What happened upon Dr. Bobermin's letter, whether we called Melmer, that is Wenner or Dr. Volk or somebody else, that Melmer was still to give us a certain time to pay that money, I really don't know. But I am convinced that some sort of negative answer was given. That should be seen from the files, because the files of the DWB had been turned over to the American Military Authorities in their entirety.
Q. The Prosecution in its opening speech stated that in June 1943 assets of various enterprises of Amtsgruppe W were covered from the amounts of the Reinhardt Fund amounting to approximately eight million Reichsmarks. The Prosecution asserts that among other people you knew about it. The Prosecution believes to prove its contention by introducing Document NO-554, Prosecution's Exhibit 448-A in Document Book No. 17. It is contained on Page 33 of the German and Page 32 of the English document book. That document consists of a series of letters which all deal with the paying back of loans. The second page of that document is a letter of the DWB to the co-defendant Frank dated the 7th of June, 1943. Now, I am asking you, was this letter by you, or did it originate with you?
A. Yes, this letter comes from me, and as I go through the other pages I can tell you that all the other letters were dictated by me, to be sure with a few exceptions.
Q. You refer in this letter to various oral discussions you had with Frank. What was it that you discussed during those conferences with Frank? In particular did you speak about the source of the Reinhardt Fund?
A. The negotiations ordered by Herr Pohl with the Reichpost concerning a credit of twenty-five million Reichsmarks which Dr. Volk and I had led, had failed because Herr Pohl did not want to turn in the shares of the DWB as a security. All of a sudden there was possibility of working with another Reich agency which could give us credit. Dr. Wenner and myself immediately worked on it, and it was for two reasons that we tried to get that credit.
The first reason was; by utilizing Reich funds as capital of the economic enterprises the German Reich had become the one who held the majority shares of the DWB, holding approximately one million majority. Now, if Herr Pohl succeeded in compensative that million Reich majority from the Party sector by another increase of capital, the the entire idea of our transfer of the shares of the company to the Reich would have been without success. That is why we appreciated that new credit that could be given by the Reich to the DWB which amounted to thirty million Reichsmarks. Personally, I only worked for the DWB for an additional month, and therefore I tried my very best to see to it that those amounts came in before I left. That was one of the reasons.
The second reason was that the SS enterprises had borrowed eight million Reichsmarks from the Red Cross, since several years, and we-when I say "we" I mean Dr. Volk, Dr. Wenner and myself -- thought it rather important that those loans of the Red Cross should be paid back as quickly as possible. That was the second reason why we were so highly interested in this Reinhardt loan. As far as the source of the Reinhardt Fund was concerned, nothing was spoken about it, but on the other hand, certain inquiries were made in that respect. As far as I can recall Herr Frank Frank answered that those were amounts which came from the east and that he, together with the Reich Finance Ministry was the one who had the right to take it over.
May it please your Honors, while looking through those documents you will see that the word "Reinhardt" is mostly written with "dt" at the end. Staatssekretaer Reinhardt was practically speaking the deputy of the Reichs Finance Ministry. We thought that that was the reason for the name of that fund.
Q. Where was it the name actually came from?
A. Well, here in Nurnberg I must assume that it means Reinhardt Heydrich, and Reinhardt stands for the first name of Heydrich.
Q. What did Frank tell you at the time concerning the terms of the loan?
A. Herr Frank stated that as far as the interests were concerned he had to fix them first, but that the interest could be very low, two and a half to three percent, and that a security in contrast to the loan that the post office had wanted to give us, was not necessary. That was one of the reasons among other things why we actually insisted on the expediting of the flow of money because in the Reich Budget Regulations, a Reich economy regulation it is explicitly stated, that a credit on the part of the Reich, with the exception of small exceptions, could only be given against security.
Q. From this series of letters compiled into a document it can also be seen that the repayment of a credit of eight million marks from the Red Cross was done through the Reinhardt Fund. Most of the letters are signed by Dr. Wenner. Does your previous statement also refer to these documents, namely, that that letter was dictated by you?
A. Yes, the signatures are by Dr. Wenner and by somebody else and not by myself, but I dictated most of the letters myself. I couldn't sign because I didn't have the authority to sign.
Q. Why was it that you as an auditor dealt with the question of the re-payment of the Red Cross credit?
A. The reasons were rather moral ones, because I knew how the money had been collected for the Red Cross, namely by making collections in the street at twenty pfennigs at a time, and I thought for quite a while that it was quite shameful that those amounts which had actually been destined for the wounded were in the enterprises for years and years as loans, and also that for quite a while they were endangered, up to the moment when the factories of the enterprises were safe again through the new taxation law.
Q. Why was it that you did not press prior to that the repayment of the credit because, after all, you worked as an auditor for the DWB for years and years?
A. During my auditing work I could not find out that the Red Cross was the one that gave the credit. The SSSaving Union was an intermediate contractor. The Red Cross, therefore, had given the money to the SS-Saving Union, and the SS-Spargemeinschaft distributed the money to various SS enterprises. The SS-Spargemeinschaft also set up certain plants for the ammortization of that money; and those were exactly the same plans concerning the amortization as had been issued by the Red Cross, with the only difference that one-eight percent of interest had been included in the computation for the Saving Union. At the same moment when I found out by accident that that money came from the Red Cross I immediately endeavored for the repayment of those amounts.
Q. Why was it then that the credit wasn't paid back immediately?
A. As an economic auditor I was not a business manager. I could only make suggestions. Money, in order to repay those loans, was not available at the beginning. When I knew, on the other hand, that the money came from the Reinhardt Fund, of which we undubitably assumed that it was a fund which was part of the property of the Reich, I went to see Frank and asked him to speak to Pohl about the repayment of that credit. Frank did so. I also went to see Pohl and Pohl approved it. I knew very well that due to the lack of funds of the subsidiary companies of the DWB, no repayment to the Red Cross of the credit would have taken place, if one would not have exerted a very heavy pressure. And that, Your Honors, is the reason why I adapted myself of the particular mentality of the WVHA where, generally speaking, mainly soldiers were being employed, and I daresay that at the last moment of my activity there I signed Pohl's order concerning the repayment of the loan with the title "Chief of Office W." If I hadn't done that I would have received no answer at all within that short period of time.
If you take a look at the dates contained in the documents you will see that the answer came in a very short period of time, otherwise it would not have worked out. It was thus that I succeeded in seeing to it that an unpleasant loan was paid back at exactly that period of time, when I still had a certain possibility to exert a small influence on it. The prosecution has marked this particular deal as not being a very clean one. I don't believe that the repayment of that credit can be considered as a dirty deal.
Q. On page 14 of that document, page 46 of the German Document Book, it should be page 45 in the English Document Book, there is a letter which was written by you upon the DWB's orders to the chinaware manufacture works, Allach. What does this transfer of liabilities to the DWB, concerning the Heinrich Fund, have to do with the Reinhardt Fund?
A. Nothing at all. This letter apparently was introduced by mistake by the prosecution in this series of documents. The name "Heinrich Fund" does not come from Heinrich Himmler, but rather from Heinrich Mattoni. When purchasing the shares of the Heinrich Mattoni A.G., which purchase was carried out before the time when I was working as economic auditor for the DWB, not only the shares had been purchased but also a certain amount that was owed by the Mattoni A. G. to the German Bank in Karlsbad.
The price for the purchase for these claims of the bank was lower than the normal price. In order to clarify I give an example: the amount due would have been, for instance, one million marks, it was purchased for two hundred thousand marks only. These are not actual figures but I just use them to explain the whole thing. When paying back the amount owed to the bank by the Mattoni A. G. to the purchasers of the original bank claim, a considerable profit would appear. Here Pohl, through an official order as Chief of the WVHA, transferred that book profit to the Reich. The idea was to establish a fund for social purposes, which was property of the Reich. I reported all those things to the expert of the Reich Finance Minister, Regierungsrat Dr. Assayer, whom I knew from my former activities there, and he said that he had no misgivings whatsoever about it because, after all, the money was transferred into the hands of the Reich. With the further development of the war, however, Herr Pohl did not carry out those social purposes which he wanted to at the beginning, and he used the money in order to increase the capital of the DWB. Personally I was very pleased about it. I knew very well that the way this had bean handled was incorrect, but it was only thus that we succeeded in making the DWB become a Reich company. If that had not occurred it would have remained a Party company. Therefore, the Heinrich Fund has nothing to do with the Reinhardt Fund.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. HEIM: (Counsel for defendant Hohberg):
Q. Witness, before the recess we stopped discussing the Document NO-554, Exhibit 448, in Prosecution Document Book 17, on page 46 of both the English and German texts.
You didn't complete answering the question: That was, who transferred the debts to the DWB, and how the Heinrich fund was connected with the Reinhardt Fund?
A. The Reinhardt Fund has nothing to do with the Heinrich fund, and I only wanted to discuss the question of the correctness of the transfer of These funds from the Heinrich Fund to the DWB. We contacted the Reich Minister of Finance, Schwerin von Krosigk, and he maintained the following point of view. With the large funds which had accumulated in the course of the war which were not included in the budget as income, it did not make any difference under what budgetary statement they were contained. He made the following statement: What statio fisci receives these funds? If the DWB was an enterprise of the Reich, then the transfer of the funds from the Heinrich Fund to the DWB is correct, and if the DWB is an enterprise of the Party--then the transfer is contrary to the law. In fact, however, that funds first would have had to be included in the Reich fund, and then they would have had to be taken out again. In any case, we wanted the Reich to have the majority of the shares in the DWB.
Q. What does the question of the credits of the concern between the Allach and the DWB mean, which is mentioned in this document?
A. At my suggestion, Pohl had ordered that within the scope of the payment of the loan from the Red Cross the remaining credits of the affiliated companies, as far as possible, and as far as it was appropriate, were to be transferred from the affiliated branches to the DWB.
As a result of this, the DWB, on its balance sheet became the debtor as far as this credit was concerned, with regard to the creditors. This was a purely internal transfer of funds within the concern. However, nothing changed in the legal status of the debtor. This had nothing to do with the Action Reinhardt, and no funds were needed for this purpose. Therefore, only the conditions of the debt which were listed in the accounts changed. Therefore instead of an affiliated branch transferring a debt to a bank, then the DWB now had to keep these debts in its balance, and the affiliated branch then owed money to the DWB-- and that was the whole procedure.
Q. Please look at Document Book 14 of the Prosecution and look at Document NO-1039, Exhibit 384; in the German text it is on page 23, and in the English text it must be on page 26 or 27. This is the document about the unfinished work of the Staff W. We have already discussed this subject before. In paragraph 17 of this document, the following is stated, and I quote:
"The agreement between the Reich and the DWB with regard to the loan from the Reinhardt Fund must be put down in writing."
Doesn't this show that you had to have some knowledge about the Reinhardt Fund, and also that you took care of this agreement?
A. Yes, that is shown by this document. I knew the name "Reinhardt Fund" and according to the statements which Frank made; the moneys of the Reinhardt fund were funds which had now become the property of the Reich. Frank, together with the Reich Minister of Finance, was entitled to dispose of these funds, so that now if the loan was to be became liquid an agreement had to be concluded between the Reich Department and the DWB. I took it for granted that the Reich Minister of Finance would sign the agreement on behalf of the German Reich and that Frank would sign it as his deputy and Pohl would sign it on behalf of the DWB. However, these things happened after I had left the office. What happened in this matter I don't know.
Q. Witness, before we discussed the documents, we talked about the time when you left your work as an auditor of the DWB. That was on the 30th of June 1943. I have to ask you some more questions with reference to the time from July 1943 until the end of the war. From August 1943 on you were a soldier, isn't that right? After that, did you have any further business contact with Pohl?
A. No, Dr. May, who had been released from the confinement by the Gestapo in the meantime by order of the Research Department of the Reich Ministry of Aviation, which was General Engineer Hermann, had received an assignment for the construction of various samples of a new type of aircraft. These were wing planes, so to speak. They did not have any fusilage. He did this work as a civilian. Then he had me transferred from Belgium to Berlin so that I could collaborate in this program. The timber factories who also participated in this program -- there were approximately 70 of them -- all consisted of enterprises where no inmate labor was employed. We had a central enterprises in order to coordinate everything. This was the wood and metal Construction, G.M.B.H., which was located at Stuttgart. This group of firms and the company which I have named in connection with the so-called Horten Program whose development took too long, they began the construction of wooden parts for the jet fighter 162.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think we are interested in this part of his testimony. This has nothing to do with the indictment.
DR. HEIM: Your Honor, I only wanted the defendant to tell us whether and to what extent after he had completed his activity as an auditor in the DWB, he had further contact with Pohl.
THE PRESIDENT: He said, "no", and then he went on to tell all the things that he did after leaving the WVHA. The answer was completed when he said "no".
Q. Witness, therefore, you did not have any further contact with Pohl?
A. You asked me whether I had any business contacts with Pohl and I answered in the negative.
Q. Did you have any other contacts with Pohl?
A. Yes. Should I go into detail in this question?
Q. Please do.
THE PRESIDENT: Not too much detail. Can't you just indicate what contact you did have. It wasn't a business contact. What was it-social?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I can say it very briefly.
THE PRESIDENT: Very good.
A. Dr. May had the ambition to again rejoin the SS. The plant at Buczowicz had been taken away from him. He therefore sent me to Pohl in order that he could resume his influence on the plant, Buczowicz and I was to request Pohl that he should make the plant at Buczowicz available for the program 162. Pohl refused to do so and then May went to see Obergruppenfuehrer Berger and Berger sent a technician who was working for him to see Himmler, together with a report about the 162 and Himmler at that time ordered Pohl to intervene with all his authority on behalf of the Program 162. Pohl, after he had told me to come and see him, appointed me his liaison officer to General Commissioner Kessler, who was in charge of the so-called Gewalt Aktion and I did not take any notice at all of this appointment and practically immediately I was replaced when Dr. May had succeeded as a result of his work in again being admitted into the SS.
Unfortunately, Dr. May had this ambition and Pohl made the direct request to Himmler. That was the entire contact which I had with Pohl after I left the WVHA. Therefore, it was an appointment which was never actually carried out.
Q. Did you have any further contact beyond that with Pohl?
A. No, aside from the fact that he ordered me to come and see him so that I should be transferred into the Waffen SS, I had no contact.
Q. You have already testified about that in the course of your examination. Witness, in your testimony up to now, you have stated that you did not agree with the policy which was pursued by the WVHA. In this attitude in which you declined these ideas, didn't you feel yourself morally obliged to intervene here, even if your actual activity with the DWB had nothing to do with these things?
A. Ever since I took the trip to Lublin, with Dr. May, both of us had made the same decision to do everything in our power in order to remove these things, that is to say, as far as it was possible for us to do so.
Q. According to the state of affairs at the time, did you have any chance of being successful, if you had seen Pohl or some other agency and if you had reported to them the bad conditions and the consequences which resulted from them?
A. No.
Q. On the basis of your experience, would you say whether Pohl would have allowed such a discussion to take place.
A. No, he would have stopped it immediately.
Q. What would have happened if you had started such discussion?
A. I don't know. Certainly nothing pleasant.
Q. Why was this danger acute, especially in your case?
A. I can only conclude that from the way in which I was to be transferred to the Waffen SS.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: When was this? When was this?
THE WITNESS: This was on the 12th of February, 1945.
Q. Didn't you have to assume that since you remained for a longer period of time as an auditor in the DWB you would be brought into connection with all these things that in this way you would become guilty of the crimes which have been alleged here by the indictments?
A. That is exactly what is charged against the people who actually contributed to these things by tolerating them. There were a number of people that turned against these things. I am talking here about Dr. Bodelschwingh the father of the euthanasia program my field of task was rather limited, what I could do within the scope of my profession, I did.
Q. Did you try to get away from these things? In a way, that is, which was not dangerous for your and your family?
A. When the conditions in the DWB became intolerable, as far as I was concerned, when I had to feel quite openly that my arrest was imminent and it was only a question time, then I tried to be transferred to the Wehrmacht. That was approximately in the fall of 1942. However, I was unsuccessful in getting this transfer immediately.
Q. Wasn't there the possibility that you could leave as an auditor just by giving notice that you would terminate your employment and contract?
A. Yes, but that would have taken up a lot of time, I had to give one year's notice whenever I wanted to leave. Therefore, if in August 1942 I had given my notice then at the earliest I could have left on the 31st of December 1943.
Q. Why didn't you do that?
A. Well, I was able to get away from there much faster, if I was conscripted into the Wehrmacht.
Q. To what extent did you already reach the conclusion before from the various unpleasant happenings which you experienced as an auditor in the DWB?
A. I already drew the right conclusion actually from the beginning, insofar as I had auditors as collaborators who were completely opposed to the SS and who, together with me, had strict mutual political confidence to one another. The aim which we all pursued was at the beginning to gain some influence in the concern and when this could not be done, because in order to gain that position, we had to be officers in the SS, we tried to transfer the concern to the German Reich. I would like to mention here that on several occasions I tried to appoint friends in my profession as collaborators in the DWB. However, not one of them had enough courage to play along in this risky game. All of them turned down my offer.
Q. What did you do then?
A. The knowledge I had gained about what went on in the concentration camps I used most towards the persons whom I could trust. In Berlin I had a large circle of friends and acquaintances and not one of them did I fail to inform about everything that I learned as to all of these things. I passed on my knowledge also to those persons of whom I knew for certain that in any event my information had to reach the ears of influential persons. I would also like to point out that the veil which surrounded the so-called circle of friends of the Reichsfuehrer I was able to lift in this manner. I did this by announcing those who belonged to this circle of friends, what industrialists and what bankers. With this I intended to have a clear frontal position in which I could attack them openly. I subsequently appropriated a secret list of this circle of friends.
Q. Didn't you try to join any resistance movements?
A. I tried that; however, I was not able to find any. In the year of 1942, in practice, there was actually no resistance circle in existance. The communists and the socialists were confined to the concentration camps. All the others did not dare to speak their minds, so that only a very few groups were very careful and did everything very quietly. I myself developed my propaganda to such a point, and I was so careless, actually, that I certainly would have been able to join people of the legal opinions, if such active groups who harbored the same opinion would have existed. I am really a bit surprised just where the many people are to come from who claim that they did belong to active resistance groups as early as 1942.
Q. Therefore, you were not in a resistance movement?
A. No, I was unable to join any resistance movement, but through Dr. May I was introduced to a circle of officers in Berlin who worked mostly in the OKW. They had met in a house of a Berlin industrialist by the name of Passmann, and they did not belong only to one but various military resistance organizations. A regular meeting would take place there and regularly we used to exchange the experiences, and preparations would be made; we would discuss these things quite openly.
That was in the year of 1942 and the year of 1943 we discussed the removal of Hitler and Himmler by force; that usually was the subject of our conversations. Since I was an outsider, I could only contribute my part by giving them reports about whatever knowledge I had about the SS. I actually did not become connected too closely with this circle, and I never had any direct contact, and I never received the direct feeling that I was considered a member, actually. I only had an opinion that the members of these various resistance groups who met there did not have the right socialist attitude which I considered a prerequisite, if national socialistic ideology was to be replaced by something new. I tried in various areas to find contact with officers who participated in the groups, and I found out that a large number of them fell victim to the events of 20 July 1944. I have some affidavits which will affirm what I have just testified to.
Q. How long did you participate in the meetings that were held by the Passmann circle?
A. Until I was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in August 1943. Then I lost my contact with this group because it was impossible to discuss these matters in letters. Mail was censored.
Q. Did you carry out any active activity against the national socialistic regime when you were a soldier?
A. Through my contact with the OKW, the officers whom I had met in Berlin, I knew from the end of 1942 on only a very few general staff officers existed who still believed in victory. From that moment on we only fought a war actually so that some political leaders of the National Socialistic state could prolongate their lives in freedom. I started from the thought that the daily death of so many German soldiers from the end of 1942 on was actually unnecessary. For this reason with all the military units to which I belonged as a soldier, by describing what I knew of the National Socialistic state, and with regard to the negative influence which happened there, I radically fought against the National Socialistic state in this way.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. How long were you actually in the Wehrmacht?
A. I served for one year altogether in the Wehrmacht.
Q. That was from August 1943 to August 1944?
A. Yes.
Q. What happened in August 1944?
A. At the end of August 1944 on the suggestion of Dr. May I was sent home on a working leave of the Luftwaffe, and assigned to the Reich Ministry of Aviation, so that I could collaborate in the production program with regard to the aircraft.
Q. During this one year you served as a soldier, where were you? Were you at the front or serving at some headquarters?
A. At the beginning I was located in Germany, in Berlin. Then I was sent to Leipzig, and to Dresden. I spent a few months there, then I passed my regular equipment examination, becoming a radio operator, and then I was used for a radio unit in France. Later on I was stationed in Belgium.
Q. And in this one years time you spoke to fellow soldiers about what you had learned in the WVHA, and unbosomed yourself on the bad things which you learned about in the National Socialist Party and the SS organization?
A. Your Honor, we actually formed anti-National Socialist groups.
Q. Among the soldiers?
A. Yes, within our units. We always were around six or eight men.
Q. And nothing ever happened to you on account of this?
A. No, Your Honor. May I just point out that I always belonged to units which had hardly any privates. All of the personnel was noncommissioned. Almost all of these people were certified engineers. For this reason, actually we were dealing with people of some sort of education and we were able to discuss these things liberally. However, several of the statements sent to me by my soldier friends show that our situation was actually more dangerous.
BY DR. HEIM:
Q. With regard to these affidavits, I shall present them as soon as they have been translated. Witness, when in the fall of 1944 Dr. May sent you back to Germany on temporary duty, why didn't you renew your contact with the Passmann circle?
A. I did resume my contact there. However, the following situation prevailed at the time. A large part of the members of this group had become victims of the event of 20 July 1944. Herr Passmann himself was alleged to be watched and, therefore, he asked me not to visit him. He had moved from Berlin so that he would not be in contact with us whatsoever. The following circumstances also were a contributing factor. After I had the scene with Pohl in February 1945, I had to be at least careful, because I certainly did not want to meet Pohl again.
Q. Witness, according to your testimony so far you maintain that you did in no way participate in the crimes which the prosecution has alleged. If I have understood you correctly, you further dispute that within the DWB, or in the WVHA, you had no authority and had no right to issue instructions which could have caused these crimes to have been carried out in concentration camps, nor could not have had such an authority. Please summarize briefly what part you actually played as an auditor in the DWB.
THE PRESIDENT: We have already summarized that from his testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: We have already summarized that from his testimony.
DR. HEIM: I have now reached the end of the direct examination of this witness. I shall offer further documents as soon as Document Book No. II has been translated.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Is there any cross examination by other Defense Counsel?
BY DR. SEIDL (Counsel for defendant Pohl):
Q. Witness, you have testified that before your activity in the WVHA or with the DWB you carried out an examination of the Reich League at Frankfurt and at Prague. I now want to ask you what legal status this organization had; what were its members, and who were its founders?
A. The Reich Organization was not located in Frankfurt, but was located at Berlin. It had branch offices at Wiesbaden and at Prague.
The legal status of the organization was that of a registered organization, under German law.
Q. Who were its members?
A. The founders of this organization were seven SS officers, and these SS officers, as far as I can recall, came from the circle of the so-called Race and Settlement Main Office.
Q. Do you know that Hildebrandt, the chief of the Race and Settlement Office, was one of the founders?
A. I know that Hildebrandt was chief of the Race and Settlement Office, and Hildebrandt was also present at the final conference at Prague. I believe he was one of the founders.
Q. Do you know that this organization at Prague was under the immediate supervision of the Chief of the RSHA, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich?
A. No, I did not occupy myself at all with these things. I know only that Pohl had been ordered by Himmler to bring the property matters of this organization in order. That was the task of Pohl after the Reich organization had, in a sense, liquidated its activities.
Q. You have testified that even at that time you were a fanatical opponent of National Socialism and, in particular, an opponent of the SS. I now want to ask you: How did it happen that in spite of everything you still carried out your assignment at the time, although you knew that this Reich Organization was an instrument of the Race and Settlement Office, which was one of the main offices of the SS?
DR. HEIM: May it please the Tribunal, I object to this question. This question has nothing to do, in my opinion, with the defense of the defendant Pohl. It is only an attempt to incriminate the defendant Hohberg in the witness stand.
DR. SEIDL: I ask this question in order to test the veracity of this witness.
THE WITNESS: I am always ready to answer this question.
THE PRESIDENT: This witness has given some testimony which incriminates the defendant Pohl, and, therefore, the defendant Pohl has a right to test his credibility and to impeach that testimony by cross examination.
THE WITNESS: I come from a family which was radically opposed to National Socialism. My father for many years was a member of the Confessional Church, and he went through all the difficulties which some one had to go through who actively took part in this movement.
That is to say, various base accusations were heaped up against him, and for a whole year he had to be examined before the District Court every week. It was shown afterwards that here we were dealing only with calumnies. The question which the Reich Organization had put to its -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: That does not seem to be an answer to the question which he put to you. Repeat the question.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. The question was as follows: What brought you to carry out the auditing of this Reich Organization at Prague, although you knew that this Reich Organization was an instrument of the SS and that it was under the supervision of the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office? I would like you to answer that question.
A. The only main task of this organization was to effect quickly the secularization of the charity property of the Church in Germany. I was the only person who came from another camp and who was able to get any insight into these things. I saw their methods, just how the monasteries were deprived of their property, and I could see what else had been planned. The so-called quiet secularization was actually carried out later on by Himmler. There was a whole number of properties belonging to the church which were to be confiscated and seized, and one object after another in Germany would have been confiscated.
Q. If I understood you correctly, then you are trying to say that you only carried out your auditing work there in order to make the methods, the illegal methods of this Reich Organization public.