A: I decided to take the career of a transportation officer in the Leibstandarte for the simple reason because the service of an infantry man became too monotonous for me. Therefore, I joined the transportation service.
Q: What duties did you perform with the Leibstandarte when the war broke out?
A: I went to Saarbruecken with this unit in the Saar area. I went to the Sudetenland and to Vienna with it.
Q: Witness, you were also there on the 9th of November 1938 when, on Goebbels' orders, the Jews had their windows smashed. What did you see on that day, what can you tell us about the share taken by the SS?
A: In that night, I stayed in the barracks. I stayed at the barracks because should something happen in the transportation service somebody should be around. Somebody telephoned me in my flat that night about halfpast eleven. And this order was issued by the officer of the day that the barracks are blocked, nobody must leave the barracks. You could not ask why on that occasion, and when the conversation came to an end, once again I telephoned the officer of the day. I asked him what was going on. He said, "There is an officers' meeting. Will you please come over?" I went upstairs to the staff officers' room, and all companies were alerted. Every soldier who had come back from leave went into the barracks and couldn't leave it again. After the alerting, arms were issued, and I cannot possibly describe to you the atmosphere. We had no idea why suddenly in the middle of the night, without any reason, we should be issued arms and ammunition. Then about two or three in the morning the regimental commander came back from the Reichs Chancellery and told us a Jewish Pogrom had taken place in Berlin, and the Leibstandarte was to be used to protect the population.
We did not know what he was talking about until the next day when we saw the smashed windows in Berlin. And I would like to assure you here that there was only one opinion:
This is madness.
DR. HOFFMANN: At this point I would like to submit a document about the 8th of November 1938 which is Document Scheide 37, in Book 2, and it will be Exhibit 21. This again is a Document from the IMT Trial, and it describes in great detail -- I am so sorry, I made a mistake here with the Document Number. I am talking about Document 36, if Your Honors please, which will be given Exhibit No, 21. It describes in great detail the events of the night of 9-10 November in the immediate neighborhood of Himmler's home. Through these descriptions, the testimony of Scheide is confirmed.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q: Witness, where were you when you belonged to the Leibstandarte during the war?
A: I took part in all the campaigns of the Leibstandarte up to 1942: Poland, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, and Russia.
Q: Witness, do you know anything of Himmler's Speech at Posen of 4 October 1943?
A: I did not know anything about the Posen Speech.
DR. HOFFMANN: At this time I would like to submit Document No. 37 from Document Book 2, which will become Exhibit No. 22. That again is a Document used before the IMT, and it shows beyond any doubt that the participants of the Posen Speech represented a definite circle of people, and that Himmler had told the man who gave the affidavit expressly that he was not allowed to say anything about the Posen speech, and that the man had to sign a piece of paper that if he should break the secrecy obligations, he would be liquidated.
You will find this on page 2 of Document 37.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
DR. HOFFMAN (Counsel for defendant Scheide): Witness, you were a member of the Lebensborn. What did you think the Lebensborn was, and were you a particularly active member?
WITNESS: I know the Lebensborn only from the fact that on the first of each month I lost one Mark for the Lebensborn.
DR. HOFFMAN: What had become generally known about the Lebensborn becomes clear from an affidavit which I should like to submit as Scheide Document 41 and Exhibit 23. It is on page 104 of Document Book 2-
THE PRESIDENT: We will take the recess, Dr. Hoffman.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. KLINERT: Dr. Klinert for the defendant Volk. Your Honor, I just want to suggest if the defendant Volk could possible be excused from the session tomorrow, all day long, to enable us to prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: At the request of his counsel, the defendant Volk will be excused from the session tomorrow.
DR. HOFFMAN: May it please, Your Honor, I still have a few more basic questions to ask this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: May I inject a question, please.
DR. HOFFMAN: I say, I have a few more basic questions to ask the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: And I said, may I interrupt you to ask a question.
DR. HOFFMAN: Oh, I am sorry, Your Honor.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Witness, except for one short period, did you have anything to do with transportation by railroad?
A Yes, indeed, your Honor.
Q During how long a period?
A Well, it started three months after the establishment of the office. For that particular task I had the Oberscharfuehrer transferred from the F.H.A. to my section. The way it worked, the central office of the transportation office for the SS and Police was in the Operational Main Office, and ours was nothing but a branch office of it, that is to say, the office of B-5, was nothing but a subsidiary office.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, all right.
BY DR. HOFFMAN:
Q Witness, would you please tell us what you had to do then in continuation of the President's question?
A Your Honors, the office used formerly to send all the requests concerning railroad transportation to the Operational Main Office from the WVHA. Each agency would do that on its own. However, the establishment of Office B-5, I got myself a Railroad Transportation Expert from the Operational Main Office, and brought him over to my section, and he collected the applications for rail transportation, in my office and passed them onto the Operational Main Office.
Q What did you do then, please?
A Then we transported clothing for the front lines, and clothing from the front lines back to homeland, for instance winter clothes had to be stored again in the summer. Then we transported for Amtsgruppe-C their whole construction material, that is, they would request wagons from our office, according to the special type of wagon. For instance, should there be calcium, if the calcium should be liquid, they had to have closed wagons, and if clothes they had to have the cloth wagons.
THE PRESIDENT: Railroad cars are known as wagons?
BY DR. HOFFMAN:
A Yes. In other words, there are certain types of wagons, and they were classified by each agency according to the types. With Amtsgruppe-C it was always listed as construction material; with Amtsgruppe-B they were listed as clothing and supplies Wefgong. Due to the fact that a transport say, in Hamburg, could not be landed the same war as a transport in Munich, for instance, or anywhere else in Germany, it was not always possible, for B-5 to control every individual transport. The idea now was that each agency had loaded those wagons according to prevailing regulations of the Wehrmacht. The sender was responsible for loading, and the receiver was responsible for unloading.
Q Did you ever carry out any transportation for Amtsgruppe-D?
A We never did transport anything for Amtsgruppe-D, unless one of the officers of Amtsgruppe-D requested so many wagons for the transportation of food. Let's say, then, it is possible that we gave them one, five or ten wagons but definitely not for inmates. During the entire period of time I was in charge of Office B-5 I never transported any concentration camp inmates; no such requests ever reached Office B-5.BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Certain concentration camp inmates were transported in railroad cars?
A Yes, indeed, Your Honor.
Q Where did they get them?
A It is like this, Your Honor. I could not tell anything very precise. I shall, in a few days, introduce an affidavit written by some one who knows all about it. If I may anticipate from this affidavit now before, I will do so, but it would then not come from my own knowledge, however.
Q Well, we will wait for the affidavit then.
A Very well, Your Honor.
Q For example, if there were a thousand asocial persons, we will call them, still retained in the east to be transported to Auschwitz, you had nothing to do with furnishing transportation?
A No, Your Honor, I did not, nor did I ever know anything about it.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q I want to ask a question, please. Listening to your testimony very carefully I arrive at this conclusion in a general way. That you as Chief of B-5 of the WVHA in certain instances were subordinate to two main offices for certain purposes. Your office was subordinate to the Operational Main Office for certain duties, and for other duties to the WVHA. Is that correct?
A It is a little bit different, Your Honor. Basic orders concerning transportation, arms, and ammunition, and railroad transportation came from the Operational Main Offices, and never from the WVHA, and those were my three great fields of tasks.
Now then the situation is as follows: Of course, I was representing the interests of the WVHA, that is to say, I had to adjust the interests of the WVHA, to those of the Operational Main Office that is the task when one transfers experts from one office to another.
Q Didn't you have to transmit certain requisitions, certain requests from the WVHA to the Operational Main Office?
A Yes, indeed.
Q That is the way I understand it.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q Witness, state again, please, in very few brief terms what requests of the Operational Main Office you passed on? Only in very brief terms.
A Railroad transport, or concerning everything:
Q Everything?
A Very well. In a very few brief terms, this is the way it worked; trucks, tires, fueld, spare parts, all were compiled in Office B-5 every month, according to precise models and orders. They were coordinated by B-5, and passed on to Operational Main Office. So far as weapons and ammunition were concerned, arms amounted to ten or twenty rifles, for some agency per month, or replacements, and this was written down monthly, as well. So far as practice ammunition was concerned, the requests came in every three months. It was nothing but a routine job, and nobody was too interested in it. Now with the rail transportation, it worked out that if and when you had transported something, the request was passed onto the Operational Main Office, and sent back through the same channel by telephone. That in very few brief terms were the tasks.
Q Witness, the SS regulations published, concerning for instance the way a SS man should behave. What was your opinion of those matters during the war?
A Your Honors, the whole thing developed in the following way: We used to read those gazettes in the old days.... Let me interrupt this. I would like to tell you a few things about the time when I was in the barracks - and then let me speak about the war.
As I stated before, the SS as well as the Wehrmacht, was doing its duty in the barracks, and as far as our tasks were concerned, we were equal to the Wehrmacht, because as far as maneuvers were concerned, we always had to work with the Wehrmacht. In other words, we had to fit exactly into that frame. The relationship of the Reich Leader towards the Leibstandarte is very important. I am not telling you something that is a secret. You can ask anybody in the Leibstandarte, and he will tell you about it. The Reich Leader was a man for us who was absolutely inscrutable, and I can really say that from those 4800 men of whom the Leibstandarte consisted at first, these men were the best, the crack men of Germany, who had been selected out of a whole nation and brought together into this barracks. From 70,000 volunteers who had volunteered and who were one meter, 80 centimeters tall, we accepted only 700 men as fit. In other words, we were in a position to select the very best men, and I can tell you that from my company of 186 men, 185 became officers; that is to say when the Waffen-SS was established, they became officers.
We did our duty, in sincere, manly, honest, and clean enthusiasm and I may say that I was there with pleasure, and I liked my duty. I was present in many parades, in many rallies, the Olympic Games, and on several other occasions we supplied the guards of honor. I went through the march into Austria, and I saw the cheering crowds. In other words, I saw National Socialism from the sunny side.
That was peace time. Then came the war, and that is the other side of the coin. We marched out and were just part of all the army units that were fighting out in the front line.
The SS was never the leading unit. We were always being led by the Wehrmacht. That at least applies up to 1942 when I was present. I never did experience that we were the leading unit. The Wehrmacht was always in charge.
Let me tell you something else which must also be told, because during that time there were always the fire service. We used to call ourselves the fire guards, because we were always assigned to these particular duties where there was a fire as it were. That is to say, where the mud was the deepest. We were always to be *ound there.
The same Wehrmacht generals who caused such a thing as Stalingrad, or did not have enough strength be say "No*, we are not going to play along with you, and we will not reduce our forces to 90,000 men", all these generals were not ashamed to gain their Ritterkreuze and their Oak leaves or their medals with our help, but then when I was interned in the camp I saw how everything was always being blamed on the SS, and I can really tell you that during the war, both in my own troop and all the incidents that occurred there, I forgot all my idealism, once and for all, and I would not go out a second time if they pushed me to it.
As far as the extermination of Jews is concerned, I can tell you that during the entire time when the whole nation of decent soldiers was struggling--because, after all, there were 12,000,000 soldiers out there--during all that time something was happening that was so horrible that one just can't find any words to explain it. Am I to excuse myself today for it? I can not excuse myself. All I can say is that I did not know it, and I can only add that, as Germans, we shall try to rehabilitate and repair all the damage we have done, and nothing else.
Q You were captured then, and you were in various PW camps. Now, will you tell me the names of the PW camps in which you were?
A I was in the PW camp Kematen. Then later on in Kamm. Immediately after that, in Regensbrug. That is all.
DR. HOFFMANN: I would like to produce for the Tribunal now from my Document Book No. 1, Scheide, Scheide Document 30, on Page 50 of This is a statement given by an American major who was in charge of a PW camp and who is telling us about the fact that the defendant Scheide had established a camp at Regensburg together with his SS Unit, and the same statement can be found in Document Book, Scheide, No. 1, Document 31 on page 51, and this is with reference to the first PW camp in which the defendant Scheide was, and in Document 32, Document No, 1, we can find a similar statement.
The two last documents will receive Exhibit Numbers 25 and 26. No. 25 applied to No. 31, and No. 26 to No. 32.
THE WITNESS: I would like to tell you the following thing. All those camps are the same ones only the names are different.
DR. HOFFMANN: I have additional documents in my document book. However, I should like to introduce those documents, with the permission of the Tribunal, after the termination of the cross-examination. I have, therefore, completed the direct examination of the defendant Scheide. I shall introduce the document books after the cross examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any cross examination by the other Defense Counsel? If not, the Prosecution may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. WALTON:
Q Witness, I should like to direct your attention again to 1 October 1942, the date when you reported to duty in Amtsgruppe B. Now, I believe you stated in your direct testimony that as soon as you stated your qualifications to both Pohl and Loerner, you were directed to form your office B-V, and you were given a fairly free hand in the formation of your duties and responsibilities. Is that correct?
A Mr. Prosecutor, that was to be expected, I mean professionally, but of course, there was a certain line we had to follow.
Q Now, I believe you stated also that the first, practically the first, thing that you did after taking over and making your survey of the needs of your office was to confer in the FHA, or Operational Main Office, with certain officials there.
That is correct, is it not?
A Yes, indeed.
Q And, on the basis of the Loerner direction given to you and on the further basis of your conference with the Operation Main Office officials, you drew a directive to be distributed--where?
A Mr. Prosecutor, you are starting from the wrong angle. The way the thing developed was that this Office B-V was not established upon Gruppenfuehrer Loerner's suggestion nor upon the WVHA's, but actually at the suggestion of the FHA, or Operational Main Office, because there was a necessity for it. Then it is correct that the regulations came out.
Q Now, this regulation was in effect drawn by you; that is correct?
A Yes, it was drawn up in the Operational Main Office, because it was written up in the Operational Main Office with the collaboration of all the experts there, and then submitted to Obergruppenfuehrer Loerner, because the Operational Main Office could not issue direct orders.
Q And finally Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl approved it, and then ii went out; is that correct?
A Yes, of course.
Q Now, my question is: To whom was this directive sent?
AAny directive was sent to all the Amtsgruppen.
Q In the WVHA?
A Yes, quite.
Q Now, in this directive, according to my memory, you asked for a report of all Amtsgruppen on the number of motor vehicles, the number of arms on hand, the amount of gasoline stock on hand, and the number of railroad transports on hand; that is correct, is it not?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Yes, that is what was compiled monthly, as far as railroad transports were concerned, with the exception of Amtsgruppe D.
Q What, if you recall, was the approximate total number of motor vehicles reported to you in compliance with your directive?
A In the WVHA there was about a total of 2,000 motor vehicles of which 800 belonged to Amtsgruppe D for "Dog", and the remainder were distributed all over the remaining offices of the main offices. I really couldn't tell you how many sedans we had or what the gasoline consumption was. I really couldn't tell you all about it.
Q Now, what was the highest number of motor vehicles of all types under your jurisdiction at any one time during your service in WVHA?
A Well, it is about 2,000.
Q Now, the Prosecution -
A Mr. Prosecutor, I forgot to add something. You told me, "those that were under my charge." I just want to tell you they were not subordinate to me. The agencies were in charge of the motor vehicles. I was only supposed to pass on the reports on the motor vehicles and Army orders, and if you say they were subordinate to me, then I would have been able to dispose over them at all times, which I could not.
Q The Prosecution is in possession of a document which purports to be a recommendation for your preferential promotion, which was forwarded over the signatures of Georg Loerner and Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. Now, in this document, in order to attain your promotion from Sturmbannfuehrer to Obersturmbannfuehrer, your chief states that you had in your office some 5,000 vehicles. The date of that document is 17th of September, 1943.
AAll I can tell you, Mr. Prosecutor, is that at that time a few more were added for the sake of the promotion.
DR. HOFFMAN: Your Honor, I believe it would be best if the Prosecution would show the document to the defendant.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
THE PRESIDENT: It may say that or it may say some additional things which he is entitled to see.
MR. WALTON: It was anticipated that he would call for it, your Honor. That is why I brought it.
THE WITNESS: Well, as far as those 5,000 motor vehicles are concerned, I can only tell you the following, that it was done simply for my sake, but actually they needn't have taken 3,000 additional ones in order to get me promoted. I am sorry, but I really can't think of any more than 2,000 vehicles, even if I did get my promotion, but for the rest is concerned, the document speaks for itself.
Q (By Mr. Walton) Then you would say that for a good employee your office chief would stretch the truth a bit in order to get him promoted?
A That is the way it was.
Q. Now of the 2,000 figure which you now give, as different from the figure contained in the document which you have, can you give an estimated percentage of the number of vehicles which were allotted at any one time to Amtsgruppe C?
A I would estimate that the motor vehicles of Amtsgruppe C amounted to approximately 600. Mr. Prosecutor, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that it really did not work out that way, that all those reports went through my office every month. I can't give you all the details about it because I just don't remember all the figures, but I am terribly sorry that all my documents and my papers were lost due to an air raid in the Tyrol.
Q Witness, a proximate figure will be quite sufficient. Now, when you made the allotments or obtained the trucks for Amtsgruppe C, you knew, did you not, what type of work they were performing in this division?
A I stated before that whenever something works out well, we didn't pay any attention to it, and Amtsgruppe C received many, many vehicles from private firms. I really couldn't possibly tell you today Court No. II, Case No. 4.how many there were, because there were quite a few of them, and they had a lot of work to do, and I just couldn't tell you how many vehicles they needed and they saved.
It changed so often.
Q Did you know what type of work Amtsgruppe C was doing at this time you were in charge of Office B-V?
A I can't tell you anything at all about the tasks of Amtsgruppe C and their work for the very simple reason -
Q I didn't ask you that. I asked you, did you know of your own knowledge what type of work Amtsgruppe C was doing at this time.
A No.
Q Then it follows that you had no knowledge of where Amtsgruppe C got their labor?
A No, I just couldn't tell you that. I don't know it.
Q Then on what basis did you consider you had the authority to obtain for Amtsgruppe C ten heavy trucks on any requests which Amtsgruppe C would make to you?
A I told you before, Mr. Prosecutor, that when I returned home from the front line, a general was a general to me. When General Kammler told me at the time, "I need the vehicles", and he really paid a lot of attention to his own rank, then I just couldn't refuse, because using a colloquialism, he would have rapped me over the knuckles, and I would have been kicked out. All I could tell him was, "I can't give you any vehicles because the Operational Main Office does not have any", and that was the answer which everyone of them received when they came to see me about vehicles.
Q How do you know then that the requests made by Amtsgruppe C through your office were legitimate ones?
A Because the chief of the Amtsgruppe was responsible for it.
Q Then you honored all requests from Amtsgruppe C regardless of who signed the requests, is that correct?
A Mr. Prosecutor, I never did approve any. Let me explain to you again the way the allocation was done. Now the request by the chief Court No. II, Case No. 4.of the Amtsgruppe C first of all goes to B5 and then to the Operational Main Office.
Then the Operational Main Office has a conference for experts, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the letter of Office B-5 is submitted here, which is a request from all the Amtsgruppen, and it is approved there or refused.
Q Maybe I can refresh your memory with an interrogation which you had on the 2nd of December, 1946. In answer to a question you said, "He", meaning Ewert, "was responsible for the entire traffic system, also for special measures within Division C." Can you still make that statement?
A Yes, that also is correct.
Q Then the question was asked you, "Please explain these special measures in greater detail; what were these tasks?" And in answer you are purported to have said, "These special tasks were all top secret, and we got to know about them insofar as we had to supply motor vehicles to these points, trucks and passenger cars," and then you went on to tell about the manufacture of the V-weapons. So, as a matter of fact you did know some of the tasks which were performed by Amtsgruppe C, did you not?
A That is the way it was, Mr. Prosecutor. Let me tell you now, if you are discussing and look at the entirety, and I don't mean the entirety of the examination because then you wouldn't understand a thing anyway, Hauptsturmfuehrer Ewert was in charge of the transportation in Office B-V, which is absolutely correct, for Kammler. He passed on the requests from Kammler, and that was another channel. That was the channel from the chief of the high command of the Army directly down. That is correct. Now, if you are asked to go to an examination all of a sudden without having any document at all, concerning such a large field of task, and you are to talk about it, then it isn't very simple. According to its sense, it is absolutely correct.
Q All right, Witness, we will pass on. Now, did I understand you to say that you did not ever supply any trucks to Amtsgruppe D?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Of course Amtsgruppe D received trucks from me although not through Office B-V, but it went through the Operational Main Office. It received Sixty motor vehicles on one occasion, and Schulz could select a large number of motor vehicles again anywhere in the Reich.
Q Now let me give you an example. Suppose Amtsgruppe D made a request of you for trucks and you sent it on to the Operational Main Office, and at the time the Operational Main Office received this request, it was unable to fulfill it, and suppose further that your office had on hand enough vehicles to fill or partially fill this request, and this fact was known to the Operational Main Office, would you then fill this order as best you could and turn over to Amtsgruppe D the vehicles?
A Mr. Prosecutor, let me explain to you that too. According to your question you try to create the impression that Office B-V had an enormous motor pool, and it really did not. Where was I to get the vehicles from? All I could do was simply request the vehicles from the Operational Main Office. Now, if the Operational Main Office gave me the vehicles, then rest assured, I passed them on.
Q Suppose though that you had some vehicles on hand and the Operational Main Office was unable to fill the order for Amtsgruppe D, would there be any reason, or any chance of your turning over some vehicles you had on hand to Amtsgruppe D?
A I told you before, Mr. Prosecutor, it is natural that when motor vehicles from the Operational Main Office were assigned to me, then, of course, they were passed on to Amtsgruppe D, and I told you of one case where the WVHA received motor vehicles from dissolved agencies in the east, and I gave Schulz the permission to pick out anything he wanted. He had to have all those vehicles repaired, everyone of them.
Q Would it be true then, to say that everytime you were called on by Amtsgruppe D for vehicles you did the best you could to see that they received what vehicles they requested?
A.- Mr. Prosecutor, if they had requested again and again they would have received something again and again. During the entire time they only received something on one occasion. Conditions were such they could have returned again and again and I simply couldn't give them vehicles. That's how it was.
Q.- All right. You knew the Motor Transportation Officer Schulz in Amtsgruppe D. Now when Schulz received these 60 vehicles or 100 vehicles from you, did you not know to what use Schulz would put these vehicles?
A.- Of course, Mr. Prosecutor, they would use them as supply vehicles for concentration camps.
Q.- Did you ever consider that these same vehicles that you turned over to Schulz could be used for transport of racially undesirable persons and other persons to gas chambers and places of execution?
A.- No, Mr. Prosecutor, I never did have any misgivings about that because I didn't know it.
Q.- You knew that there were concentration camps within the borders of the Reich, did you not?
A.- Yes, that was known to me.
Q.- And you knew generally what these concentration camps performed in the way of work for its inmates, did you not?
A.- No, even that wasn't know to me. I knew that inmates were working However, what type of work they were performing I couldn't tell you. Did not know it at the time.
Q.- Did you not know as general knowledge that was known all over the Reich that executions took place in concentration camps?
A.- I don't believe that was known all over the Reich because if it had been I would have known it, too. I didn't know it.
Q.- Until after the War you never knew that executions took place in concentration camps?
A.- How am I to understand your question, What do you mean "after the war"?
Q.- You state that during the time you were in Amtsgruppe B-V, which was from 1942 until approximately the end of the War, you did not know that executions took place in concentration camps. I merely stated that it is logical then to say that you did not know, or did you, that executions took place in concentration camps until after the War.
A.- No, that wasn't known to me. I only gained that knowledge after the War.
Q.- Coming back to your issue of motor vehicles to Schulz in Amtsgruppe D, it follows logically that whether you knew it or not you and your office were connected with forced labor in the concentration camps according to the reasoning which you have given there on the stand and the information which has come out in this trial.
A.- Mr. Prosecutor, if you consider my good will when I let an inmate have what he wants, if you consider that slave labor, I can say these people were working with me yes, but I would like to add the following concerning their treatment. After I had heard about those things after the war I was glad those 20 men had worked in my section because nothing happened to them there.
Q.- Then it follows that it would be true to say that since the ultimate use of these vehicles that you delivered to Amtsgruppe B and C I am sorry - Amtsgruppe C and D, since they did not directly concern you or Amtsgrupp B V you did not know or care to what use these vehicles were put? Can you say that?
A.- That Amtsgrupp C did constructions I knew. I also knew that they transported construction material. That Amtsgruppe D had concentration camps I knew that, too. That they used those vehicles I know that for concentration camps and concentration camp inmates and that Amtsgruppe B needed trucks in order to transport clothing and supplies was also known to me.
Q.- Now let us pass on to your testimony concerning your duties as being responsible for such items as fuel, oil, tires, spare parts, etc.
Requests from all Descriptivism for these items channeled through your office is that true?
A.- Yes.
Q.- If Amtsgruppe D and C made requests for these items to your office like A & B were they fulfilled as best your office could at all times?
A.- Here's the way it was Mr. Prosecutor. The first thing in requesting spare parts is not that the office compiles those requests but if the parts are available. You tell the requesting agency to go to the Motor Pool and get the spare parts. We informed those Motor Pols through regular channels to issue them the spare parts. That was the task of Office B-V.
Q.- Now suppose you take Amtsgruppe D's request for these items for any period of time, such as a month or a year, could one by looking at these requests tell that Amtsgruppe D would make redistribution to concentration camps of these items?
A.- I can't tell you that any more today, Mr. Prosecutor. I just don't know anything about it. All I know is there were certain forms which were used for requests, particularly spare parts and all the things that go along with it.
Q.- Now it was known to you and to your office that if it could not find a supply of these items which were needed for Amtsgruppe D the concentration camps didn't get them either, did they?
A.- In the concentration camps there were other channels to get things. And I shall submit an affidavit for that too. This affidavit will prove that to you. I can't tell you about it from my own knowledge but I have learned from reliable sources what channels they were, because I am personally interested to get the whole thing cleared up. On the basis of the trial records here I can only see the connections Amtsgruppe D had to many outside firms. Many things are clear here today that were not clear before.