After that I went to the University in Innsbruck in Austria and I graduated with a Doctor title for a State science.
Q When did you become a German citizen?
A In the spring of 1932. I became a German citizen in Prussia under the then government of Braun-Severing through application.
Q Thank you, that is sufficient. You are an auditor by profession?
A Yes.
Q You were working with the "German Revisions and Treuhand A. G." in Berlin, weren't you?
A Yes.
Q What did your job consist of as an auditor, and what in particular were your tasks in the "German Revisions and Treuhand A. G."?
A When I started working as an auditor I concluded the yearly balances which were prescribed by law. Later on when I became a Prokurist in "German Revisions and Treuhand, A. G." I became the man in charge of an affiliated company and of the auditing. Then in 1938 when I became a member of the Supervisory Board of the company I also dealt with all sorts of managerial capacities.
Q In any case you have the ability to be an auditor and you also carry out that practice?
A Yes.
Q That's sufficient.
A In March of 1936 I was officially appointed an auditor.
Q Thank you. Were you a member of the Party or did you participate in any political activies?
A No, I was never a member of the Party nor the NSDAP and I never participated in political activites.
Q In your position as a member of the Board of Supervisors of "German Revisions and Treuhand A.G." did that have any particular bad influence ?
THE PRESIDENT: The witness should pause. He should wait after each question before he states the answer.
A. I did not quite get your last question.
Q. We were speaking about your membership-- or rather, your not having been a member of any party. You said that your were not a member of the NSDAP, and I asked you thereupon whether any disadvantages resulted from this.
A. Yes, indeed, several difficulties resulted from this, and that was the reason why I was repeatedly told to join the Party. My company was a Reich company, and we had to deal with the authorities in particular and with large industrial enterprises, the representatives of which were mostly closely connected with the Party.
Q. That is sufficient, witness. You were with the Waffen-SS. How did you come to join the Waffen-SS?
A. Toward the end of June 1942 I was conscripted.
Q. Were you not with the SS prior to that?
A. After the beginning of the war, the difficulties which I had in my profession kept on increasing, so that finally I had to make contact with the Party. Therefore, it was in 1940 that I made up my mind to join the Reiter-SS-- the Mounted SS--in Vienna. However, I never did perform any duties there, and I did not wear any uniform. I was just a formal member of that organization. Up to 1942 I was able to dodge the draft with the help of my company because the interests of my company demanded this. When the supply fro the front lines became more and more difficult and three hundred members of our organization had to join the army, it proved necessary that even a member of the board of supervisors had to join the army, and, as I was the youngest member of the board of supervisors and was moreover single, I was the one the choice fell upon. I was no longer permitted to dodge the draft, and as a member of the Reiter-SS I was conscripted into the Waffen SS.
Q. Could any one fight this conscription?
A. No, that was a military order which, if one did not comply with it, could result in punishment, according to war laws and, apart from that, I had no reason whatsoever for not joining the SS, for the Waffen-SS was considered as a good and well-disciplined military unit which had a good name.
Q. Then you were severely wounded in the East by a shot fired into your lung. You then returned to your homeland and were no longer able to perform any duties in the army. That is correct, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. How was it that you joined the WVHA?
A. After I was wounded I came into a reserve battalion and was declared unfit for service in the front lines after I had been wounded and after I had gone through several hospitals. As I did not have any rank and as I could not be used outside of the service either, I was used mostly for cleaning and kitchen work in the barracks. I was very unhappy about it. That was the reason I wrote to my company if they did not have a better job for me. My company thereupon answered my letter by saying that I could not possibly get leave from the SS but that the company had an auditing job to perform anyway for some company which was quite close to the Waffen-SS, and they told me that they would try to interpolate me and make me work for them. Toward the middle of November 1943 I received my orders of transfer to the WVHA Economic and Administrative Main Office.
Q. Did the German Revisions & Treuhand, A.G. have anything to do with the WVHA job?
A. No, not at all. According to my knowledge, my company received the order through the Reich Economy Ministry and the Court of Audits of the German Riech.
Q. What the Reich Ministry of Economics and the German Court of Audits have to do with this?
A. The Ministry of Economics had found out, or at least assumed, and suspected, that with the DWB--that is, the German Economic Enterprises--official funds were working and that, therefore, it was an enterprise that belonged to the community, so to say. That was the reason why, according to the Reich budget law it came under the auditing which is prescribed for official and community enterprises and since the company was used for such auditing work, it received the auditing order.
Q. In other words, it really was not a job of auditing for the WVHA but, rather, it was an auditing job for the German Economic Enterprise, the DWB?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you join the DWB as a representative of your company, or in what other capacity did you go?
A. I did not go as a person who was representing my company, but I went as a soldier in Staff W. My company had simply got the job for me.
Q. You had, therefore, been transferred to Staff W. Whom did you have to report to there?
A. I had to report to the Chief of Staff, Oberfuehrer Baier.
Q. What did the defendant Baier do?
A. He put me in the Revision Department there, and I was given the order to get used to the job. I stayed there for approximately four weeks, until the Christmas of 1943, and then I was sent to the Leaders! School of the Economic Administration in Arolsen in order to become an officer.
Q. When you joined Staff W, had Baier been there for quite a while?
A. No, he had been there for only a short time--I believe two or three months.
Q. Why was it that you were sent to the Leaders' School, witness? After all, you were an auditor, weren't you?
A. I was a soldier, at the time. I became a Sturmmann in the SS, and as most members of the Revision Department there had higher ranks and as quite a few of them had officers ranks, and Herr Baier had also reserved to himself the right, because of my civilian position, to make me the chief of the civilian department, he thought it appropriate that I become an officer prior to that. That was the reason.
Q. That leadership school, therefore, had nothing to do with training, the results of which you would later on use in your activity in Staff W?
A. Not at all.
Q. Witness, that particular leadership school, in Arolren, according to my knowledge was the school which used to be in Dachau before, and the man in charge was Baier?
A. Yes.
Q. Yat is the reason why I would like to avail myself of this opportunity and ask you to give me in a few brief terms what you were taught in that leadership school, what the subjects were.
A. I was there for a period of approximately, seven months. Approximately two-thirds of the time was used on military training, and one-third on administrative tasks, which were treasury balances, food supply, paymaster tasks, clothing, and similar questions.
Q. Were you also told anything during that course about the extermination of the Jews, in the concentration camps, etc.?
A. No. The concentration camp question was never mentioned, I am sure. The Jewish question might have been dealt with, generally speaking, but nothing was mentioned about the extermination of the Jews.
Q. I am very much interested in that, witness. The Jewish question was not dealt with as a subject?
A. No, not at all. Well, maybe once in a while they did discuss the Jewish problem and the Jewish question.
Q. Witness, from the middle of November, 1943, therefore, until you left for the Fuehrerschule, which was at Christmas of 1943 approximately, you were in Staff W?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you see there? Generally speaking, what did you do there?
A. My main task was to get used to my job, and to get insight in the Audits Department there, and to tell the defendant Baier what I thought about it. He did not know the work very well himself either, because the Auditing Department had been established only a short while before by him. Apart from that I also had two special tasks, together with Herr Baier, and I performed those special tasks.
Q. What special tasks were those, witness?
A. They both dealt with the German Experimental Station for food, GMBH, which was in Feldberg. The first experiment we had there was the breeding of mutton, which was being carried out be a certain man by the name of Strietzel in Hof, and we had to do auditing work there, and we wanted to examine the thing as to whether we should continue to support them in a momentary sense.
Then we had the other case where we had the preliminary discussions concerning the auditing work in the Experimental Station. A short auditing work resulted from this, a short audit of the organization of the bookkeeping department of that company.
Q. The most important part of that auditing work was that the finding out whether the production was being carried out in a correct manner?
A. No, the department of audits had nothing to do with that. The whole idea simply was to gain an insight into the status of the bookkeeping work of that company in order to think over the question and to decide if any auditing work was to be done then. All sorts of troubles resulted from this. We found out that the conditions were pretty bad in that sense, and we criticized it very severely in one of our reports. The commercial manager of that experimental station thereupon was transferred by Herr Pohl.
Q. What were you told at the time, Witness, what Staff W had to deal with?
A. Herr Baier told me that Staff W was put at the disposal of Herr Pohl in his capacity as chief of office of Staff W, was to support him and consult him in all sorts of questions of balance, taxation matters, and other legal questions.
Q. When after the training at the Leadership School you returned, you surely had the opportunity to look into the matter more deeply, didn't you? Please take a look at the chart which is on the wall there and tell me if that chart corresponds to a true picture of the organization of the WVHA?
A. The chart according to my opinion is not quite clear. It could be interpreted as if Amtsgruppe W, according to its rank were under the remaining Amtsgruppen, A, B, C, and D. That was not the case. Amtsgruppe W was approximately at the same level as all the remaining Amtsgruppen. Apart from that it could also be interpreted as if Staff W belonged to the administration of Amtsgruppe W in a way, namely that it was, so to say, superior agency of the W offices. That is not the case either. The W offices were subordinated directly to Pohl as Chief of Office W and Staff W was not the superior authority of those offices mentioned.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I would appreciate it if you would permit me to submit a simple sketch to the witness which was supposed to be entered into the document book. This is the only thing which I would like to introduce which is contained in that document book prior to introducing the document book itself. Unfortunately, no number was printed on the photostatic copy, no document number.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, this is a very primitive sketch I have here, and only for explanatory purposes, I would appreciate it if you would tell me in a very few brief terms if that sketch corresponds more to your opinion of Staff W, and possibly tell me in a few brief terms what the reason is for this being so.
A. According to my opinion this sketch shows the conditions much more clearly than the other chart. The individual amtsgruppe are all placed on the same level, and apart from that, Staff W is very clearly put next to the administration of Amtsgruppe W and not between Amtsgruppe W and the individual W offices.
Q. Witness, do you have anything else to say about this sketch?
A. No, it is correct in its broad outlines.
Q. What was it that Staff W was, was it an authority or was it an economic office?
A. It was an authority, which, however, without any exceptions, had to deal with economic matters only.
Q. In order not to bother with individual questions, Witness, I would appreciate it if you would give me a somewhat brief description of the activity of Staff W and Amtsgruppe W?
A. The main activity and the main purpose of Amtsgruppe W consisted of the following: to take care of economic enterprises. The idea also was that Amtsgruppe W was an official office, an agency office under Army administration, whereas the economic enterprises were more of enterprises according to the German commercial law. Therefore, economically and legally they were independent enterprises, with their own legal aspects and their own organs as prescribed by the law, which were fully responsible for all measures which were being dealt with within the enterprises.
It is thus that all the companies had their conferences of the partners, their members of the board of supervisors, their procurists, and managers, and were, therefore, bodies like any other German commercial enterprise in Germany which were fully responsible for the legal activities in that company from a civilian commercial point of view. Opposed to that the Amtsgruppe W had nothing to do directly with the measures within the enterprise itself. It was not competent for that. It only had certain possibilities of raising objections in it supervisory capacity, which, however, could only be exercised on the organs which belonged to the company. However, the organization in the WVHA used to have a lot of people work in a double function, namely both as bodies of the economic enterprises and at the same time as members of the authority as such. That started with Herr Pohl. Herr Pohl was not only the Chief of the WVHA and also Chief of Amtsgruppe W, but at the same time he was the business manager of the German Economic Enterprises, G.m.b.H, in other words, of the holding company of the concern, and the same applied to several other office chiefs. They were not only business managers of the companies but also chiefs of W offices in that authority.
The regulation in the WVHA as such varies and deviates from the other normal conditions in Reich companies, for instance, in companies of the Reich Finance Ministry where such a personal contact between authority and economic tasks was not carried out. There also, for instance, the Reich Finance Ministry had members belonging to the authority enter the board of supervision, of companies. However, as soon as they were sent to the supervising body the officials would resign from their membership as an employee or then they would take leave. However, for the legal responsibility of the bodies of the DWB and their affiliated companies and for the tasks and measures of those enterprises this plays no part whatsoever.
The legal responsibility in any case was exclusively with the legal bodies prescribed by the law, the legal economic bodies prescribed by the law, and not with those persons as members or chiefs of offices of the authority.
Apart from that I can draw your attention to something which I deem important here. Herr Pohl had ordered that the chiefs of the offices, and also me personally, that on measures where they were considered bodies of the company of an official nature, they would not act as chiefs of offices individually, not with their official rank and not with their official position, and that they would not appear there as such or sign as such, but simply they would sign with their name and their capacity as legal bodies, that is business managers or others.
Q. Witness, could this be a camouflage maneuver by any chance? I would like to explain this more clearly. Did they want to camouflage the SS part of the enterprises toward the outside, or was the idea to explain the things as you did?
A. According to my opinion, nobody wanted to camouflage anything in there. In any case this would not have been very successful because it was generally known that those were enterprises which were quite close to the SS. According to my opinion, it was only due to the fact, that these gentlemen became active as bodies of the company, and not as members of the authority.
Q. Herr Dr. Karoli, according to your opinion, you had, therefore, two entirely different organizations which were separated from each other as to their responsibilities which were only connected by a double activity of two persons. Do you wish to tell me by that that Amtsgruppe W, as such, did not belong to the WVHA but rather had been permitted to enter the WVHA for reasons which you could possibly state?
A. Well, Amtsgruppe W could exist as such but it would have been indubitably more correct and in compliance with the way other enterprises did it in Germany, if a more clear-cut personal difference would have been carried out as far as authority and organizational questions were concerned, and if the parties, as such, of Amtsgruppe W would have been smaller. According to my opinion, it was not necessary to have the business managers of the company become chiefs of offices in the authority.
Q. When then, according to your opinion, was it that the economic enterprises were incorporated into the WVHA, and why was it that the chiefs of offices were appointed business managers?
A. According to my opinion, Herr Pohl had ordered that because he over-estimated the functions of the authority. He himself was a man who had worked for the civil service for quite a while and, apart from that, he was the chief of a Main Office in the WVHA. However, he also wanted to become the chief of the DWB and what he claimed for himself he also thought correct for all the other offices.
Apart from that, I believe that he expected to cronomize personal by this. Particularly, he was in a position to be able to set leading personalities through the military organizations. He made it easy for himself in a personal sense.
In any case, I looked upon the whole thing as a temporary measure which was due to wartime conditions, the reason being that I am of the opinion that in peacetime the remaining Reich authorities, for instance, the Reich Finance Ministry, and the Court of Audits, would not comply with such a regulating of their activities.
Q. According to your explanation so far we have to start from the point that the chiefs of the offices W had two hearts; one of them was a commercial one and the other one was one of authority; is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct. They had two different responsibilities. That is the responsibility according to law as bodies in the companies, and then the responsibility which resulted from their membership in the authority. I would like to stress the point that the legal responsibility as bodies was the one that appeared most.
Q. Did the situation also apply to the defendant Baier?
A. No, it didn't. Herr Baier was merely a member of the authority that is, chief of Staff W. He had no commercial functions according to law. But prior to the end of the war, I believe in March, 1945, he was promoted to a procurist in the DWB, the German Economic Enterprises, because this was the only solution which was left after Herr Dr. Volk had resigned. But Herr Baier was never active as a procurist because at the time all the business activity had almost ceased a short while after the capitulation.
Q. Witness, if we speak about the activities of Staff W in detail, I would appreciate it if you would first answer a preliminary question on my part. Even though ranks are not necessary for an activity. I would appreciate it if you would clear up this question for me. Did Herr Baier have the official title Chief of Office?
A. His title was Chief W. I do not believe that he was an Amtschief compared to the other Amtschiefs, but it is not up to me to decide.
THE PRESIDENT: What does Chief W mean? You asked him if he was the head of a W office.
DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for defendant Baier): Yes. Witness will you please explain to the Tribunal and answer the question what Chief W stood for.
WITNESS: Herr Baier first of all had the title Chief of Staff W. That title thereupon was changed to Chief W. I don't know what the reasons were for that. As Chief, W, Herr Baier was the chief of Staff W.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, it seems important to me to clear up this expression, this term, "Chief". This is a term which is not quite common in the commercial code.
A. No; in the commercial code there is no such term.
Q. Is it a military term?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, then I would like to speak about the outside position of Herr Baier and about his actual activity in that staff. First of all, was Baier a representative of Pohl's?
A. No. Herr Baier was not the representative of Pohl. Pohl's deputy as chief of the Main Office, was Herr Georg Loerner, and Herr Loerner was also Pohl's deputy in his activity as chief of Amtsgruppe W.
Q. Was the defendant Baier the superior of other Amtschiefs, that is to say, did he have the right to give them orders in connection with their work, special orders?
A. No; Herr Baier was not the chief of the remaining Amtschiefs. He was not their superior, and he personally could not possibly give them any official orders unless, in individual cases, of course, or in special orders unless, in individual cases, of course, or in special cases, he had received the special permission from Pohl to do so. But, generally speaking, he could not do that.
Q. Witness, I would now like to show you, from Document Book No. 14, Document 854, Exhibit No, 401, page 82 of the German and 92 of the English book.
This is a document which is entitled "Business Order of the SS-WVHA for the Economic Enterprises.
THE PRESIDENT: Document Book 14?
THE WITNESS: Document No. 854.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Did you take a look at that document, witness?
A. I know this document from before.
Q. Did you personally participate in those business regulations?
A. Yes, upon Herr Baier's wish, I helped him in a consulting capacity, in writing up this business regulation.
Q. Did Herr Baier write up this business regulation?
A. No.
Q. Can you tell me how this business regulation came about?
A. Herr Baier, in the autumn of 1944, told me to come and see him and he showed me a business regulation which was already signed by Pohl. He told me that he had received it by Herr Volk without having seen it before, and without having signed it for distribution to the respective and competent authorities and agencies. Herr Baier was very much bothered by the contents of that business regulation. He was shocked. Chief W, of Staff W, was only dealt within a few sentences, and Herr Baier said about it, that, according to the contents of that business regulation, he was of no importance whatsoever in the Amtsgruppe, and that he, now probably, would not be able to carry out a central administration from Staff W in economic, balance, and financial matters.
Herr Baier thereupon askied me to look throught the business regulation with a critical eye and to tell him or consult with him on whether and in what sense suggestions for changes might be made. We then sat together, Herr Baier and Dr. Hoepfner, who was a comrade of his, and we suggested a change of the business regulation. Herr Baier then submitted that business regulation to Herr Pohl, according to my knowledge, and the result of this was this new business regulation. Herr Baier's wish, the largest part, at least, was complied with there.
Q In this business regulation, Witness, I believe there is contained in paragraph 8 the sentence, the sense of which is that Herr Baier is the economic consultant or the auditor of the Main Office Chief?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that Herr Baier?
A. Yes, it was to be Chief W, but Herr Baier was not the man, but that is due to other reasons.
Q. Witness, before I speak about this business regulation in detail, I would like to ask you a question. When was it that this business regulation became effective, and did it result in anything?
A. According to my knowledge, this business regulation became effective with the beginning of 1945. Actually, it only confirmed the conditions which already existed in the WVHA, namely, the tasks within Amtsgruppe W were actually fixed and compiled into one report in the form of a business regulation.
Q. It was not put into a practical execution, was it?
A. Yes, I believe it was. I know nothing to the contrary.
Q. On the 1st of January, 1945, it became effective, yes?
A. Yes, At that time, of course, it was difficult to work according to a certain plan or schedule. The communications were already pretty bad at the time and the various enterprises in the offices were not located in the WVHA building, but rather outside of the WVHA building--most of the time, outside of Berlin.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I have only one more question belonging to this subject. Then we can conclude it.
Q. Witness, please take a look at Article 9 of that business regulation. They are speaking here of the most important mail, that is to say, the mail to the ministries, to the highest party agencyies, etc., etc.. The impression must be created undoubtedly that the most intricate and difficult problems went through Herr Baier's hands, that is to say, he knew of all the problems and he had to gain knowledge about all of them, is that the way it was, or was there any such mail as I just read to you?
A. No, at the moment, I don't quite know what this point was supposed to refer to. According to my opinion, for the most part, this was nothing but a formality, and it dealt only with taxation matters and similar matters.
Q. Who was it that addressed the mail to the ministries and the highest party authorities?
A. Undoubtedly, Pohl himself.
Q. So that a practical execution of this business regulation couldn't have taken place, could it?
A. Well, the Chief of Office had hardly anything to do with these agencies.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honors, if I may make a suggestion to interpolate a recess now-
THE PRESIDENT: You propose also to ask him about Article 10, the next paragraph? I mean, after the recess will you ask him some questions about that?
DR. FRITSCH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The court will be in recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.
( A recess was taken ).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, you have the exhibit which we were discussing before recess, that is, the business instructions which were issued do you still have them before you now?
A. Yes.
Q. Please take a look at Article 10 of these business instructions. Please tell us in very brief sentence first of all what conclusion can be drawn from this with regard to the activity of Staff-W?
A. The first two lines are missing in my copy. The first two lines of Article 10 are missing.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I have compared a photostatic copy, and also in the photostatic copy here, and part of Article 10 is missing. I, therefore, see that a the beginning is also missing that part in the English translation.
THE PRESIDENT: The first line in the English translation in Article 10 reads: "The Chief-W has under his authority the Staff-W, which is at his disposal--" Is there something ahead of that, or before that?
DR. FRITSCH: Yes. At the beginning we have an incomplete sentence, which begins with the following words: "Leadership-His leadership and supervisory task--" and at the beginning of the sentence begins--His disposal of execution for leadership and supervisory task--" and in the photostatic copy which I received this sentence is stated in exactly the same way, so, therefore, it does not make any sense. However, it is not very important in this case.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
THE WITNESS: In paragraph 10 the tasks are listed of Staff-W, and its competence.
Staff-W was competent in tax affairs, in legal and notary affairs, and in examinations.
Q. Witness, of course we do not want to discuss and read this paragraph here, as it is in the hands of the Tribunal also. However, I would like you to explain the most important features of this order to us?
A. I also want to say that all the tasks which Staff-W had are laid down in this order, and I'll explain here in detail. That is, the work of the three departments which were contained within Staff-W, which was subordinated to Chief-W.
Q. Witness, does it become evident from the explanations with regard to Points A, B and C that this shows anything in particular? Does it show anything which you have told us about as yet so far?
A. Up to now I have not given any details at all as yet. I have not said anything as about the task of Staff-W in detail.
Q. Will you please do it now?
THE PRESIDENT: This document is perfectly clear as to the divisions of Staff-W, taxes, legal department, and examinations, and those are explained under A, B, and C.
DR. FRITSCH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is sufficient.
DR. FRITSCH: I thought that the Tribunal would like to hear some details about these. According to the statement which was made before the recess, that is shy we discussed this later on, Your Honor. I've obviously misunderstood Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: No. Upon reading all of it I find that it does not need explanation.
DR. FRITSCH: Very well, Your Honor.
Q. I would like to ask the witness one question in this connection, Your Honor, and that is with regards to point C. Here the department for supervision of enterprises and increased efficiency is mentioned. This gives rise to the conclusion as if we are here dealing with production. And, therefore, I would like to let the witness explain the term "department for supervision of enterprises and increased efficiency." Witness, will you please explain it to us?
A. In the revision department* we only had a reviewing agency which carried out the customary supervision which is known in our profession and which has to be carried out according to certain principles, in carrying out the auditing system after the year was over. All other tasks, in particular things which had to do with production or technical questions, were exempted from this. The term, which I personally never liked, I believe was discovered by Baier and it was included here in this instruction. Perhaps this was done in order to express the fact that this auditing department was in his opinion particularly important.
Q. Witness, please give me a very short answer to my question. When we have the term here "increased efficiency and supervision of enterprise" do we have any auditing technical tasks or were they tasks which concerned the production?
A. Only the first thing which you have mentioned.
Q. Witness, before the recess you have stated that this order practically did not have any effect any more because it became effective at a period of time when in Germany no coordinated work took place any more. That was early in the year 1945. In my opinion it does not make any difference here. We are not interested in what the aims were but we are interested in what work was actually carried out by Staff W. I, therefore, ask you to answer the question.