, the order about penal commandos was part of the camp order for concentration camps, which was issued by Himmler in 1938.
Q: Your office had nothing to do with it in any way?
A: With the issuing of the order? Certainly not. I recall that Maurer at that time caused the penal companies to be dissolved.
Q: You have emphasized frequently the issuance of orders by your office at various places to be kind to the prisoners and treat them in a human fashion. Does not the fact that such orders were issued indicate to you that there was something wrong with the treatment of the prisoners?
Q: Do you mean the dissolution of the penal company, Sir?
A: Not at all. You have said several times in the course of your direct examination that the prisoners were treated very well and that there were orders issued on many occasions reminding the concentration camp commandants to see that the prisoners were treated well and that certain mistreatment should cease. My question is, does not the fact that such orders were issued clearly indicate that there was mistreatment of prisoners and not on an exceptional scale, but on a general scale?
A: I stated, Mr. Prosecutor, that the orders which I saw and which dealt with the treatment of inmates fitted all of them and concerned measures which entailed a decent treatment of the inmates.