Q: My next document will be Document No. 9 which will be Exhibit No. 8 and it is on page 15 of the English Document Book. If the Tribunal please, may I please read this short document? It says:
"The carrying out regulations concerning the use of Wehrmacht motor vehicles in war time, issued with ordnance OKW/Chief WKW Az. 46a (2) Section Mot./Gr.K. Verw. (b) dated 28 July 1944 and published in the General Army Bulletin of 7 August 1944 under current No. 411, have also to be applied analogously to the entire Waffen-SS."
That again shows quite clearly that as far as transport matters were concerned the defendant Scheide worked on Army orders. That is why I submitted this document.
Then I shall now come to Document No. No. 10.
A: Excuse me, doctor, let me say something about this document.
Q: Yes, do.
A: When Army vehicles were used in War time this order of 15 September 1944 established a new regulation within the Army which I shall have reference to later on. This means that Oswald Pohl had taken over all the vehicles of the whole land and he used them from Army Motor Pools. After 15 September 1944 no office chief could do with his own vehicle what he wanted to. All vehicles were concentrated in the Army Motor Pool. The inspectors of these Army Motor Pools were 20 generals of the Luftwaffe. The transport situation had become so difficult that only generals were in position to master the situation.
Q: Then I shall submit document 10 which will become Exhibit No. 9. It makes reference to the records about trips. Will you tell us something about that?
A: That is the same thing as we saw in the other documents, according to technical ordinance bulletin.
Q: Then we reach document No. ii which will be Exhibit No. 10 on page 15 of the English Document Book. Will you tell us something about that, please?
A: Under Cipher 671 - Statement of the services done and supplies delivered by the Wehrmacht. (letter OKW - Chief WKW - GR.IV i Az. 76a 80 dated 3 July 1944). In this document it is ordered very clearly that all vehicles which were at the disposal of civilian agencies or civilian persons and had been turned over to the Wehrmacht had to be supplied by work shops of the Wehrmacht. This applied to all building maintenance because we have heard here that supplies of spare parts from civilian firms became possible although it was not possible before. If done before it was not in accord with regulations.
Q: Then finally as far as transport matters are concerned I shall submit another document which is Scheide Document No. 15 which will become Exhibit No. ii on page 22 of the English Document Book. Will you give us your comment about that please?
A: Document No. 15 of 1 July 1944, Section 350, shows once more quite clearly that all requests which are mentioned here under 350 had to be worked exclusively by the Main Operational Office. In this document I would like to draw attention to the fact that the old regulations still applied to supply of armament. I shall later on say something about that when I speak about arms and equipment. Then in the document itself the last sentence "Spare parts for motor vehicles are to be requisitioned from the competent Motor Pool or Ordnance Supply Depot." They are both Army agencies.
Q: Witness, I have submitted these documents to the court. How many such documents would reach you per month, roughly?
A: Once a fortnight orders would come in and they would pass on once a fortnight.
Q: Witness, you told us before that you introduced yourself to Gluecks as chief of Office Group D and that Gluecks was somewhat "upish" with you. Did he have a transportation officer of his own and who was that?
A: Yes, he had a transportation officer whom the Main Operational Office had put at his disposal. What I said about the WVHA and my connections with it - this a man was associated with Gluecks at Oranienburg. Vehicles which had been allocated to building operations, building inspectorate of concentration camps - no matter what agency at all - were all under the commanding officer of the officer of the office chief. Attached to him there is the transportation personnel, the responsible man for the use of the vehicles, for the maintenance for all the other thousand things is the commanding officer. The technical aspect of maintenance and to help the commanding office to keep the whole thing going is lack of the technical officer, but no transportation officer has the right to say anything about the use of the vehicles, that is up to the commanding officer.
Q: Witness, I have understood that you were not in a position to direct the vehicles but I would like to ask you, as far as the Office Group D was concerned did you have to look after the maintenance of concentration camp vehicles, for instance what vehicles belonged to Office Group D? Did it include the vehicle of the commanding officer and what was it you had to do about that. Please tell us about that.
A: The Transportation Officer of Office Group D had each month to fill in a printed form, saying how many vehicles he had at the time and that meant all agencies of Office Group D. Whether he delivered these by telephone or letter does not matter. The man responsible to pass on these reports was not the Transportation Officer but the Office Group chief and the Office Group chief was responsible to Pohl. The same applied to requests for fuel, tires, spare parts, etc.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: I don't think the witness has answered your question at all. Ask him to answer your question.
Q: Witness, I would like to come back to this what I asked you was - I have understood you to say that you had nothing to do with the actual directing of the vehicles, the use being made of them. But please tell us what sort of vehicles belonged to the Office Group D. Did it include vehicles or concentration camp and did you have anything to do with it?
A: I did not have anything to do with the vehicles themselves. Of course, the vehicles of the concentration camp were part of Office Group D. Did it include vehicles or concentration camp and did you have anything to do with it?
A: I did not have anything to do with the vehicles themselves. Of course, the vehicles of the concentration camp were part of Office Group D.
Q: And who worked there as an expert?
A: Hauptsturmfuehrer Schulz.
Q: And did he not have to say anything about the use of vehicles but only the same task as you describe as being your task?
A: Hauptsturmfuehrer Schulz had as little to do with vehicles as I did.
Q: Who was it who actually used the vehicles for concentration camps, for instance?
A: The use of vehicles in concentration camps depended entirely on the commandant.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann we will take a recess at this time.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. HOFFMANN: Witness, did you ever inspect on the spot the trucks which belonged to the various Office Groups? Would you please answer my question including Amtsgruppe D.
A. No, I never carried out any inspections. These inspections were carried out during peacetime. However, during the war we neither had the time nor the possibility to do so. Even in the concentration camps I never carried out any inspections for the very simple reason that Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks told me explicitly that I had nothing to do there and that it was none of my business to be there; Since I didn't know at the time of my transfer that the entire Amtsgruppe D would be part of it now, the Operational Main Office also confirmed the fact to me by telling me: "It is none of your business. That is the business of the technical officer whom we have sent there."
DR. HOFFMANN: I would like to draw the Tribunal's attention to my document book No. 2, page 53 of the English document book, and I would like to introduce now an affidavit by a certain man named Kaindl. This affidavit was introduced before the I.M.T. as an affidavit by the defense. It is on page 52 of Document Book II Scheide, your Honors. Do your Honors find that or don't you have Document Book No. 11.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: I don't have II. All right. We will use these.
DR. HOFFMANN: It deals with Scheide Document No. 33 which will become Exhibit No. 12. That is an affidavit by the last commander of the concentration camp Sachsenhausen and, as I stated before, it was introduced before the I.M.T. This affidavit in it's main part deals with organizational questions and I would like to stress this affidavit in that it is of great importance to me because it was given at a time when no one thought that there would be a trial against the WVHA. I would like to draw the Tribunal's attention to page 55 of the English Document Book where it is stated verbally from about the middle of the first paragraph there on page 55.
And I quote:
"From about the middle of 1940, the designation of the 'Inspector of the Concentration Camps.' was established. The commander was responsible in each case to Himmler with regard to the transfer of the concentration camps within the sphere of duty of the **-WVHA as of 1 April 1942; the designation of the commander was as follows:
"'SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office, Office Group D, Inspector of the Concentration Camps,' and it was under the personal command of the Chief of the SS-Economic and Administrative Main Office, Oswald Pohl."
I would like to stress this word "personal command" because this will be absolutely decisive for the position of the defendant Scheide.
Then I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would also take a look at page 74 of the affidavit where it is stated in paragraph IV:
"Issuing of orders by the Office Group D of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office:
"The office group D 'Inspectorate for Matters Pertaining to Concentration Camps' had the following tasks:
"Office I -- Collaboration with Offices IV and V of the Reich Security Main Office with regard to new prisoners, transfer of prisoners to other concentration camps, release of prisoners in special cases, forwarding of orders for executions issued by the Reich Security Main Office.
"Office II: Organization of the labor allocation of inmates, negotiations with the Reich offices and firms in question.
"Office III: Execution of all medical and hygenic measures in the concentration camps.
"Office IV: Administrative matters pertaining to concentration camps, finance, accommodations, clothing, and food."
DR. HOFFMANN: What Amtsgruppe did Schulz belong to?
A. He belonged to Amtsgruppe D.
DR. HOFFMANN: I would like to refer the Tribunal to Office I where Schultz was working, where it says "transfer of prisoners to other concentration camps." Therefore, it is absolutely logical that the man who was in charge of transportation was also a member of office I.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you say that over again? What do you claim as to this first paragraph? What does it prove?
DR. HOFFMANN: Schulz, since he was in charge of transportation in office D, as the witness Scheide testified, also was a member of D, to be sure. Amtsgruppe D- I. Under the tasks of office I it is stated "transfer of inmates from one concentration camp to the other." Schulz consequently was added to Office I.
THE PRESIDENT: You infer from that Scheide, who was in office V, had nothing to do with the transportation of prisoners?
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, indeed your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: That belongs in Office I, under Schulz?
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, indeed, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you overlook the statement that Schulz was to collaborate with offices IV and V?
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, your Honor. However, in this particular affidavit they were speaking about the competence itself within Amtsgruppe D and not about the office bearing the same number within the WVHA. None of them here has indicated the various offices of Amtsgruppe D.
Your Honor, may I be more precise about it?
THE PRESIDENT: I think we understand it now.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness, we are now speaking about motor transportation as such in general and we have explained to this Tribunal what you had to do in that respect with the exception of Amtsgruppe D. Now, before you stated that you also were in charge of a motor pool. Would you explain to the Tribunal what kind of a motor pool this was, and how many vehicles that motor pool contained?
THE PRESIDENT: If there is anybody that knows what a motor pool is, we do. You needn't explain it.
A. The same thing applied to us, too, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: I hope not.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
However, this Tribunal would perhaps be interested to know how many vehicles were contained in that motor pool, that particular motor pool of which the defendant Scheide was in charge.
A. That motor pool which was in Berlin in the Duererstrasse was only responsible for the supplying of the main office in Berlin; that is to say, things needed for the mess, stationery supplies, and all the little things that were a part of it all.
Q. How many vehicles did you have in there?
A. We had 30 trucks and 20 sedans.
Q. Who in this particular case was to tell them where to go?
A. It was done in the following manner: 24 hours in advance these vehicles were requested or applied for, depending on whether a vehicle had completed it's tour or not. Then they were assigned to a different trip and they were approved by me personally.
Q. Was that the only and individual case where you could tell them what trips to make?
A. Yes.
A. Witness, did your motor pool also transport inmates or were inmates ever transported by any of the vehicles in your motor pool?
A. During the entire period of my activity in the WVHA not on a single occasion were inmates driven by those trucks nor were any trucks ever requested from us for such purposes, as I stated before. It was the task, and the sole task, of the commanders to transfer the inmates and to handle these matters with supply trucks in the concentration camps. This job was not within the field of tasks in the office of B-V.
Q. Now, witness, I can recall that Tschentscher mentioned one single occasion here in the witness stand when he applied to you in order to take care of an urgent transport for the camp Dora. Can you recall that, and what was it all about?
A. That is the way it was. At the time when Tschentscher applied for these trucks and vehicles in B-5, the vehicles were no longer under B-5. After Tschentscher had made this statement here I spoke to him about it, and I told him that I couldn't recall such a request. At that time the Army motor pools which were established towards the middle of 1944, were already in existence and as of the first of September they were introduced for all the agencies of the Wehrmact.
I would like to tell you the purpose of these army motor pools. Generally speaking, it is usual that trips which had to be taken by one of the agencies were carried out during the daytime. That is, up to the great break-through by the Russians when they arrived at a distance of sixty kilometers from Berlin, we had lost 700,000 vehicles in the Eastern area alone; Hitler now ordered a combing out of all the last reserves. General Koll, the chief of the Army Transportation System issued a basic order in order to set up such an army motor pool system. These army motor pools had the purpose of utilizing everything that could be used as transportation in the homeland for the purpose of having the vehicles rolling day and night.
Distribution of fuel was no longer to be placed fundamentally in the hands of any agency chiefs, but that distribution had to be carried out by the Army Transportation System. That meant a complete change in the transportation system. No General, no general-field marshal--nobody, could exclude himself from that army motor pool. Therefore, no agency chief, regardless if he was a concentration camp commander or an air corps general or an army general, -- even Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl -nobody had the right to dispose over his own vehicle or vehicles.
The German Army motor pool chief was the only one who could make decisions. It can be seen from that, and the fact is also explained from that with reference to all the final transportation which was carried out regardless of what area it was carried out in, only the chief in charge of the motor pool could give any information about it because he was the one who controlled the whole thing centrally.
All information went to him, and the inspectors for these army motor pools were twenty air corps generals who received a special authority, which never existed before.
General Koll issued an entire book containing regulations with reference to these army motor pools, and anyone who was found guilty of having used a truck illegally was given a court martial.
In conclusion I would like to say that Hitler here tried to save whatever could be saved because the transportation situation in the entire German Reich was with one word catastrophical. Within one month three thousand railroad engines were knocked out by airplanes. All these figures never became known. We were unable to supply the small towns or villages which had been bombed out, neither by trucks nor by railroads.
The situation was absolutely impossible.
Q. Witness, with reference to these army motor pools, I would like to ask you again: if a general, for instance, had a car at his disposal and he didn't use it, for instance, at night, was the man in charge of the army motor pool then able to use that vehicle and assign it to a different duty?
A. There were a few exceptions in Germany. I should think about twenty or fifty sedans may have been exceptions in this case. Certain people could still use their vehicles because Hitler personally had given them permission to do so. They had special passes, and that was the reason why they were passed by those "combing-out" groups.
Whereas before the generals left their vehicles in some garage and could do whatever they wanted with them, their vehicles now had to be attached to the army motor pool, and the army motor pool could dispose of that vehicle--even at night, by the man in charge of the motor pool.
I only want to make a comparison; namely, the Wehrmacht garage which is the Army Motor Pool, Lichterfelde Berlin, South, was directed by a captain of the army, and I asked him to give me my own vehicle, for a trip I wanted to make.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. Did I understand you to say that if a general wanted to use his vehicle he had to have permission from Hitler himself?
A. No, Your Honor, not quite. General Koll, who was in charge of the Wehrmacht Transportation System had his representatives all over the German Reich; they were army officers, and they were in charge of all the vehicles which were contained in the army motor pools. To be more precise about it, they were executive organs.
Q. I understood you to say that Hitler's personal approval was required. What was it that required his personal approval?
DR. HOFFMANN (Counsel for defendant Scheide): Witness, you just stated that a few generals had received a special permission by Hitler to continue using their vehicles without restriction. That is what you meant?
WITNESS: Yes, it was a special permission.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness, in order to be more precise about it, all other persons with the exception of these twenty to fifty people you mentioned, had to turn in their vehicles if they had been requested to do so by the man in charge of the motor pool in the army without interference and without argument?
A. Yes.
Q. And what did that mean for the motor pool which you were in charge of in the WVHA at the end of the war? How were the trips distributed there?
A. The same thing applied there as it applied to any other army motor pool. As I stated before, we were attached to the army motor pool Lichterfelde Berlin, South, of which a captain was in charge.
Q. Your own trips, therefore, you had to report to that captain, is that correct?
A. In this particular case it worked out a little bit differently. Toward the middle of 1944, General Koll, who knew me from my activities on the front line, asked me to help him while carrying out his task. That was the reason why I was traveling on direct orders issued by General Koll. It developed that way all technical officers of the homeland, were concentrated in one spot in order to eliminate this catastrophe, and to prevent it. I can tell you that we never succeeded in doing so.
Q. Witness, I shall now come back to the subject of vehicles and I am talking about the requisition of new vehicles and spare parts. When you joined the WVHA you already had a motor pool there, didn't you? Now that motor pool, of course, had to receive additional vehicles. Were you in charge of requisitioning new vehicles and spare parts?
A. The procurement of new vehicles could best be explained if I may use an example. Let us assume that a commander of a concentration camp needed a vehicle. Then he applied for this vehicle through special application forms and through special channels with his Amtsgruppe chief. The Amtsgruppe chief compiled all the reports which apparently came from other agencies also, so that perhaps he had application for three vehicles. He could understand the necessity for such a vehicle best because, as an Amtsgruppe chief, he could judge the necessities of the tasks of that Amtsgruppe; after all, they did work under his orders. The requests from all the agencies of the WVHA, from all the Amtsgruppen, went to Office B-5, where they were compiled in one single report, and then they were sent to Office 10 of the Operational Main Office. The assignment of the vehicles was not carried out in such a manner that Office B-5 received twenty or thirty vehicles and distributed these vehicles personally. The assignment was carried out on paper; that is, they received a special paper stating that so-and-so many vehicles would be assigned to us, and all those papers went directly from the Operational Main Office to the Amtsgruppe.
That was a paper which was addressed to the motor pool in Berlin or Hamburg which gave us permission to the bearer to pick up the vehicles there; that was because the Operational Main Offices compiled all these requests from all SS agencies, generally speaking, and passed them on to the army.
The Army then gave its approval and the vehicles were picked up at the Army motor pool. During my entire activity in the WVHA I assigned to Amtsgruppe D one single request consisting of 60 trucks. Of course, more and more trucks and vehicles were requested constantly, for instance, to replace vehicles which had been destroyed by air raids due to the vehicle being pretty old. The requests turned in by the Main Operational Office could not possibly be complied with, because there were hardly any vehicles left for the homeland. Therefore, we automatically had to wait for a long period of time until vehicles were returned from the front line which could not be used there and then the Operational Main Office would have the opportunity of assigning vehicles to the WVHA. Therefore, during those two and a half years I was there approximately 100 vehicles altogether were assigned. Amtsgruppe D received 60 of them. That is all that the Operational Main Office dispatched to them, because they had nothing else. I can recall one more instance. By virtue of my connections, with the combat units which lasted up to the very end, and through the fact that I continued to be in charge of the depot of the First Panzer Division, I received a small number of vehicles which could no longer be used in the front line and I gave permission to Hauptsturmfuehrer Schulz, who came to see me in the WVHA to take whatever he wanted and whatever he needed from that particular motor pool. I told him that if one vehicle wouldn't do, come and take two, put them together, and make one good one. As far as I can recall today, he selected from five to 10 vehicles out of the whole lot so that if we figure approximately 10, Amtsgruppe D received approximately 70 vehicles.
Q. Witness, I would like to come back now to a question, which according to my opinion, was not answered as yet. You had mentioned before that Tschentscher at one time, had approached you with respect to his assignment at Dora and you pointed out to him that at that time already that your vehicles were under the Army motor pool at the same time.
Couldn't you comment on my question?
A. All I wanted to say was that through the establishment of the Army motor pool, it operated in such a manner that all the vehicles were on the way and on the road at all times. The moment they came back from a trip they reported to the Obersturmfuehrer who was in charge of the motor pool of the WVHA as long as there was one and he was permitted to assign those vehicles to new duties as soon as they came back from their trip, in order to eliminate all those troubles. It really wouldn't have worked out in such a way that we compiled all these trucks together and took care of all these requests at one time, but, rather, the moment the vehicles came back from their trips they were used for a new trip. That was the reason why it was not a collective order, but rather a request which had been divided up where the use of these vehicles was not clearly specified, because thousands and thousands of trips occurred in a year, due to the approval which had to be given by the Captain of Lichterfelde-South at the Army Motor Pool.
THE PRESIDENT: But you've lost Tschentscher again.
Q. Yes, Witness, I asked you if you could remember Tschentscher and you told us you were going to explain to us, because this was not a collective order that you were going to tell us about those single orders. Weren't you going to tell us about it?
A. I already stated at the beginning that I simply couldn't recall all those things. I would like to state in connection with this the following: At the same time I received the order and instructions from General Koll, as far as it was possible to keep our vehicles rolling day and night with the help of that captain who was in charge of the Army Motor Pool and to transport arms to the front line and evacuate women and children from the front lines and the surrounding areas. I don't quite remember where I was at that particular moment, unfortunately. I just don't remember those details.
Q. Witness -
THE PRESIDENT: Did we finally learn what happened to Tschentscher's request?
DR. HOFFMANN: No, not quite, All I know is that the witness just can't remember those things and I believe he stated a series of reasons why he just couldn't remember about it.
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I really don't remember anything about it.
THE PRESIDENT: That was the original answer.
Q. Now, Witness now that we have discussed the procurement of new vehicles, I would like to touch upon a different field, namely, the procurement and distribution of fuel. What kind of fuel went through your office according to the requisition. Would you explain it in brief terms?
A. I already told you something about the procurement of fuel when I was speaking about the policy in the first part of this trial today. However, I stated before, based on the reports coming in concerning the vehicles, the Operational Main Office compiled the necessities of the various agencies for use of gasoline and then passed it on to B-V in coupons. These coupons were placed in envelopes and sent to the particular persons by mail. The Army approved requests for all homeland vehicles at the end including all agencies and gave them one and a half coupons, so to say, One and a half coupons stood for the distance that the car could travel with them. That was 150 Kilometers. That person simply couldn't exceed the distance of 150 kilometers. It can be understood now why no one was able to exert influence on the agency chief at Berlin by telling him that their trip was very important. The only man who can know about it is the man who is in charge of that agency and who is using up the gasoline for their vehicles. At the request for fuel, for instance, when there were special orders or requests in some agency, they could not be complied with, at least during the war.
However, the Operational Main Office basically speaking would issue certain additional amounts of fuel if the fuel factories were working properly and if the number of coupons was higher than usual. During the last year of the war, 1944 or 1945, the entire WVHA, including all agencies and including Amtsgruppe D, received eight to ten thousand liters a month.
Q. Witness, were there any major transports of thousands of people possible with such small amounts of gasoline or fuel?
A. It is absolutely impossible. I figured out once here what an inmate transport of 10,000 inmates traveling over a distance of 500 kilometers would require in vehicles and fuel. In order to transport 10,000 people, if I place 30 people in one truck without their baggage, I need 350 trucks in a round figure, and 55,000 litres of fuel. The Army simply didn't have such amounts of gasoline at its disposal, nor did it have the vehicles, so that it was absolutely impossible to carry out inmate transports with trucks and vehicles.
Q. Were any such requests turned in to you?
A. I never received any order nor did I receive any assignment to take over such transports and if anyone had issued any such order, then, if it had been in my power, I would have carried it out in such a manner that today I would be able to say to this Tribunal I did that and I was unable to do any more. On the basis of the situation of the vehicles at the time, it was absolutely indisputable and it was not possible to carry it out, due to the lack of large numbers of vehicles.
Q. Witness, I shall now come to a subsidiary question, which might play a small part in your case here. I would like to speak about the gas trucks, gas vans -- they were called -- they were not mentioned here as yet, but they were mentioned in the trial before the International Military Tribunal and they played a certain part --- they were the trucks or vans which were used for gassing human beings. Did you ever have anything to do with such vans within the WVHA or did you know anything about them?
A. I didn't know then and I don't know now that the WVHA had gas vans nor did I know anything about the existence of gas vans. I heard about that fact for the first time during the IMT trials.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honors, in order to prove that and to show you who was in charge of these gas vans, I would like to introduce now Scheide Document No. 19; it will become Exhibit No. 13. It is on page 30 of Document Book No. 1.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Doctor Hoffmann, I wish to suggest that when you say "Document Book No. I"---
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: That you say "Scheide's Document Book No. I".
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Because throughout the trial we have many Document books.
THE PRESIDENT: I believe he said "Scheide's Document Book".
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Oh, I am very sorry, then, I did not catch that.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. It is Scheide Document No. 19 from Scheide's Document Book No. 1, and Document No. 20, on page 30. They are on the pages 30 to 32 of Document Book No. 1, Scheide. It is stated here on page 32 of the English Document Book in the last paragraph under "A": "The gas vans did not belong to the motor pool of the Einstz Group but came from a special Kommando. This Kommando was led by the man who made these vans. The vans were given to the individual groups by the RS HA," or the Reich Security Main Office. Witness, I would like to leave this question about vehicles now, and talk to you about an entirely different field of which you were in charge also. Let us talk about the railroad transportation which you procured while working for the WVHA. Please explain to this Tribunal in brief terms your activity in that particular field?
A. Prior to my time requisitions for railroad transportation were submitted to the Operational Main Office directly. The same applies here what I said about the vehicle transportation system, namely, the Operational Main Office had to contact many smaller agencies, and it wanted to have this situation changed. That was the reason why I had an Oberscharfuehrer of the transportation system of the WVHA transferred to me. This Oberscharfuehrer was in charge of railway transportation until the end of the war, under my supervision, of course.