The real reason I do not know to this day. But both reasons might have co-existed at the time.
Q. How did you join the WVHA? Were you invited to do so in a letter?
A. No. No such letter reached me. I was informed orally. I was ordered one day to report on 9 August 1943 in order to start my service with the WVHA, office group W, Staff W.
Q. When you received that order did you know what task was waiting for you?
A. No, I had no possibility of knowing that. All I knew was that I was going to be an auditor. Otherwise I merely knew that the WVHA as the name says, was looking after the economic administration of the Waffen-SS.
Q. Witness, was that activity which you did for the WVHA similar to the field of task which was mentioned to you?
A. Yes, on the whole certainly. I had to do a certain amount of work which was familiar to me from my old position as a financial inspector and auditor with the Finance Office-taxation and auditing matters. In addition to that, however, were certain special orders which were not compatible with that scheme.
Q. I shall not discuss with you again the organization of the WVHA and shall forthwith turn to Staff W. Please tell us first how many people worked in Staff W?
A. When I joined Staff W the personnel amounted to a total of 20 people, including civilian employees. When the auditing department was built up it increased 26, 27, 28 perhaps and towards the end of the War there were about 24 as some people had been transferred to the front.
Q. You were to work as an auditor, you tell us. Now when you reported to Pohl he must have given you a special order.
What did he tell you?
A. Pohl's orders existed in the fact to ask me to establish an auditing department for internal auditing. I heard on that occasion that before my time discussions had been held with the Auditing and Trusteeship Company. I could conclude from that that my order was based on an order ussued to the German Trusteeship Company to audit the DWB and that discussions had been concluded as I said before.
Q. How did you establish that auditing department?
A. My main task was to be the auditing of the concerns of the DWB. The main part of my activity was auditing. That is to say, auditing that everything is correct and also how to keep books. We had to audit the find results on the basis of evidence supplied to us.
Q. Witness, the term Staff W is an important one as we have seen in this trial. It is more important even than a typical auditing department. What did you find when you joined Staff W, what was there?
A. I believe we have talked about that before. There was an auditing department, a legal department, but when I joined there was no auditing department. My task was to establish this auditing department as a completely new thing.
Q. Why did you not simply become head of the auditing department? Why did you become chief of Staff W?
A. I was the most senior officer on the Staff W and, therefore, I obviously became the head.
Q. Who issued your orders?
A. My orders were issued either by Pohl himself or by his deputy Loerner. The latter never happened practically hardly ever at all. But I should point out here perhaps with reference to what I I have said before that I had a collective order to the effect to look at the internal auditing of the concerns and that I did not need any specific orders.
Nor did any such orders reach me unless specific orders were issued by Pohl in case of certain auditing work.
Q. Then, witness, you were plunged into these tasks with certain suddenness. Can you tell us in a few words how you started to work at first. Tell us about your difficulties.
A. Yes. I shall attempt to be brief. As you have so rightly observed I was plunged into these tasks suddenly. It was all very know although I had a certain amount of knowledge of auditing technique from my experience in the finance office but that went back about 8 years and in the meanwhile many new decrees had come out, particularly with reference to auditing and bookkeeping. I was never a commercial man. In addition to that there was nobody who could show me what I had to do. Nobody introduced me to my work. I had to find my way slowly and, therefore, I turned to Dr. Richard Karoli because my task consisted of auditing work. And, as he said this morning I received my suggestions and proposals from his company. I had to talk with the people I found there in order to inform myself about things. They couldn't tell me very much, however. Certainly nothing about auditing. Therefore, I had to start a completely new department for internal auditing. It is logical, of course, that for months I was unable to form an adequate general opinion of the whole business. The whole sphere of duties of W were completely unknown to me at first. Work which hadn't been dealt with had piled up and I could start at first only on the most primitive matters. I started from the easier work and finally reached the most difficult stages. I regarded my main task to have suitable and efficient auditors to work for me.
Q. Witness, one question about that. You mention Dr. Richard Karoli, is he the same one who was here as a witness this morning?
A. No, Dr. Richard Karoli is the older brother.
Q. Witness, please take Document Book XIV and you will find a document, discussed once before, 1039. It is Exhibit 391. It's on page 23 of the German book. I'm afraid I couldn't find out what page it was in English.
THE PRESIDENT: Document 1039? Is that the right number?
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, it is.
THE PRESIDENT: That's Exhibit 384. What is the document you have in mind, Dr. Fritsch?
DR. FRITSCH: 1039. The title says, "Unfinished Work of Staff W." It is on page 19. I am so sorry. I'm afraid I have gotten hold of the wrong exhibit number. It is Exhibit 384.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right. I have it now. That is Hohberg's report of unfinished work.
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, it is.
Q. Witness, I do not want to waste the court's time by going through this document point after point, but it seems obvious to me that the prosecution has used this document, as far as you are concerned, only in order to show what your work consisted of. Who gave you that document?
A. I cannot recall it, but I think it must have been Pohl who gave me this list.
Q. Therefore, of course, you cannot recall whether he gave you an explanation with it.
A. If it was Pohl who gave it to me with an explanation, the reason might have been that he was delighted that somebody took the work away from him. I can't say, however, how I got the document.
Q. Witness, what I am interested in is the question of what you did with that list?
A. This was a list of unfinished work, as the heading says, and I thought that my sask must be to find somebody who could finish the work.
I passed the various points on, some of then to the managers of the competent assistants of W. In some cases, I could do nothing at all. I would like to draw attention to the marginal notes in my handwriting; as I recall it, one abbreviation is Dr. H, which means Dr. Hoffmann, then Dr. Volk in full, but also abbreviated in V, and Schmiel, who is mentioned under 12. He is the accountant.
DR. FRITSCH: May it please the court, may I ask the question: this document has been submitted twice, once in the German text with out the marginal notes. May I ask whether in the English text the marginal notes are contained?
THE PRESIDENT: Under No. 10, there is a marginal note, Dr. H.
DR. FRITSCH: And here it starts under 2, where it says, Dr. V.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right.
DR. FRITSCH: And then it goes on under 3. Under 3 there is a marginal note, Dr. H.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. H. That's right.
DR. FRITSCH: Then I can assume that it is the correct document.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. H. is also under 5, 6 -
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: 7.
DR. FRITSCH: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And so on.
DR. FRITSCH: Yes.
Q. What were the cases, Witness, which came under Staff W for processing in the sense in which you regarded Staff W and your duties? Do you have the document?
A. Yes, my answer to that question has to be this: Staff W was concerned with those things which I made the marginal notes about, but then there were also things which I worked on myself.
Q. Witness, let us start from the fact that all the points with their marginal notes were looked after by the Staff. Now we are particularly interested in finding out those cases which you yourself worked on. We are now only selecting those points and forgetting about the others. Would you please tell me what the first point would be?
A. That would be -- can I comment on this? We have discussed it before.
Q. You have misunderstood me, Witness. Was that a case that you worked on yourself?
A. No.
Q. Please, talk only about the points which you yourself worked on.
A. There we have first of all point 4, Adjustments. I would like to say the following about that. Public enterprises in Germany when they have reached a larger volume insure themselves. The suggestion made in this document refers to the procuring of a mutual insurance arrangement; that could only be organized. I couldn't do anything before, until the final auditing had been carried out, particularly the auditing by the taxation authorities in order to decide the question of the taxation obligations. I would like to add that that registration by the Reich Finance Administration in 1944 was started by me, and that it had made considerable progress by the end of the war, but it wasn't quite completed, owing to the military situation.
Q. Witness, in connection with this question another witness has found connection with the question on inmate labor. Please look at Document Book XIII and Document 2164, which is Exhibit 352, page 12 of the German and page 13 of the English text. It's a letter by the Porcelain Factory, Allach of Munich, addressed to the Adjust ment Exchequer of Staff W, dated 22 December, 1943, a period of time when you were already with Staff W. Do you know whether the Porcelain factory Allach, which is asking for compensation, because there was a shortage of labor; they were short of labor from inmates.
-- Did they receive their compensation?
A. I did not work on that myself and I'm inclined to assume that this suggestion was followed up, but I am unable to say it definitely. It was at the beginning and I wasn't too well acquainted with matters then.
Q. Witness, then please continue. What other points did you work on of that unfinished work?
A. The next point is point 16. This is the approval for the annual reports. Approval for annual reports had to be given by the share holders meeting of the various companies, and before that approval was given it had to be proceeded by auditing. This was the definite duty of Staff W and the Auditing Department. I worked on this matter and I gave the documents to the share holders meeting.
Q. Witness, in the same Document Book XIV, which you have with you now, there is Document 1281, Exhibit 400, on page 80 of the German and 84 of the English text.
TEE PRESIDENT: Which book?
DR. FRITSCH: Same Book, 14. I am so sorry, the same book with the unfinished work.
Q. Is that document connected at all? It comes from a period of time when you were part of Staff W.
A. This is a share holders decision of the Blinker GMBH in Posen, as I described just now.
Q. Another question about that document, Witness, we repeatedly talked about the distribution of profits here. Can you say any thing about that from that document?
A. Certainly, what was done with profits -- the total of profits is put here at 164,000 marks and it says underneath what was done with the profits. It shows that 100,000 Reichmarks were deposited, which is correct under commercial law. The money remains in the business, and the balance is being put ahead. It's taken out of the enterprise, but only in the new financial year.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess until tomorrow morning at 9:30.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 23 July 1947, at 0930 hours).
Official Transcript of Military Tribunal II, Case IV, in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 23 July 1947, 0930, Justice Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats please.
The Honorable, the judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session.
God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
HANS BAIER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for defendant Baier):
Q Witness, yesterday we were discussing Document Book 14, Exhibit 384, and after that we briefly looked at Document 1281 in Book 14, which is Exhibit 400. Now, will you please take Document Book 14 and from the document which is called "Unfinished Work" you wanted to tell us the points that you worked on yourself. We discussed Point 16 yesterday, and now please take the next point which is concerned with your competence.
A The next point is No. 17, which is called "Reinhardt Fund". May I say first of all that all questions connected with that loan, arrangements about the money and the actual money which came in and the accounting, happened before my time. All that I was shown was this notice that the contract had still to be arranged.
Q Did you arrange the contract yourself?
A Yes, I did. I suppose that I first of all went to the legal department, and everything else was done from there.
Q Excuse me, witness; did the legal department make the contract?
A No, as I recall it, I was told that it had been drafted by the Reich. With that draft I went to defendant Frank in order to have him sign for the Reich. Frank was no longer with the WVHA at that time, and I remember very well that it was confirmed to me when I asked that this was a Reich loan.
Q Witness, did this contract show the name Reinhardt?
A It did not. This struck me as peculiar, and I asked the defendant Frank whether the term "Reinhardt Fund" should not be contained in the contract, because that is what the notice said which Dr. Hohberg had left behind. Frank thereupon told me point blank that this had nothing to do with it.
Q Did you not then make efforts to find out what Reinhardt stood for?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Let me ask a question.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q What did you say Frank told you?
A I asked Frank whether the term "Reinhardt Fund" should be named in the contract, and Frank answered in the negative. He said the name should not be contained in the contract, that the word had nothing to do with the contract.
Q In other words, he said to leave out the name Reinhardt, that it had nothing to do with the contract?
A Yes.
Q Were the funds coming from the Reinhardt Fund?
A I don't know. I did not know it at the time, and that is why I asked.
Q What did you mean when you said you wrote out the contract for the Reinhardt loan?
A In the notice which was left behind, it said there was a contract between DWB and the Reich to be fixed, and the heading said "Reinhardt Fund". I thereupon reflected what this could be about, and I came across the name of State Secretary Reinhardt, whom I knew very well. He was my superior in the Reich Ministry of Finance.
Q How much was the contract for?
A The contract was for RM 30,000,000.
Q Who executed the contract?
A The contract was fixed between the Reich, represented by the defendant Frank, and the first business manager of DWB, who was represented by Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl.
Q So Pohl and Frank signed the contract for the DWB?
A Yes.
Q Who signed for the Reich, if anyone?
A Defendant Frank signed on behalf of the Reich, which I caused him to do.
Q And you prepared the contract.
A I did not actually formulate it myself, because I would not have been in a position to do so, but I had the contract fixed. I addressed myself to the legal department, and the legal department gave me the contract with the remark that the Reich -- that is to say, the legal department of the Reich -- had drafted the contract.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q Witness, can you remember what the contract said? I mean, what the main points were.
A I still recall the contract. It consisted of about four to six paragraphs, and, as far as I can remember, the arrangements named were, first of all, the fact that the thing was a loan of RM 30,000,000, which the Reich gave to DWB as a credit; two, the interest -- I know that very well, and I believe it was three per cent roughly; I am not quite sure, but it must have been roughly three per cent; three, arrangements were made about repayment which I remember because thereupon I always regarded the contract as a short term one; finally, the general arrangements for giving notice, and so forth. Otherwise I don't remember anything in particular.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: What was the date?
THE WITNESS: The date I am unable to give you. I joined in August. It might have been, perhaps, the end of September. This was not the first thing that I did when I joined.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q Unhappily, the contract has not been submitted here in this trial, if I may make that remark.
Witness, another question about this: Do you know for whom Herr Frank signed, for what ministry?
A I know that Frank signed for the Reich. Whether he was in that case the deputy of the Reich Ministry of Finance, I am not sure.
Q But you can not give us anything there from your own knowledge?
A No.
Q But perhaps you would answer the question now whether you insisted upon having the term "Reinhardt" interpreted to you.
A No, I did not, for two reasons. One, Frank and I at that time were not on very good terms because I had been called away from the school, and the whole conversation between us was held in a brief, military tone. Second, I was not particularly interested in the term after Frank had told me that.
Q Then you told us that Pohl signed for DWB?
A Yes, Pohl signed for DWB.
Q At that time you did not know what the term "Reinhardt Fund" meant. When did you find out?
A The term "Reinhardt Fund" was discussed here in this trial, and it was here when documents were submitted that I came across it, as far as that was possible. I do not know to this day whether the name of Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhardt Heydrich, whom I did not know personally, is connected with this or not, and where the money came from eventually I am unable to say today. As far as I was concerned it was Reich capital.
Q Now, will you please give us more points from Exhibit 384? We have stopped at Point 17. Which is the next point that concerns your own work?
A Then we have Point 18 as the next point, "Statistics".
Q Well, what about that?
AAs one can see the file notes, this is statistical work. For instance, turnover, profits, losses, owned capital, alien capital, the basic funds, the turnover cash, and other elements of capital in the various enterprises. This work was simply continued, so far as we had the time.
Q Witness, was that work particularly part of you duties, and of what department?
A Yes. I asked the reviewing department to deal with that work.
Q Then please continue.
A The next point is Point 21, "Post Exchange". Here it says that the post exchange was to become part of the economic enterprises if and when necessary. This post exchange, I might say, had a considerable amount of profits, to the tune of RM 10,000,000.
Q Witness, will you please tell us briefly what the post exchange is?
A. By post exchange we mean facilities for the troops themselves. The troops, in the post exchange, acquires their special needs such as tooth paste, etc.
Q. For their personal needs, you mean?
A. Yes, their personal needs.
Q. Please continue.
A. Here we had the central agency for all post exchanges for the whole of the Waffen-SS. It went against my liking. Since this was a purely military establishment, and after all was handled by the Army and Navy agencies, the profits should come back to the soldiers themselves, but here now I had to establish a connection with DWB. Therefore, I turned down that scheme from the word go. As I saw it this would have been a doubtful piece of financing which was not connected at all with the armament program of DWB. I kept this note. I did not pass it on. But as this matter was not really part of my duties I reported about it to Defendant Pohl, and I did not appoint anybody to work on it as an expert. Pohl agreed, and that finished that matter. Matters rested there as they were.
Q. What is the next point now from Exhibit 384?
A. Now we come to Point 22, "Vote for the Annual Report".
Q. Is that a typical part of your duties such as Pohl asked you to do?
A. This is a very typical part of my duties and competence. After all my task was to check up on the annual reports, and therefore it was only natural to have the corporations make their demands, and I had to adjust our debts. In order to do that I passed this on to our taxation department under Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Wenner.
Q. Any other points which you worked on yourself?
A. Points 27 to 29. They are the same thing and are about the same topic. These are -- The point here is that the companies had to estimate their capital again. This was a regulation which applied to the protectorate.
A similar regulation was issued in Germany after the inflation to maintain the gold standard. This again is a very typical part of my duties. I sent out auditors to have the work done. The estimation was done, but, of course, the various sums involved, I cannot tell you anything about.
Q. Any other points, Witness?
A. No, nothing else.
Q. We will therefore leave that document. Now you say, you have stated that a large number of these points were not connected with your duties; you dealt with other things which in some cases you didn't even have the time to deal with.
A. All I can imagine is that before my time these things were handled by Dr. Hohberg and now there was nobody left. My duties were much more narrowly confined and as I have described before, and which was in accordance with my orders, I was more interested with the technicalities of taxation and auditing. On the basis of these organizational deficiencies the result was that anybody who happened to be around was given special orders, although it was not really any of his business.
Q. Witness, I shall now keep on the question of organization at that period of time, the organization of Staff W and the W offices. Your position between the offices has been discussed. Witness Dr. Karoli, on the basis of a sketch, stated that Staff W stood beside the office group chief, and he also said, and Pohl also said that on the witness stand, that you had no authority to issue orders. Now, we have discussed the business order. Did you not, according to the business order, have the possibility to find your own position between the W offices and the office chief?
A. Yes, I could do that on the basis of my military position as chief of Staff W, but this should be taken into consideration. The chiefs of the various W offices were also people with a status under commercial law. They were business managers or something like that.
I myself, on the other hand, had no status under commercial law. I was never a business manager in DWB or any of its subsidiary companies. Therefore, if it had become necessary I could have, as an officer or Chief of Staff W, given orders to the officers, but he in his capacity as a business manager, that is to say, as a man with a status under commercial law, would not carry it out because as such he was responsible only to Pohl. Unlike myself who was a civil servant, my soul was that of a civil servant and that was the only way I could work, the various W office chiefs had twin souls, those of a merchant and those of an office chief, but their soul under commercial law was more important. If I can put it that way, the civil service souls of the office chiefs should have obeyed me from point of view of rank, whereas their commercial souls were committed by the prescriptions of commercial law and therefore need not follow my orders. But if, on the other hand, I was concerned with taxing and auditing, which brought me in contact only with their commercial souls, under special order I had not to give any other orders in any other respect, at least it did not happen in actual fact, but I want to emphasize that the business order did not apply and was not enforced virtually, and that as such it did not mean that it confirmed a state of affairs which had existed before. I may also say that we were then living in a period of time after 1945 where the W offices, particularly those located in Berlin outside the WVHA were busy evacuating themselves because of air-raids with the result that they could hardly be contacted.
Q. Witness, please take up Document Book XV. It is Document 509, which is Exhibit 418, which is on Page 58 of the German and Page 50 of the English text. What do you have to say about that document?
A. I should like to draw attention to the second paragraph. From this document it shows that I have spoken the truth. In this letter I am asking the main office chief, chief of Office W-IV, to give an order, which happened on 27 March, 1944, at which time I was not in position, in other words, to give an order to the office chief, and that is how it remained.
Q. Witness, we don't only want to talk about your duties which you were given when you joined the WVHA, but we want to make it abundantly clear what you actually did without any doubt. There are documents which the Prosecution submitted which to say the least would appear not only connected with taxation or auditing matters which you said were your real duty. We shall have to look at some of these documents, and perhaps you could tell me first whether it is correct that such orders not immediately connected with the technicalities of auditing were given you.
A. Yes, that is quite true, and I can make a general statement about that. I was given orders by Pohl without any doubt which were not immediately connected with my real duties, auditing, and I am thinking here, for instance, of the trip to Litzmannstadt on the handling of both compensation for inmates and wages for inmates, I must admit that on one occasion when no expert was available, and for another thing, because Pohl wanted to have somebody very quickly such orders were issued to me. Then we had, of course, the military situation and the fact that I was a soldier.
Q. Witness, let us talk about two things which you have just mentioned yourself: first of all, the trip to Litzmannstadt. Please take Document Book 19. This is Document 519, which is Exhibit 490, on page 44 of the German and page 41 of the English texts.
This is a letter of the Reich Governor of Wartheland, Greiser, to the defendant Pohl. Will you please tell us briefly what this affair is about?
The letter shows that you and Dr. Volk went to Posen and there you discussed the transformation of Litzmannstadt ghetto into a concentration camp.
The preliminary question: Why did you have anything to do with the concentration camp?
A. As a matter of principle, I had nothing to do with concentration camps. In this particular case I was given, at the beginning of February 1944, the order by Pohl to go, together with the head of the legal department of Staff W, Dr. Volk, to Litzmannstadt. I was to inspect the economic enterprises located in the ghetto and make a report about their shape. I should like to say here that these enterprises and the ghetto in Litzmannstadt were subordinated to Greiser, who was the Reich Governor of Wartheland.
Q. Witness, did Pohl give you any explanation before you set out on your trip?
A. Yes. Pohl said to Volk and me, when he gave us the order, that Reichsfuehrer-SS had ordered this change to be made; namely, the ghetto to be changed into a concentration camp. Dr. Volk and I were to report to him, Pohl, whether or not the economic enterprises in this ghetto could be received into the DWB. Dr. Volk was to concentrate on the legal aspects and I on the economic implications.
So Volk and I went to Litzmannstadt and looked at the enterprises which were located in the ghetto.
Q. Were these large enterprises, medium sized, or small enterprises?
A. I should like to say first that many individual enterprises existed there which were geographically separated from each other, and they varied in size: