Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 10 July 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 2. Military Tribunal 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
DR. PAUL REUTTER (Resumed) CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued)
THE PRESIDENT: The record will indicate that the defendants Volk and Bobermin are absent from this session of court by leave of Court and at the request of their counsel.
BY MR. HIGGINS:
Q. Witness, you realize that you are still testifying under oath in this Tribunal, do you not?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, referring to yesterday's direct examination, you told us that the inmates of concentration camps and SS members received the same dental treatment, that equal care was given to each. Could you tell me whether or not this applies to the time you served as camp dentist in Dachau as well as the time that you served in the WVHA as leading dentist?
A. Yes, it refers to both periods.
Q. You neither knew from your own knowledge nor heard of any discrimination whatsoever in the treatment of inmates in concentration camps?
A. I did not know from my own observations, nor did I ever hear of any discrimination in the treatment of concentration camp inmates
Q. You have told us, witness, on your direct examination that in your capacity as chief dentist of the WVHA you visited concentration camps on tours of inspection. These tours of inspections took place during the period of time you served as leading dentist in the WVHA, did they not?
A. Yes.
Q. Approximately how many times did you visit concentration camps on tours of inspection?
A. I am afraid I didn't understand the question. My earphones are too loud -- yes, I can hear now.
Q. My question, witness, was this: Approximately how many times did you visit concentration camps on tours of inspection?
A. I went there only infrequently, which was not my fault. I was not able to go to a concentration camp unless I was sent there.
Q. Witness, my question was: Can you tell me approximately how many times you visited concentration camps on tours of inspection? That is the question.
A. Well, I went once to Auschwitz, twice to Ravensbruck; I went to Dachau once, once to Neuengamme.
Q. And that is the extent of your trips? You cannot remember any other trips you made?
A. No.
Q. And on these visits to concentration camps did you see any single instance of ill-treatment of inmates?
A. On these inspection trips I only went to the dental stations for which purpose I had been given a pass.
Q. My question was: During these tours of inspection did you see any single instance of ill-treatment of inmates? And that can be--
A. No, I never saw anything of the sort.
Q. Were you aware of the fact that inmates were being exterminated in concentration camps?
A. I did not know that either.
Q That is sufficient, please. Witness, you stated that you found nothing whatsoever objectionable in the concentration camps. Now my question is this: Do you know of any concentration camp or labor camp in which inmates were malnourished, overworked, or poorly cared for? That question can be answered "yes" or "no".
A No, I did not know any such thing.
Q None whatsoever? That question can be answered "yes" or"no".
A No.
MR. HIGGINS: I have no further questions, your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: No further questions on behalf of defense counsel? If not the Marshal may remove the witness.
(The witness was excused.)
DR. HOFFMAN: (Attorney for the Defendant Scheide) If the Tribunal please, I request that the Defendant Scheide be called to the witness stand and my defense will be based on my two document books and the witness Scheide. I hope that the Tribunal has the copies of my document books.
THE PRESIDENT: We have. The Marshal will bring the Defendant Scheide to the witness stand.
RUDOLF HERMANN KARL SCHEIDE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Will you please raise your right hand and repeat after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HOFFMAN:
Q Witness, according to your affidavit, which is a part of Document Book I on page 64, both in the English and German texts, you joined the WVHA in the autumn of 1942 -- you were transferred.
My question is, where were you before? What was your position? Please give us a brief description of all that.
A May I perhaps take the liberty of being very brief about my military career and I shall come back to it later on. I was company leader of a company in the body guard of Adolf Hitler. Later on I became an engineer and before I joined the WVHA I was a Divisional Engineer of the First Tank Division.
Q Were you what might be called a transport expert? If so, please tell us that you understand by a transport expert.
A Here again I wish to be brief. It is a very extensive field and a lot of details will be involved. The tasks of a transport officer are first of all of an administrative nature, maintenance and care of all vehicles, repair work, spare parts, tires, fuel, liaison with the Main Operational Office, with the OKH, with the transport agencies of the Army and firms, to carry out all general orders of the Army and the transport of all reports, and giving answers before a tribunal, in case of accidents. He does not decide when vehicles will be used, because in very few cases he has the competence nor can he judge how much the various commanders can do themselves.
Q Witness, were you trained for this work? How did you acquire the expert knowledge?
AAfter joining the Leibstandarte, the body guard, I received the order to report to the police school for traffic and take part in a training coarse for experts and police officers, which lasted over a year. Here it was that I received my training and the Prussian Minister of Transport promoted me to an expert in transport matters.
Q Witness, who decided your transfer?
A My transfer to the WVHA came the Chief of the Main Operational Office, which was Obergruppenfuehrer Juettner. At the time he ordered it.
Q Witness, will you please briefly tell the Tribunal what the task of the Main Operational Office was, and perhaps you could compare it to a corresponding agency in the Army?
A The Main Operational Office, the Fuehrungshauptamt, might be compared to the OKH. All matters pertaining to troops used to be concentrated in the Main Operational Office. Also under the Main Operational Office all expert officers were subordinated, in my own case, because all transport officers who later on order by the Army called themselves Divisional and Regimental Engineers. The way to understand this is, as the WVHA had its administrative officers in all agencies of the Troops, so did the Main Operational Office send transport experts also to the troop agencies or agencies of the whole country. The orders came from the Army, via the Main Operational Office to reach the various individual officers. One must understand, therefore, that I did not act on orders by the WVHA, because these were administrative orders. I acted exclusively on Army orders which were adjusted to the Waffen SS. My superior agency was the Main Operational Office, therefore.
Q Witness, in the German Army, there were certain colors. I don't know whether or not the Waffen SS had a special color. Did you have any special color or badge which showed you were part of the transport system?
A Our badges were pink. Will you please submit Document 45, Doctor.
DR. HOFFMAN: If the Tribunal please, I have an additional document as the witness just said, but I do not know whether it has been translated yet. I shall submit it later on. From there it becomes clear that the badge of the rank of the defendant was pink.
Q Can you tell us what colors were used by the other members of your branch?
A If I remember, right, they were blue.
Q Witness, were you transferred by the Main Operational Office for technical reasons, or what were the reasons?
A Doctor, may I please briefly comment on this document?
Q No, please answer my question first.
A What happened was roughly this: I received the order from Gruppenfuehrer Juettner to report to the WVHA, because their transport conditions were somewhat confused. The same applied to the equipment and also for railroad transport, but I would like to talk about that later on. At this moment I would like to talk about motor transports only. The Main Operational Office had vehicles for years which they passed on to the WVHA. The WVHA grew and grew, and, therefore, the many agencies, roughly, 500 of them, whenever they requested fuel, tires, oil, spare parts, and all the thousands of things which are needed for transport conditions, applied for them directly from the agencies of the Main Operational Office. The Main Operational Office in its turn went and contacted each agency of the WVHA. The result was a colossal confusion and nobody knew where they were. In the transport world, it is very often the case that the man who has his driver's license is convinced that he is competent to do his job and, therefore, people were used who, although they were good drivers could not look after the vehicles very carefully. It was not possible to administer these things independently. We had to rely on the Army entirely, because the total supplies for the whole of the German Army, including all units of the Waffen SS, the Labor Service, the Todt organization, and so forth, were supplied by the Army alone. Therefore, it became necessary within the WVHA to create an agency which looked after the interests of the Army and particularly those of the Main Operational Office.
Q Witness, were you transferred to do exclusively your job with the WVHA, or were you given another assignment as well?
A I have to say this about that. As one of the most senior transport officers of the Special Task Unit, the Verfuegungstruppe, which later on became the Waffen SS I had gathered a large amount of experience and when the situation in the Easter Front became so difficult, to use a comparison here, in Kirowograd, after we had taken Cherson on the Black Sea, I received the order to look after the division from a point of view of transports and spare parts.
I went to the Army motor pool in Kirowograd and looked after transports and there I requested about 700 tons of spare parts. The answer given to me by the Army was, "We have 500 tons of mud guards. If you can use them, help yourself, but that is all we have got."
I was then given an order by my commanding officer to go back to Berlin, and there speed up things with the OKH. Therefore, I went to Colonel Grothe, who was the Chief of the Maintenance Branch of the Army in the OKW, and I talked to him about the conditions at the front. What he did was he opened his drawer of the desk, and threw about five-hundred requests upon the table. According to these requests the result was that the front needed about five-hundred thousand tons of spare parts, and Hitler had approved twenty-five thousand tons. The result was that they could not use new vehicles, especially, because of minor parts that were missing.
Q. Witness, don't go too deeply into this.
A. On the basis of this fact I was given the order to establish a vehicle department direct in Berlin for the First Army Division. Thereafter, I used all my peacetime contacts with certain firms, and I established a depot of spare parts of around three million marks, and we did not have to worry about the future any more. When I was transferred to the WVHA that depot existed, and was in full swing. I left for the WVHA, and my commanding officer made the condition that this task mainly was to furnish divisional troops with all spare parts, and with the necessary details that I would continue with that task. I kept that up until 1944--the middle of 1944, and the depot was then at the order of the Reichsfuehrer dissolved.
Q. Witness, then you left the Main Operational Office, and received the order to be transferred. Where did you report?
A. I reported to the Personnel Office of the WVHA, and there Standartenfuehrer Loerner who was there at the time introduced me to Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. Pohl asked me what I had done before, and I told him what I had done in the past. Thereafter, he sent me to Standartenfuehrer Loerner.
We had a very brief conversation where I reported militarily.
Q. Pohl did not give you any special directive, or tell you what he had to do for you?
A. No, as I said before, it was purely a military formality, and he told me that Loerner would be my chief, and I was to report to him.
Q. You then went to Georg Loerner. What did Loerner tell you that you had to do?
A. I went to him, and I want to say this. The only man that knew about the vehicle situation in the WVHA, was Gruppenfuehrer Loerner. The reason for this was that transport matters of Office Groups A and B were concentrated in Office Group B. He, therefore, had all these worries, and he experienced them himself. For that reason he had earlier on established contact with Guttner, and expressed the wish that he would like to have a transfer office of his own, which I believe was the reason I was transferred there.
Q. Did Loerner give you any special directives, or what did he tell you?
A. Loerner said this to me at the time. After I had explained what I had done in the past, he told me I need hardly tell you any more, you know your business better than I do, and told me then to take up connections, or to call somebody in in order to get special contact with the Main Operational Office, and gave me an order for the transport situation.
Q. Do you want to mention this to have been the situation, that now you looked at that office to see what you had to do quite generally, so will you please tell the Tribunal what you found there?
THE PRESIDENT: May I interrupt you, Dr. Hoffman. When he speaks of the Main Operational Office, that is the Fuehrungshauptamt of the Main SS Office?
DR. HOFFMAN: If the Tribunal please, so far as I know there are a certain number of ten or twelve Main Offices of the SS. Amongst those Main Offices of the SS there was the WVHA, and the SS Main Operational Office had the same position as the OKH had in the Army.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that. Now the Fuehrungshauptamt was divided into other offices, A, B, C and D, and other offices. Can the witness tell us the number of the office to which he was attached?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, what happened was that Office X in the Main Operational Office was in charge of all transport offices.
THE PRESIDENT: That is Office X?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Then in addition to this there was I-A and the chief of the Main Operational Office who was Obergruppenfuehrer Juettner, issued the order to Office 10 and the transfer offices, which were distributed accordingly.
THE President: Yes.
BY DR. HOFFMAN:
Q. Witness, to repeat my question. When you said, after you reported to Loerner and looked at your office, what were the tasks that you found there?
A. When I left Loerner, I looked at the office. All I saw was the transport office-
Q. Witness, just a moment. Witness, please continue?
A. I found the Motor Pool Office, and I could do nothing with it, really. Anyway the Motor Pool of the WVHA was no good to me. Thereupon, I went to the Main Operational Office, and there the agency concerned explained their worries to me, which they had. I obtained an order to go and see Standartenfuehrer Ziersch. He was in charge of equipment for the armies in the Main Operational Office, and Obersturmbannfuehrer Curtius, who was in charge of rail transports, and Obersturmbannfuehrer Fink, who was the organizational officer; we all sat down together and drafted an order for the WVHA, which we submitted to Loerner, who passed it onto Pohl, and then that order reached all agencies of the WVHA.
Q. Witness, before you went to the SS Main Operational Office, did you inform yourself as to the wishes of the various office groups, and what did they tell you?
A. It is a general usage that when you go to a new department you introduce yourself to all the office group chiefs, which of course, I did. I should add here that Office Group C, which was one of the office groups connected with the Building Inspection in the Inspection Building Management all over Germany, and also had agencies abroad, had a large number of vehicles at their disposal. The position was not that these vehicles were belonged to or were under the orders of the WVHA, but the position rather was that when a Building Management received the order to build something, they contacted a building firm, and used their entire vehicles, including their technical equipment, which they hired from them, and the conditions were such that the firms which were evacuated to Russia, for instance, used only old vehicles. Those vehicles were transferred in Russia, and were put on the bill of the Waffen-SS as a new item. On the other hand, vehicles which were never used at all but which cost about fifty or one-hundred marks, they were the highest quality, were left standing for months without being used at all. The WaffenSS paid the whole bill in this case as well. Having found out these things, and that no officer was interested in this, I asked to be allowed to find out these things. I have to say that I regarded it as my most important task to bring this to order.
Q. What about the other office groups?
A. Office Group A-- The position was that they had a few passenger cars, PKW's, which were concentrated in the motor pool of Office Group B. In Office Group B the main troop depots, the clothing works and clothing depots had been supplied with vehicles by the Main Operational Office. From an administrative point of view they were under the Motor Pool, Berlin, Office Group B, Berlin.
Office Group D handled matters in the following manner: I reported to Gluecks in Oranienburg, and I was not too pleasantly received. I shall attempt to describe this as literally as possible. I should like to remark that on the basis of my military training, which I had for ten years before I joined the WYHA, a general to me was a general. Gluecks said roughly this, "You are the one we have been waiting for." I must say that we call this extremely bad manners if you are being attacked in this manner once you appear on the scene. He said to me also, "You can't help me as far as your workshops are concerned. As far as my vehicles are concerned they are in better shape than you can ever hope to achieve. The Death Head Units under Gruppenfuehrer Eicke have helped me there. I have my own technical management. I have my own technical officers, and I really have no use for you at all."
I cleared this up in the following manner with him? For the sake of the Main Operational Office, he should report to me monthly. That is to say, reports should be made out on the printed forms. I must say that I did not bother about Gluecks anymore.
Q. Witness, just now you spoke about an order which you worked out with other members of the Main Operational Office and which, as it were, formed the basis of that office. Can you tell the Tribunal roughly what the order said?
A. The order said roughly this: All reports about vehicles or reports about the fuels used, the tires needed, spare parts needed, all requirements for arms and equipment, and all requirements for rail transports have to be reported to B-V of the WVHA.
It also said that these reports had to be passed on to the Army.
May I give a brief explanation of why this was necessary? Fuel, for instance. The position was that because of the shortage of fuel in Germany, certain rations on the basis of 100 kilometers per vehicle had been worked out. A certain quantity of fuel was allowed. Therefore, if all reports from the agencies reached B-V in the WVHA, they contained all vehicles on printed forms, and it was laid down precisely how the vehicles had to be described. Vehicles being repaired and also vehicles not being used for a time were not included in the reports.
On the basis of those reports, the fuel was calculated by the Main Operational Office for the whole of the WVHA. The Main Operational Office passed it on to B-V, and B-V would pass it on to the agencies concerned. That also applies for all other parts. This is what the order said in its essence: That things should be concentrated there.
Q. Witness, now I would like to forget about vehicles from this order, and I would like to ask you the following question: Were you concerned with the actual use of the vehicles or were you concerned only with the maintenance of vehicles? What was the extent reached by your work? Did it concern the entire Waffen-SS or only the agencies of the WVHA? Will you please describe that?
A. It did not concern the Waffen-SS. As I said before, the whole of the Waffen-SS was looked after by Office X of the Main Operational Office.
On the chart, under B-V, we have the translation "Transportation". Under "transportation" we understand the following in Germany: a concentrated motor pool from which an agency like the WVHA can be supplied.
That is not the case here. If we speak of Office B-V, we must not call it "Transportation", but a purely administrative agency which has nothing to do with actual transports as such.
These transport columns, these large convoys we had, of course but only with the army. Army groups and similar units had these large transport columns, and they had agencies where-in they sent these vehicles onto trailroad tracks which had been damaged. They transported thousands of tons of fuel or ammunition to the front or transferred troops, or performed tasks of a similar nature. These transport columns did not exist in the Waffen-SS. All I can say is that all reports and vehicle requirements of the WVHA were concentrated in B-V and were passed on in a report to Office X of the Main Operational Office.
Q. Witness, according to what directive did you work, and can one see from those directives what sort of work you did?
A. Yes, roughly speaking, you can. The position is that I saw here in the library of the Courthouse a few of my former orders. The position is that had I made extracts of all my orders, I could have filled the whole document book. I took out only a few documents, and I would like to describe, on the basis of those documents, how my work was done.
Q. If the Court please, first of all, I would like to ask the witness the following question: You told us that you found a few of your orders here. That means that these were orders which you had given yourself? Is that correct?
A. No, no. The position is that these are orders which applied to the whole of the army and the Waffen-SS. Whether they show my initials or the initials of somebody else does not matter. We worked according to those orders.
Q. If the Tribunal please, I would now like to ask the witness a few questions on the basis of my document book. For that purpose, I submit from Document Book Scheide No. I, Document No. 2, which will become Exhibit I. It is on Page 3 of the English Document book.
Witness, what does this document show us, this extract from the official Gazette of the Waffen-SS of 1941, Page 10?
A. Paragraph 23 of that Gazette shows reports on stocks of motor vehicles with the units and offices of the Waffen-SS. I do not want to read the whole thing. In the second paragraph it says: "The designations of motor vehicles can be obtained from the Regulations No. 600. The standard names for motor vehicles are laid down in the Army Bulletin, Page 37, figure 1450." The Army Bulletin is the paper on which we worked and through which the orders of the Main Operational Office reached us.
Under (2): "It is therefore ordered that the stock of vehicles of all units of the Waffen-SS (with the exception of the units under the control of the Army)---" and I may add that these are the units which were standing at the front--"has to be reported again by 15 November 1941 on the prescribed form."
Paragraph 3, it is the responsibility of the commanding officer to see that the reports submitted are complete.
Q. Witness, I would like to ask you this about that document. You received this document from the Main Operational Office, did you?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you do with it? Did you have it mimeographed; did you change it?
A. If it was clear and understandable, even for a small official who was working somewhere in the agency, it was passed on in the original. If it was not so clear and intelligible it was changed so that even the most simple-minded person could understand it.
Q. Witness, then I shall submit Schiede Document No. 3 which shall become Exhibit No. 2. It is on Page 4 of the English document book. Will you please give us your comments on that document? What does the document show about your ministry activity?
A. I want to say only very briefly that under "18: References," that means that the agency chief, or the transport officer, has to make reference to the Army Gazette of this or that number, and he has to work accordingly.
Q. Then can you recall this document or give us your opinion about it? Did it go on as a copy, or did you issue any special directives or orders?
A. Certain matters are involved here which are of no use to the home agencies. For instance, 38-ton armored vehicles they don't use in the homeland. That, of course, is obvious. That did not concern the men at home. These documents were passed on in the original. Very possibly we gave an addition or a supplementary document where I expressed my personal opinion.
Q. In what capacity did you do that, as a transport officer, or what?
A. Yes, as the transport officer of the WVHA.
Q. Then I shall submit Document Scheide No. 4, which will be Exhibit No. 3. Will you please give us your comments briefly on that document?
A. Here again it becomes quite clear that we worked according to the orders of the army. Under Figure 24, "Issue of permanent trip tickets," and Figure 25, "Refueling of motor vehicles," the fuel position becomes clear from this sentence, in the second sentence: "The present fuel position is such that each official post or unit has only enough fuel to carry out its official operations."
In the next paragraph, 26, reference is made to Page 18 of the Army Gazette, Part C, Figures 42 to 45.
Q. Then I shall submit Document Scheide No. 5, which shall become Exhibit No. 4. It is on Page 8 of the English document book. Witness, gain let us have your comments, particularly about Figure 20, "Wood-gas generators". Did you have anything to do with that affair?
A. The difficulties at the front, above all where fuel was concerned, that is to say, our fuel factories were very frequently destroyed. We were, therefore compelled to have the entire transport adjusted to wood gas, which means that, to speak very crudely, we drove with real ovens at the back of our cars. The difficulties were to convince the whole of the driver personnel and the technical personnel that we had no fuel at home, no gas, no Diesel oil. If I have a car, I have it fueled and go away, but when I have a wood-gas generator, I have to get up an hour and a half earlier, and if I am lucky I finally take off after an hour and a half. As this was the case with all vehicles at home, and wood could not be obtained in sufficient quantities, administrative orders were issued that each man had to be completely restrained, and the effect of this was that the vehicle situation in Germany conked out at home and we had to withdraw gasoline from the front because otherwise the supply for the homeland would have become endangered.
These are things which might be described quite easily today, but at that time that was an extreme difficulty.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Just a minute, Doctor. Just as a matter of information, how efficient were the wood-burners in comparison with the gas-propelled motors?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I think the comparison is about fifty percent. The efficiency is fifty percent less. We had the advantage at the time that we had our autobahn, our motor road. If I was driving at a certain speed, I noticed I could keep good time on the autobahn, but no mountains or hills must occur, because once you drive up a mountain you lose yet more. Then we made all sorts of other experiments. We used coal, for instance, or wood and coal. We used lignite. We tried everything in order to be really successful, but there is only one good generator, which is the Kristen generator, a Swedish invention, which proved its worth. All others did not prove successful because the ovens were too heavy; the weight of the car became too big.
Q. (By Dr. Hoffmann) Witness, I shall now submit Document Scheide No. 6 which will become Exhibit No. 5. From that document I would like to draw the Court's attention to the last paragraph where it says, on Page 10 of the English document book, "Motor Accidents in units or official posts of the Waffen-SS" and "For Motor accidents of vehicles, which belong to the Office Group D (Management and administration of concentration camps) of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, the same authorities will be competent and the same procedure will be followed as up to now." This makes clear that Office Group D, as far as vehicles were concerned, was given a special position, is that correct, Witness?
A. I must say that I did not know this order in the old days for the simple reason that the transport officers of Office Group D were not in my charge. But I see from this order that on accidents which occurred to Office Group D I explain in the following manner:
If inmates were being driven to their labor allocation on a vehicle, and should an accident occur where an inmate would be injured, what they probably did was say that the inmate was the subject of other supply orders than say the driver or the mate, who were members of the Waffen-SS. I know today that the whole accident regulations were looked after by the head of the legal department of Office Group D himself. All accidents which occurred to the Waffen-SS were handled by us and handed over to an SS-court. To give one example, in peacetime, for instance, for the Leibstandarte, "Adolf Hitler" I worked on all the accidents myself, and as the transport officer I represented our side before the court. In wartime this was changed because there we were subject to the army orders. With all these normal orders the Office Group D forms an exception.
Q. And your explanation is because the insurance policies were different in the case of inmates and the drivers?
A. Yes.
Q. Then I shall submit Document No. 7 which will become Exhibit No. 6. Witness, will you give your comments on that document, please?
A. On the basis of this document it becomes clear that on 15 May 1944 the converting operation under the password "Gengas", which was the important order, conversion to wood gas - "Gengas" means generator gas, which is the same as wood gas - the monthly reports are no longer being sent to the Main Operational Office as it was done before, but they now reach the army direct, the Army District Command.
Q. Then I shall submit Document No. 8 which will become Exhibit No. 7 on Page 12 of the English document book. Please give us your comments.
A. Under Cipher 367, "Repairs of motor vehicles and motor vehicle motors," information applied to Chief of Army Equipment and Commander of Replacement Training Army, and the last sentence of the document applies to the whole of the Waffen-SS.
