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 8 July 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. II.
Military Tribunal No. II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
DR. STEIN: Dr. Stein, deputy for Dr. Fritsch, counsel for Baier, Your Honor, my colleague Fritsch has the following request to make. For the time being he is busy with the preparations for the examination of his client. He would therefore appreciate it if his client could be excused from the session this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean the defendant Scheide?
DR. STEIN: No, Baier.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Baier maybe excused from the session this afternoon at the request of his counsel.
DR. STEIN: Thank you, Mr. President.
DR. RATZ: ( Counsel for defendant Hermann Poole): May it please Your Honors, in order to refute the affidavit by Dr. Greunuss, I introduced an affidavit by Scholz during the last session. It is contained on Page 41 of my document book, and I introduced it as Exhibit No. 5. I would appreciate it if you would permit me to read the entire affidavit, which is rather short, because of its importance.
THE PRESIDENT: Which affidavit do you refer to?
DR. RATZ: It is the affidavit by Scholz, on Page 41 of my document book and Page 41 of the English also. Scholz states the following, and I shall quote:
"1. I am a dentist, having passed a state examination, and was working at the garrison dental station Weimar-Buchenwald as dental assistant from September 1942 until the end of December 1944. I never carried out any dental work in a concentration camp itself. In the beginning of January 1945 I received orders from Dr. Abraham, saying that I should establish a field dental station at the troop training center Ohrdruf.
The dental station which I established was intended for the troops. I received from Dr. Abraham a second chair for the treatment of patients which I brought to the Camp Ohrdruf, together with the necessary instruments, materials and medicaments. The dental treatment in the camp was carried out by prisoner dental surgeons who worked completely independently. By virtue of the supplied equipment, instruments and medicaments, they were able to carry out the required dental treatment at least in an emergency fashion as far as it had become necessary, e.g., provisional fillings could be made without any further difficulties, extractions under narcosis, as well. I do not know the least thing about an order according to which the dental treatment administered to prisoners in future should be restricted to extractions and that the latter should be carried out without narcosis. I can only be amazed at such an assertion. Had such an order been issued by any side, I certainly would have heard about it; e.g., Dr. Abraham, who was my immediate superior, would certainly have passed on information about that to me. According to my opinion, even during the state of emergency generally prevaling at the beginning of 1945, dental care for the prisoners was safeguarded in all cases where help was absolutely urgent. The provisional field outfit however which we had at our disposition was not sufficient for difficult causes, as, e.g., surgical operations, as opening of the jaw by chiseling.
"2) I still can remember Dr. Pook's visit together with Dr. Schiedlausky and Dr. Abraham in Ohrdruf in spring, 1945. After their arrival the three mentioned persons went to the dwelling room belonging to Dr. Greunuss, while I returned to the dental station. Sometime afterwards Dr. Pook and Dr. Abraham came to me to the station. They took a look at my station and were satisfied. Then they left again and probably returned to Dr. Greunuss' dwelling room. Later on I joined them in that room and-as far as I remember, I stayed there for some time. Nothing was said at the time about dental surgical matters. I certainly would have kept it in my memory if there had been talks on dental surgical matters.
I read over the affidavit submitted by Dr. Greunuss on 21 February 1947 insofar as it concerns itself with Dr. Pook's visit to Ohrdruf, and I can only declare that I do not know the least thing about the remarks which Greunuss pretends to have heard from Pook. If Pook had expressed himself in such a way, certainly Dr. Abraham would have said something to me about it. I do not know any thing about prisoners having been treated as dental patients in a brutal, cruel or inexpert fashion. That is impossible to assume, because of the very fact that the prisoners were administered treatment by their own fellow-prisoners. As far as I remember, this was the case in Ohrdruf, just as it was in the case in Buchenwald. Nor have I ever heard complaints or troubles in this respect. As I said before, everything was at hand for an emergency treatment, as, e.g., cement for tooth fillings, syringes for injections, and the adequate means belonging thereto for effecting a local narcosis as well as the necessary set of instruments. Replacement of teeth as well as dentures could not be supplied any more in Spring 1945, because we were lacking the technical equipment for such work. I myself too had no technical equipment for the dental treatment of the Wehrmacht units and SS troops stationed at Ohrdruf, nor could I provide any replacement of teeth to those. The German soldiers too had to be content with an emergency dental treatment."
This is the end of the affidavit.
HERMANN POOK -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION -- Continued BY DR. RATZ:
Q Dr. Pook, I would like to ask you now to tell us again in a few words about the treatment of the inmates in the concentration camp dental stations and also about the installations of those stations.
A I did not by far see all the stations in all the camps where inmates were being treated. I really only saw a very small part of them. However, I can tell you that those dental stations within the protective custody camps, the old camps themselves, were installed in an excellent way.
Those dental stations had already been established before the war or at the beginning of the war. That is to say, at a time when there was still everything to be had and all the equipment could be purchased. I have, for instance, seen the dental station in Gross-Rosen, and I was surprised to see the first-class equipment which could be found there. The equipment was so good that actually a private dentist could not usually afford it. For instance, there was one of those hydraulic chairs. There was a small box which contained all the necessary instruments for proper treatment--for instance, a large dar-light lamp, an electric drill, a ventilator for hot days, and there was also a spittoon with running water, and there was also a small tube in order to wash out the mouth.
There was a possibility of warming that water. There was sprinkling equipment, sprinkling equipment for pyorrhea, which could also be arranged either to flow hot or cold. Then there was special equipment for electric treatments, then an instrument with which one could tell if a tooth still had a nerve, or a dead nerve in it, which was an electric instrument. That is a unit which as a rule, or rather cannot be found among private dentists. As I said before there was this large instrument box containing all sorts of instruments, and there was an X-ray machine. This X-ray machine had also been manufactured by the firm of Ritter. Everything wore ivory colours. The other dental stations had been installed in a similar manner, and they contained equipment produced by other firms also. Of course, if wasn't possible in my time, that is to say 1944, and particularly towards the end of 1944, to obtain such equipment due to the priority orders of the armament industry, and due to the increase of the number of concentration camps, dental stations at that time had to be established on a provisional basis, and the equipment was not everything we needed, but there were all those instruments there which were necessary for a good treatment.
The dental care itself extended to all treatments which occur in connection with dental care, starting with fillings, cement fillings, amalgam fillings, and then it continued over treatment of roots up to the extraction of the teeth, with both a local anesthesia or complete anesthesia.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q For whom was all this highly modern equipment available?
A Your Honor, that was the equipment of dental stations where the inmates only were being treated, not SS members, in the protective custody camps.
Q Do I understand you to say that all this equipment, and all this very advanced method of treatment were available to the inmates of concentration camps, in all the concentration camps?
A Your Honor, in the original camps, yes, indeed. Equipment there, if it was not the same, was indeed similar.
Q And am I to understand that if a Russian Jew went to one of these dental offices and complained about a pain in a tooth that they would X-ray the tooth and they would treat it, and they would fill it, and give all this treatment which you have described?
A Yes, indeed. If it was necessary X-ray pictures were taken because there was an X-ray camera there.
Q Do you know this of your own personal knowledge?
A Yes. That is to say the X-ray machine was there, and the dentists reported to me, they showed me the files where they wrote down the treatment given to an inmate, and they also showed me the X-ray pictures, which were also collected and kept on file. I saw all those things during my visits.
Q Let's take a typical camp, let's take Auschwitz. How many inmates were there in Auschwitz?
A Your Honor, I don't know that.
Q About 10,000, let's say, just as a working figure, probably a great many more.
A Yes.
Q All right. Now, out of a population of 10,000 there would be quite a few who would need dental treatment normally, wouldn't there, in a town of 10,000 people?
A Yes, of course.
Q Now, how many dentists would you have in Auschwitz?
A In Auschwitz itself, that is to say in the main camp, there were four dentists, four dentists altogether, and in the dental stations where the inmates were being treated there was one dentist who was as a rule an inmate, and he was giving them their necessary treatment.
Auschwitz itself, you know, consisted of three camps. Auschwitz I, II, and III, and the largest part of the camp was outside of Auschwitz in so-called outside camps, located with the various industrial firms, enterprises which were using the inmates. In every one of them there was a dental station. I drove through all those outside camps in order to visit ten or twelve of those camps, and to also inspect the dental stations there. At the present moment I couldn't tell you just how many dentists there were there altogether. I cannot recall that today.
Q You don't seriously mean to say that if a Russian Jew that had been brought there for the very obvious purpose of extermination, had dental trouble, they would treat his teeth before they killed him?
A Your Honor, I couldn't give you any information on that. I don't know it. I can only judge about those people who were being used as laborers, and these people who were in the camps where they were working. There were also dental stations in those particular camps, and treatment was given, to be sure without any permission, or without paying for it. Every inmate of a concentration camp had the right to go and ask for treatment in one of those dental stations, and he was also cared for.
Q Did you know about the extermination program?
A No, your Honor, it was not known to me.
Q Yes, but you did not know about these dental offices in Auschwitz?
A I didn't see all the dental stations in Auschwitz because the camp was too large to enable me to see everything. I only saw a few of them.
Q Well, how could you see all these dental stations and yet not be familiar with what was taking place in Auschwitz?
A Because all those camps which I saw were not in Auschwitz itself but within an area of thirty to fifty and eighty kilometers.
Q Can you, of your own personal knowledge - now I am speaking of your own information and observation - say that in all these concentration camps there were dental stations so equipped that they could care for all the inmates who required dental treatment?
A Yes, indeed, your Honor, I can confirm you that with a good conscience and a clear conscience.
Q In order to have that kind of knowledge then, you couldn't help but know of the atrocities which were committed in these various camps which have been testified to here, some of which you must admit happened.
A No, your Honor, I can't do that. I have stated in my previous examinations that my visits only were limited to a short period of time, that all these visits were announced in advance, and that those visits were rather infrequent, furthermore, that I could only enter the protective camp in company with somebody else, and only in order to visit the dental stations that had been explicitly ordered.
Q. So you don't know what happened when you weren't there?
A. No, I don't.
Q. So that your statements about the kind of treatment are bound to be based, to a great extent, on hearsay and reports given to you, and not because you were there personally?
A. Your Honor, every month we received a report by the dentists from the concentration camps concerning the work that had been done. Therefore, exactly like Office 14, I could see from those reports what had been done by every individual station. It was stated there how many fillings had been carried out, how many teeth had been extracted, and how many dentures had been made, including the number of teeth contained there; it was stated how many X-ray pictures were taken, how many operations were carried out, etc.
Q. But it didn't give negative reports; it didn't tell about those who were not treated. You just assume that because a certain number of extractions were indicated, a certain number of treatments, that everybody had access to that treatment?
A. Your Honor, only those people could be treated who went to be treated; files were kept of all these treatments. I saw those files during my visits. The files were kept by one of the inmates in the dental station and, as I said before, I took a look at those files and I compared the files with the monthly report to see if they checked. So I actually had some sort of a control that those things contained in the files were not only written into the report but actually carried out. That was the task of that file, namely, every inmate who came in there for treatment received his own file record.
Q. OK, you may proceed.
A. And that was the reason for the monthly reports also. That was the reason for the whole thing.
BY DR. RATZ (Counsel for defendant Pook):
Q. Witness, you stated that everything could be done that the inmates needed, and that without permission. According to your previous statements, only dentures had to be approved.
A. Yes, all dental treatment, as I stated before, could be carried out without any previous permission. Every inmate of a concentration camp at any time had the right to go to such a dental station for treatment. The treatment was then given him immediately without any delay. As far as dentures were concerned, it was necessary to write out an application first which had to be approved by both the dentist, the medical officer there, and the protective custody camp leader. All kinds of dentures were manufactured consisting of a rubber or paladon, which had been developed in the past ten years and which was being used more and more. Bridges were made; steel plates were also inserted, and steel frames together with rubber and paladon, a plastic material.
If in any of the smaller camps or one of the outside camps there was no possibility to make such dentures, then it was handled in the following manner: All the preliminary work, the taking of a form, was carried out in one camp; whereas the manufacture itself was carried out in the laboratory of the main camp. This manufacture of dentures was carried out by permission, but, as I said before, I cannot recall a single case where I didn't approve one of the requests. All requests which were turned in to me were approved by me.
Q. Would you like to tell us why dentures had to be applied for since it had been basically approved?
A. This was to be a guarantee that, first of all, only urgent work would be carried out - that is, on dentures - and also that those urgent jobs were carried out in preference to purely cosmetic work.
Q. Were dentures made in gold for the inmates or for the SS members?
A. I received a few applications for gold dentures; however, they didn't amount to much. The possibility for that was given, if the individual brought along the gold. If the inmate had the gold, he received his gold dentures. Gold dentures were made for SS members if certain prerequisities were met. First of all, if the man had been injured while in action, or then in the event of an accident during his service in the army, or then if the dental report stated that no other metal was to be used for his treatment.
Q. When gold was needed for dentures for SS members, was the gold removed from the teeth of deceased inmates used for that purpose?
A. No. Technically speaking, that was impossible because only real, pure, and good gold could be used for dentures. That gold for those dentures was provided by Office 14. The gold had been packed in special cases and it was stamped by the firm which produced it. And that is the way it was distributed to the individual dental stations. It was distributed by Office 14-2. The gold was sent to the various dental stations just like all the civilian doctors would get it from those factories.
DR. RATZ: May it please Your Honors, in the course of the last session we had here I introduced an affidavit by Dr. Abraham. From this affidavit, which is on page 35 of my document book, I have quoted paragraph 4 in order to refute Greunuss's affidavit. I didn't read the first three paragraphs, but as this affidavit is of great importance according to my opinion with reference to the treatment of inmates in the concentration camps and other questions which are important to the defense, I would like to take the liberty of reading the first three paragraphs of this affidavit by Abraham. Dr. Abraham states, under paragraph one:
"1. From May 1944 until the end of the war I was the garrison dental surgeon in Buchenwald. In the Buchenwald Concentration Camp three prisoner dental attendants were employed in the camp dental clinic, who were under me professionally, but over whom, on the other hand, I had no other authority of any kind. The necessary dental matters for the prisoners were treated by these prisoner dental attendants, who worked completely independently. The number of dental surgeons, three, was sufficient to begin with for the population of the camp; only in the last months when the evacuation of the camps in the East caused the Buchenwald camp to be filled to far in excess of the normal numbers, was the dental clinic too small in comparison with the number of prisoners, the conse quence of which however was merely that the individual patients had to wait longer for their necessary work to be done.
No complaints on the part of the prisoners or on the part of the camp doctors came to my ears, that some necessary treatment had not been carried out or that any other abuses were reigning in the dental treatment. From frequent visits to the prisoners' dental clinic I was convinced that the dental attendants worked according to order. The patients were treated in exactly the same way as the patients of the dental surgeons in their civilian practices were used to being treated. Only for false teeth, e.g. dentures, permission had to be granted on a written application, which went to Oranienburg via the camp physician and the concentration camp officer. Among the many applications which I handed in, in not a single case have I met a refusal on the part of the Chief Dental Surgeon in Office D-III, Dr. Pook. Medicines and drugs were ordered each month. Those orders too went to Oranienburg and were approved as a matter of principle in Office D-III by Dr. Pook. The deliveries were carried out by the Main Stores for Medical Supplies. The deliveries from there were much better than the services at the disposal of the civilian population outside, right up to the end of the war. I am personally convinced of that by repeated visits to a wholesale warehouse for dental equipment in Erfurt, which I had previously frequented for my civilian practice as a civilian dental surgeon. We were also always supplied with the materials for a local anesthetic by the Main Stores for Medical Supplies; even these materials were available in every case up to the end of the war. It is untrue that on account of a deficiency in local anesthetics a tooth of a prisoner ever had to be pulled out without an anesthetic being administered. Extractions without anesthetic also occur in the civilian practice of a dental surgeon, e.g. if the tooth is particularly loose, or if excessive suppuration renders it inadvisable to inject the anesthetic, or at the wish of the patient who does not want to have an anesthetic; that also happens sometimes in the practice of a civilian dental surgeon."
Now comes paragraph 2, where the witness is dealing with the authority of Dr. Pook compared with other dentists.
I quote:
"2. I have known Dr. Pook personally since 1944. At that time on the occasion of my appointment as garrison dental surgeon at Buchenwald I introduced myself personally. Then I saw him once again at his visit to Buchenwald; it may have been February or March 1945. Dr. Pook's position was purely administrative. The correspondence to the Chief Physician D-III, Dr. Lolling, went via him and back via him to the camp dental surgeons or to the camp physician. In my opinion Dr. Pook had no independent authority. I cannot recollect ever having received from him an independent order or an independent instruction; everything that concerned us dental surgeons was in principle signed by Dr. Lolling, e.g. transfer orders, standing orders, and the like."
Now I would like to read paragraph 3 of the affidavit:
"The removal of dental gold from deceased prisoners had been going on for a long time before the order came that a dental surgeon had to supervise the extraction. This order came in 1942 from Dr. Lolling and was issued by virtue of a Reichsfuehrer order. The rest of the details concerning the removal of dental gold I have already given in my affidavit of 17 February 1947, to which I refer..."
DR. RATZ: Dr. Abraham, I would like to add, at the present moment was referring to Document NO-2127, which was distributed by the Prosecution under Exhibit No. 518, Document Book XXI, page 38. It is on page 30 of the English Document Book. I would like to continue the quoting of the affidavit:
"Every month Dr. Pook automatically received a report on the removal of dental gold. Dr. Pook was not involved in this matter in any other way. The order concerning the removal of dental Gold already existed when he came into office. The dental gold was delivered by the Camp Dental Surgeon to the Administrative Head of the Camp, who, I suppose, sent the gold to the competent administrative office, Office Group Din Oranieaburg; from there, as far as I know, the gold was supposed to be sent to the Reichsbank. Before the participation of a dental surgeon in the extraction of dental gold was ordered as far as I know the Camp Physicians were entrusted with it."
Witness, I shall now ask you a last question with reference to this affidavit here. As far as delivery of material, dental material to dental stations is concerned, that is to ay, material necessary for the treatment of the inmates, Dr. Greunuss states here that delivery of material in Ohrdruf was lacking. What do you have to state about that?
A. Dr. Greunuss in this connection is talking about material generally. It is possible that as a dentist, as a physician, he meant medical material. I am not sure. Dental material, as stated by both Dr. Abraham and Dr. Scholz, was available in sufficient quantities. However, monthly applications for medical or dental material went through the normal channels, the Office DIII and then to Office lr of the medical office. They were dealt with there and written down in the medical records and passed on to the chief of the medical office for final approval and delivery by the Central Medical Office. As I stated before, upon my own wish, from 1944 on I dealt with all those matters, because due to the transfer of Office 14 to the outside of Berlin there was such a delay in dealing with all those matters that I believed it necessary to do something about it.
After a long hesitation the chief of Office 14 gave me that task. I can tell you, however, during that time when I dealt with all those things, that is to say, the last half of 1944 or early in 1945, the requests were approved by me exactly as they came from the dental stations and they were also carried out by the Central Medical Office in the sane way. All those requests were brought in by courier -- I sent my courier to the medical officer personally so that he could pass on the requests, and generally speaking he went to the medical office upon one of my telephone calls and requested all those things. That is the only way that it was safe guarded that quick delivery was carried out. At no time did I hear any complaints that there was lack of material in any of the stations. During one of the few visits which I carried out I had the opportunity to convince myself that in all these stations there was a certainstock of medicines and drugs.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you give us the Exhibit number of Dr. Greunuss's affidavit?
DR. RATZ: Yes, your Honor. Document NO-2156, Exhibit 515, Document Book XXI on page 19 in the German Document Book. It is on page 21 of the English Document Book.
May it please your Honors, the witness mentioned as the central office for delivery of medicaments for all dental stations, he mentions the Medical Office of the Waffen-SS. You could call him the Medical Quartermaster of the Waffen-SS. His name is Blumenreuther. I also received one of our affidavits which we got concerning this subject matter. However, I was not able to include this in my Document Book. I would appreciate it, however, if I could introduce it now and also read it to you. Unfortunately, it could not be translated.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Will we get copies? I understood you to say that document is not translated.
DR. RATZ: No.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Have you made arrangements to furbish us with copies?
DR. RATZ: Yes, indeed, your Honor. The copies are all with the Translation Department and I asked the Translation Department to furnish the copies today but unfortunately they have not been completed. I just gave one of the copies to the Interpreter so he can interpret it easier.
I would like to read the affidavit by Dr. Carl Blumenreuther, born on 16 of November 1881 in Berlin and I want to read most of it. I shall quote:
"I was a Medical Quartermaster of the Waffen-SS and Chief of the Central Medical Camp of the SS and Police which amongst other tasks also had the task of delivering material and drugs to the dental stations of the concentration camps and also dental equipment.
I would like to state here that the requests submitted to me by the Office 14 of the medical office, which medical office became office D III of the M.V.H.A., were all taken care of to their full extent. It was only in the last few months that the Medical Central Depot was not in a position to send all those articles which had been requested, and that to the full extent, because those things could only be sent up to certain percentages by the Central Equipment Office. That, however, only refers to the very last few months of the War due to various air raids which made the factories stop and which air raids also destroyed the transportation system in Germany. Up to the evacuation of the medical office, which took place during the second half of 1944, I received all approved applications through Office 14 of the medical office. The man dealing with those matters was Dr. Menzel. After that time through office D III of the W.V.H.A. (Leading Dentist). All the various things sent to the dental stations, that is to say material and medicaments, were above reproach in every respect. and complied with the rules and regulations of the Army. All old material or obsolete equipment was not delivered by the Central Medical Office.
The applications submitted to me monthly were not different from those of field units, the SS hospitals, and all other units. They were normal in every respect and the applications were for the same material and medicaments. The dental stations of the concentrations camps, therefore, corresponded entirely as far as equipment and quality was concerned to the Waffen-SS or the Army. Applications submitted by dentists in the concentration camp concerningapplication for liquids for injections for local anesthesia were all approved.
Dated: 26 June 1947 Signed Dr. Carl Blumenreuter" May it please your Honors, I would like to submit another affidavit here concerning this point which is Exhibit No. 7.This affidavit reached me only within the last few days and, therefore, I would appreciate it the affidavit would be accepted without the translation.
THE PRESIDENT: The affidavit which you just read should have an Exhibit Number. Is it No. 12?
DR. RATZ: It is No. 6, your Honor. It is the affidavit of Blumenreuther you are referring to, your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the one which you just finished reading.
DR. RATZ: Yes, indeed.
THE PRESIDENT: What number does it have?
DR. RATZ: It is Document No. 6.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Abraham's has No. 6 in your Document Book. This affidavit you just read is not in your Document Book, is it?
DR. RATZ: No, it isn't, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Then it should have the number following the last affidavit which is in your book, and that is number 11.
DR. RATZ: Yes, indeed. The affidavit which I just introduced by Dr. Blumenreuther had No. HP #12 and is Exhibit No. 6. And now I would like to introduce this other affidavit here, HP #13, Exhibit # 7.
MR. HIGGINS: If the court pleases, Prosecution is not in possession of these affidavits which Dr. Ratz is introducing at this time. We have not seen them and I would like to reserve the right to object to them if on observations there is anything objectionable, and everything is not in order.
THE PRESIDENT: That right will be reserved, of course. Will you give me the name of the person who made the last affidavit, no. 12? Dr. what?
DR. RATZ: Dr. Blumenreuther, B-l-u-m-e-n-r-e-u-t-h-e-r.
THE PRESIDENT: And the last one you are about to read now?
DR. RATZ: That is Exhibit No. 7, Alfred Becker.
Becker states the following and I shall quote: "From the first of March, 1944, up to the capitulation, I was the chief of the Dental Department of the Central Medical Office of the Waffen SS in Berlin Lichtenberg. The montly requisition slips turned in by the SS Dental Stations were approved by the Medical Quartermaster. I received them through the Chief of the Central Medical Office for delivery; if and how far all those requests were dealt with by Office 14 and approved, I don't know.
"As far as delivery was concerned, that was not important at all; after the medical quartermaster of the Reichsarzt SS and Police, Dr. Blumenreuther, had approved those requisitions, those materials were delivered to the individual dental stations by the central stocks. If those monthly requisitions for the summer of 1944 on were dealt with by the leading dentist and office D-III in Oranienburg, I don't know.
"The way the Dental Stations were equipped in the concentration camps, I can only judge according to their requisition slips requesting individual or various pieces of equipment and current deliveries of material for the dental station. According to that, all the dental stations were probably installed in exactly the same way for the inmates as they were installed for the army as far as the equipment ad various things applied for could still be delivered.
"The monthly requisitions submitted by the concentration camp dentists were separated according to Kommandantur Dental Stations in the outside camps. If, from the autumn of 1944 on, all those requests were submitted on one single slip in order to save paper, I don't know. I did not pay any attention to that because it wasn't of any importance to me.
"The same material was delivered to the camp dental stations as it was delivered to the army dental stations, also certain items which were rather rare and which were not delivered to civilian agencies. Certain material of injection was also applied for and delivered for the treatment of the inmates.
To state in conclusion about the medical or dental treatment of concentration camps, I have to point out that I can't give you any exact information on all that. From the delivery of dental equipment, materiel, and medicaments, however I have to draw the conclusion that the patients were treated in a good and irreproachable way.
"I can further state, as in 1940 I was working in the personal department of the at the time medical office of the Waffen SS, and I had to deal with all the files of the dentists, I can testify that the dentist Dr. Hermann Pook was conscripted into the Waffen SS by his area commando in 1940. At that time, he came to me to see me and he asked me to postpone the term at the moment when he had to join the Army in order to take care of his private practice, which he had in Berlin Lichtenfelde. He was granted that request. He was sent to basic training to the Erstatz Battalion "Germania" in Hamburg." Neuen Gamme July 4, 1947, signed by Alfred Becker.
Witness, during your activity which lasted for a whole year as a leading dentist, you saw a number of concentration camps. On the basis of impressions which you gained there and the observations which you made yourself, did you gain a general picture and judgment of the concentration camps?
A.- I didn't go to the concentration camps out of personal curiosity but I was sent there on official business, and that, only with the order to inspect the dental station. The approval for that was only given depending on the circumstances. I can state with certainty that I never say any cruelties or mistreatments in those concentration camps during my visits.
Q.- Did you make any observations that the inmates were driven while working or then that they were abused or beaten?