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.
A. In order to get to know them.
Q. How did you know before the organization at all that something was illegal? Who told you that?
A. Oberfuehrer Moeckl of the SS told me that. That is a man who ordered me to carry out this work. At that time embezzlement was suspected.
Q. Since when had you know Oberfuehrer Moeckl?
A. I met him approximately two weeks before the auditing work, through my friend Weissenbach.
Q. And he was also a member of the resistance movement, like you, and he told these things after two weeks' contact?
A. Your Honor, could this question be asked in another manner? I was not a Party member, and I do not like to be addressed in this manner.
Q. You stated that you had received that information from Oberfuehrer Moeckl. You further stated that he told you about this at a time when he had known you only for two weeks. I must draw the conclusion from your statements that this Oberfuehrer Moeckl, just like you, was a fanatical opponent of National Socialism. Is that correct?
A. You misunderstood something of what I have stated. I said that Moeckl pointed out to me that perhaps some embezzlement may have taken place, or some other financial irregularity.
Q. What position did SS-Oberfuehrer Moeckl occupy at that time? After all, he had still the rank of a Major General in the SS.
A. Moeckl was at the time the Chief of Office III-B.
That was a group of firms with the Mineral Waters Enterprises of the SS, and furthermore, Moeckl before that time, when the enterprises had been owned by the Party, carried out some reviewing work, and he used several bookkeepers in order to carry out this work.
Q. What impression did you have about the political attitude of SS Oberfuehrer Moeckl?
A. Moeckl had the Golden Party Badge, and, as far as I know, he was one of the Senior SS officers of that time.
Q. You did not have the impression that he was a fanatical opponent of National Socialism?
A. He was a Very strict SS officer.
Q. What was your attitude toward him? Did you reveal yourself as a fanatical opponent of National Socialism to him, or did you hint at the fact that actually you wanted to have some business contact with any business organization of the SS?
A. Moeckl, together with Weissenbach, had ordered me to come to Berlin for the following reason: Moeckl had to supervise this circle of firms that was included in III-B, and Weissenbach wanted to give me the opportunity to make myself independent as an auditor in Berlin. Just how Moeckl received the assignment with regard to the Reich Organization, I don't know, but Pohl probably knows about it.
Q. As a result, in any case, we can say that Although he was a convinced National Socialist and SS officer, toward you he still hinted that something was wrong with the Reich Organization at Prague?
A. Yes, he hinted to me that perhaps some embezzlement was taking place.
Q. Although he had know you for only two weeks and knew that you were not a member of the Party or the SS?
A. After all, I am an auditor. In such things he probably gave me his confidence. Nothing can be changed on that.
Q. Were you able to determine any embezzlement in the Reich Organization at Prague?
A: I determined that the business manager of the Reich Organization, SS Oberfuehrer Kurt von Gottberg, who at the same time was the commissioned director of the Land Title Office, or Real Estate Office....
Q: You don't have to make long statements. You can answer this question with yes or no
A: Yes there was an embezzlement of one point three millions.
Q: And although you were a fanatical opponent of national socialism, and although you were able to determine this embezzlement at Prague, you still did not hesitate to make an auditing contract with the WVHA and with the defendant Pohl?
A: No, to the contrary. Now, at least, I was able to gain an insight into these matters. After all, nobody else would take the risk. May I point out that I was warned from all sides not to do that. Moeckl himself was exactly informed about my personal attitude.
Q: I would like to put something to you. It is contained in an affidavit. It is contained in your defense document book. This is an affidavit by Ernst Martin Schmidt, and I quote:
"Later on, I believe in the year 1941, he told me (he is referring to you, Hohberg), on the occasion of the visit that as a result of his professional activity as an auditor he had to audit economic enterprises of the SS, and that there he discovered irregularities which put everything that had ever happened before into the shadow. Upon my question just how he was able to carry out such an assignment in view of his attitude he stated to me that when he accepted the order to carry out the auditing work he still did not have any insight into these conditions. Now, after he had received an insight into the matters which were handled so fondly by the SS he was firmly determined to give up this activity as soon as possible."
End of quotation.
I now want to ask you, witness, does it not become evident from this affidavit, which your own defense counsel has offered... doesn't this show perfectly clearly that what you have just told me cannot possibly be correct?
DR. HEIM: I object to the admission of this question. This is Document Hoberg 42, which has not as yet been offered. It is on page 94 of the Document Book II. This affidavit is not from the defendant Hohberg, but it comes from a certain Martin Schmidt. In this affidavit Schmidt states what Dr. Hohberg told him at the time. Therefore, it is out of the question that the defendant can give his opinion with regard to the statements made by Schmidt.
DR. SEIDE: I asked this question because this affidavit shows quite clearly that it is an open contradiction to what the defendant has stated here today under oath, and it contradicts the statement which he had made towards this witness at the time. Only one of the statements can be correct. Either the witness has stated the untruth today under oath and that will be that; or otherwise he was telling the untruth to this particular affiant. Then, of course, the value as evidence of this affidavit is zero.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you should start from the beginning, Dr. Seidl. Read a particular statement from the affidavit and ask him whether it is true.
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, I have already read paragraph two to the witness, and I asked him whether it is correct. I asked him whether it was correct what he told the Tribunal today, or whether it is correct what he told the witness Schmidt at the time.
WITNESS: May I please take a look at the document?
DR. SEIDL: According to the contents of this affidavit
THE PRESIDENT: The first question is, did you tell Schmidt, did you make the statements to Schmidt, which he relates in his affidavit. That is the first question.
DR. SEIDL: Yes, your Honor, that is correct.
Q: Will you please answer the question, first of all?
A: Your Honor, it is asking too much that I should now recall precisely what I told to the family Schmidt in the course of many conversations.
THE PRESIDENT: Just read the second paragraph of Schmidt's affidavit. Did you make those statements to Schmidt? Either you did, or you didn't, or you don't remember.
WITNESS: That is the last paragraph, your Honor, the third paragraph.
DR. SEIDL: It is the third paragraph if you count the introduction, the oath.
A: I will make the following conclusion from this paragraph --
THE PRESIDENT: No, not the following conclusions. Did you say to Schmidt what he has said in the third paragraph of his affidavit?
A: Certainly not in this form, because this is quite incorrect!
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
DR. SEIDL: I didn't understand the answer, your Honor.
A: I didn't say it in this form because it is not correct at all. Furthermore, I would like to point out -
THE PRESIDENT: No, no; no further comment.
DR. SEIDL: Well, this settles the question, your Honor.
Q: After you carried out the auditing work you entered the WVHA. That is to say, you worked in the DWB. You concluded the contract that you would carry out auditing work. This happened after you already had noticed that embezzlement had already taken place with the Reich Organization at Prague. I now want to ask you, did Oswald Pohl, or anybody else, force you to conclude this contract with the WVHA or the DWB?
A: No, in a certain sense I actually wanted to conclude this contract.
Q: You actually wanted to?
A: Yes, in a sense.
Q: Because you were, already in 1940, a fanatical opponent of national socialism?
A: I have given several reasons for that in my previous testimony, and these reasons are already contained in the transcript.
Q: Before you concluded your contract with the WVHA or with the DWB, did you audit any enterprise which was under the control of the WVHA?
A: No, I only audited the Reich Organization; no other enterprises.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Dr. Seidl, while you are talking about the contracts he had with defendant Pohl, it has never been stated to us whether or not the two contracts he testified that he made with Pohl were in writing, or whether either one of them were ever reduced to writing, in part, or not. We would like to find out whether or not they were in writing.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q: Witness, were the contracts which you concluded with the WVHA or with Pohl in writing, were they oral agreements, or were they put down in writing, in part?
A: Both contracts, the one I concluded in 1940, as well as the one I concluded in 1943, were put down in writing. I lost the first contract, and the second contract the British Air Force Captain Walker took, and he came to see me here on two occasions, and my defense counsel asked him to turn over the contract to me. And he stated he had already turned it over. That was the original contract. My defense counsel also asked Captain Walker to inform the General Secretary of this fact. I don't know whether this has been done.
Q: You have testified, witness, that you did not audit any enterprise before you entered the WVHA -- which was subordinated to the WVHA.
A: No, the Reich Organization in its entirety was only subordinated to the WVHA later on.
Q: Very well. In the document Book on your defense there is an affidavit of a certain Dr. Max Wolf. It is on page 2 of the German text. The following is stated, and I quote .. it is at the bottom of the page -
THE PRESIDENT: Whose affidavit?
DR. SEIDL: It is the affidavit of Dr. Max Wolf. It is on page 106. It is stated at the bottom of page 2, and I quoted "Dr. Hohberg agreed to carry out in the end the auditing of the SS economic enterprises because this gave him the opportunity to become independent as an auditor, and, on the other hand, because he became very much interested from what he had learned from the first audit, and therefore he wanted to bring the irregularities in the SS enterprises into the open". End of quotation.
Q: I don't know. In any case, what he states here is correct. That is my exact ideology.
Q: Witness, if before you did not audit any enterprises of the WVHA, and therefore if you did not have any knowledge of the connections of the SS economic enterprises, and if you did not know whether any matters had to be cleared up here, just how could you have that intention already at the beginning?
A: Here we have the same case as it was with Dr. Schmidt. Dr. Wolf fundamentally also throws together the SS enterprises with those of the Reich organization and there he is quite right. Dr. Wolf here talks about enterprises; you talk about enterprises of the WVHA. For the outsider that is the same thing.
DR. HEIM: Your Honor, Dr. Wolf will appear here on Thursday or Friday as a witness, so we can ask him these questions under cross-examination. I believe that he is the man who is best qualified to answer these questions.
DR. SEIDL: It will not do me any good if the witness Wolf comes here on Friday and if, in the meantime, the defendant Hohberg has already returned to his seat in the defendants' dock. I believe that I should ask these questions now, at this time. They should be admitted.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, will it do you any good to have some lunch, Dr. Seidl? Let's do that.
(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 16 July 1947).
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. HANS HOHBERG---Resumed.
EXAMINATION (CONTINUED)
DR. HEIM: Dr. Heim for the defendant Hohberg.
Document Book II for the defendant Hohberg has not as yet been submitted in German, and we only have three copies of the English document book, of which two are with the Tribunal and one with the Tribunal and one with the Prosecution. Accordingly, not one single document from Document Book II Hohberg was introduced by me and accepted by the Tribunal. I therefore object to the fact that these documents from Document Book II Hohberg are part of the examination of the defendant. As a witness in his won behalf it is not clear as yet whether and how far I will introduce those documents at all and if these will be accepted. Apart from that it is clear today already that a series of documents cannot be accepted because the people who signed those affidavits can be examined here in this Tribunal as witnesses for the defendant Hohberg. Therefore I move to rule right now about the question if documents which have not as yet been introduced and accepted can be part of an examination of a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, without reference to the document, to an affidavit, a witness may be asked whether he made certain statements which appear to contradict his testimony, whether those statements were ever put in an affidavit or not. The counsel who is crossexamining does not offer these affidavits and they are not evidence, but there is nothing to prevent his asking the witness whether he made a statement which is apparently contradictory, difficult statement to a certain person. I think that disposes of your objection.