Q However, witness, with that you are disrupting your opinion about the collective guilt which you have maintained, at least with regard to the hundreds of thousands of people and people who were related to concentration camp inmates.
A Exceptions, Mr. Defense Counsel, exceptions only confirm a rule.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Heim will you conduct your examination after the recess.
(A recess was taken.)
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. FICHT (ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANT KLEIN): May it please the Tribunal, I request that Klein be excused from this afternoon's session, so that he may prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Klein may be excused at the request of his counsel.
DR. GAWLIK (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT BOBERMIN): May it please the Court, I have the same request to make on behalf of Dr. Bobermin. I would like him to be excused all day tomorrow.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Bobermin may be excused for the entire session tomorrow.
DR. FRITZ (ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANT BAIER): May it please the Court, I have only a very few questions to put to this witness.
BY DR. FRITZ:
Q Witness, while you were examined, the name of Baier was mentioned. You mentioned it. If I remember correctly, you said that you had seen Baier in Neuengamme.
A What I said was that I saw Baier. Where, I couldn't remember very clearly. I thought it must have been Neuengamme. It might also be that I saw him on the occasion of a visit at Sachsenhausen.
Q How did you know Baier?
A The name I knew from documents, orders, and so forth. It was extremely familiar to me, because his sphere of duties was concerned with my own. I was a bookkeeper and he was the Chief of the Auditing Department in charge of that bookkeeping department.
Q Did Baier have anything to do with questions of inmates?
A No. He was purely an auditor concerned with balance sheets, accounts, and auditing. Particularly, Baier issued the order as to how the technicalities of a balance sheet were to be handled. He was also in charge, I believe, of the many auditors with whom I had so many contacts, because they drew up balance sheets and so forth. This work had to be done very precisely, and was under extremely strict control and supervision.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
DR. FRITZ: Thank you very much. No further questions.
BY DR. HEIM (ATTORNEY FOR DR. HOHBERG):
Q Witness, I only have two brief questions to put to you. During cross examination, you said that among the SS leaders a strong divergence of opinion prevailed. Can you tell me what the relations were between SS officers and their civilian colleagues?
A The civilian in the SS -- you must bear in mind what sort of an organization the SS was -- was respected very little or not at all by the uniformed SS men of officers.
Q Witness, my last question. Do you think from your experience and observation it is possible that a civilian is in a position to give orders to an SS-leader, say in the rank of a Hauptsturmfuehrer?
A Scarcely. If, by virtue of some organizational measure which the SS would have regarded as a mistake, a civilian would issue orders to a higher SS-officer, he at least, would have opposed this intuitively and emotionally, an opposition which would have amounted, if not to sabotage, to at least resistance, because after all, this most Prussian militarist is the SS-officer I mean, would not be told anything from what he regarded an inferior human being. The SS saw that for which reason those civilians who were necessary to them as experts were given SS ranks wherever possible.
On Friday I gave the example of Schondorf. He was a civilian; he knew all about brick works and in order for him to be able to say anything at all and reach some equivalent rank, he was promoted by leaps and bounds.
DR. HEIM: Thank you very much. No further questions.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for Mummenthey):
Q Witness, after our political conversations before the recess, I want to come back to the things with which we are concerned in the indictment inasmuch as the prosecution have made it their subject in their cross examination.
The prosecution have asserted and have named the name of witness Kruse, whose testimony has taken place in this court. I find it necessary to put to you a number of questions because of the cross examination in connection with Kruse's testimony. In order to help you, I should like, by permission of the Court and the prosecution, to show you the two German transcripts of 15 April, and I have marked those passages which will become the subject of our examination.
I shall give you the pages and I would be obliged if you would give us your comments. Will you please look at page 466. Kruse says there there that the Klinker Works in Neuengamme was established during 1942.
Is that correct?
A I'm afraid he's at fault there. The foundation of the Klinker Works in Neuengamme was laid on 15 August 1940. Thereupon the construction work started.
MR. MC HANEY: The witness has already testified about when they started constructing the Klinker Works at Neuengamme, and I think also when they started operating the Klinker Works. If his testimony stands in contradiction to that of Kruse, it can certainly be pointed out and made clear in any way that the defense cares to do so by way of closing statement or brief, and I don't think that it is necessary now to go over Kruse's testimony in great detail.
If there is some new subject which Kruse touched upon and testified about which has not been asked this witness, then Dr. Froeschmann can direct a question to him concerning that. If it brings forth a contradiction that can be pointed out at a later date. There is no necessity of carrying this witness over Kruse's testimony, I think.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't anticipate that he is going to do it in too much detail. I think he can be shown a contradictory statement and then asked if he wishes to agree with it or if it causes him to change his testimony. That's proper cross examination.
DR. FROESCHMANN: If the Tribunal please, it was my intention only to limit myself to those points where Kruse has made incriminating statements about Mummenthey which the prosecution had stressed or has made statements which are in contradiction to those made by the witness Bickel. I shall be extremely brief.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Is it true, witness, for Kruse to say on page 468 that the Klinker Works had been established by Office Group C?
A No, that is entirely incorrect. There was a strong antagonism between DEST and the Central Construction Management because there was a tendency to be noted that the Central Construction Management should also take over the constructions of Office W. Office W-I had a construction management of its own.
From a purely architectural point of view the important man there was architect Rohmann-Fuerth. He approved of the plans, etc.
Q You told us about that. This is enough.
A The whole plant was constructed by DEST on their own account. Office Group C had nothing to do with it.
Q My next question is also concerned with page 468. Is it true that the labor detachment of the Klinker Works supplied about two thousand inmates per day for the construction works?
A The figure is too high pitched. At the most there were twelve to fifteen hundred, but I do not think that is too important, whether there were a few hundred more or less.
Q Please look at page 469 and pay attention to this statement when Kruse says that the labor detachment of Klinker Works had been a typical punitive detachment. What have you to say about that?
A That is a somewhat relative statement. Somebody who was doing extremely heavy work for the Klinker Works would regard it as an extremely bad detachment. For somebody who had easy work to do, he liked the detachment. But to look at it from above the Klinker Works detachment, if you can talk of anything good at all in this connection, it was relatively good. The most unpopular detachment at that time was the canal construction on the Elbe. The fact that you were on the canal detachment showed that you were at the worst.
Q For whom and on whose orders was that construction work at the Elbe carried out?
A The order came from the city of Hamburg and Gauleiter Kaufmann. I have already submitted to the prosecution the contract concerning that point.
Q Was the labor detachment Klinker Works a detachment of DEST?
A The Klinker Works was a plant of DEST.
Q On the same page, the witness Kruse speaks of the truck detachment where he worked. He also says that he did not actually work in the clay pit. I don't understand it. These trucks were in the pit, weren't they?
A Well, apart from the clay pit detachment, there was a transportation detachment. That detachment had these lorries on which they loaded stones and transported them along on a special track to the harbor or else from the harbor they transported material for the works such as concrete, sand, and so on, back to the pit. I think Kruse was talking about that detachment because the inmates in the clay pit did not have to operate the rolling carts themselves.
Q Please look at page 470 and 471. There the witness says that until the plant was complete, work was inhumanly difficult because of the speed. My question to you is, to what labor detachments does he refer here and who was in charge of them?
A The statement that work was inhumanely difficult because of its speed can, normally speaking, apply only to detachments and groups which did not work with machines. That was the case also in the Klinker Works; and he is quite right when he speaks of too much speed, which was particularly difficult for inmates who were not used to manual work. A decrease in speed came about as the plant was more and more mechanized. Moreover, the works managers and office W had finally achieved it that speed would reach a normal standard because as Kruse so rightly remarks, this speed was favorable to the SS, and the SS NCO's would like it, but senseless from the point of view of work. Exaggerated speed always means less production than normal speed.
Q Who was in charge of that detachment?
AAs I said on Friday, the labor detachments were under the SS officers of the camp, the commandant.
Q In some cases also the Capos?
A Yes, the Capos had to supervise the work direction, but the activities of the Capos was regulated exclusively by the SS block leaders of the camp.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Please look at page 472. There Kruse speaks about rubber boots about which you had made a brief statement. Did the managers of DEST omit doing something in that respect?
A No, one couldn't say that because that reproach would also hit the inmates who had to look after these things in the Klinker Works. There was always a more or less adequate store of rubber boots. If they had to be repaired at all inmates had to repair them themselves.
Q On page 472 Kruse said that beatings were the rule of the day in the Klinker Works. Did members of the plant mistreat the inmates?
A Beating was a normal part of the day. It would have been unusual and abnormal not to be beaten. Members of the plant were not in a position to beat anybody. There was somebody called Rath who, I believe, in some cases hit somebody whom he was not supposed to. The block leaders would not have anybody taking over their privilege of beating the prisoners. It hardly ever happened that a civilian would beat a prisoner.
Q Witness, the witness Kruse says on Page 474, if you bribed the Kapo, you only had to work if the chief capo of the Klinker Works came along.
A That was an experience which was only too usual in a concentration camp. Capos were inmates, foremen were inmates. The principle of the SS to play inmates against inmates was the most subtle in the whole field of slave work. And if Kruse talks of such an individual case here, he is perfectly right.
Q To clarify one point in this connection - it is true that the supply of shoes and clothes, as well as the supply of food, was up to the camp.
A Clothes, food, hygienic installations, etc., were entirely up to the camp, because the plants paid to the camp full compensation for the inmates, part of which was expressly, and I refer to various wages negotiations, calculated to cover expenses by the camp in that respect. Furthermore, the Klinker Works of Neuengamme, in contradiction to the obligations as imposed on them by the SS, and in the teeth of resistance Court No. II, Case No. 4.by the camp commandant, supplied inmates with food, clothing, and shoes.
In 1944 on one occasion we bought 400 or 500 sets of working clothes from the clothing works in Dachau. These working clothes had been earmarked for SS chauffeurs. It was stated at that time that they had been marked for civilians but they were actually given out to inmates.
Q The Prosecution asked you, witness, whether Mummenthey had known anything about the punitive detachment. You answered that question briefly but then the Prosecution interrupted you and changed the subject. I should like to ask you, was the term punitive company known to Mummenthey, in your opinion?
A In view of the importance of that question I cannot make a statement about something which I do not know from my own knowledge. Whether or not he knew about this he alone can tell you. I am not in a position to answer this question yes or no with a good conscience. As far as I know the situation at that time he would not have been given much information by the commandants.
Q Witness, in summation of your testimony, the climax of your testimony was perhaps the assertion that Mummenthey was a white raven, as you called him. Unlike the manner usually shown by SS officers towards inmates he did not only regard inmates as a commercial property but also as human beings, for which reason he did everything for the inmates which was in his power. Will you please make comments to this, my view point, which I have gained from your testimony. Is it a correct view?
THE PRESIDENT: This has all been covered, Dr. Froeschmann. He explained in detail just what Mummenthey tried to do for the inmates. I don't think it is necessary to repeat it, do you?
DR. FROESCHMANN: If the Tribunal please, I don't wish to repeat anything. I only want to have the point clarified about which the witness spoke on Friday and today, namely, the collective guilt of the German people, and would like to ask him if the defendant Mummenthey consciously and knowingly did all those things which one could expect him to do, in order to come to a final judgment in that matter.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
THE PRESIDENT: But he has already said that Mummenthey did do those things, and he told us what they were. Now you say to the witness, "I have an impression from your testimony that Mummenthey did so and so, will you please comment on this?" That means that he starts right at the beginning and merely fortifies your impression. Well, we have the impression already from his first statement. I don't think you need cover it again.
DR. FROESCHMANN: If the Tribunal please, after what you told me my questions become superfluous. I feel and I believe the Court joins me in my opinion.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Witness, I want to put to you a few brief questions. Did you when you were in your concentration camp hear anything about the air raids on Dresden, Hamburg, and our ancient Nurnberg?
A We heard about these air raids, the ones of Hamburg we saw and experienced ourselves. We experienced them in as much as we had to salvage the corpses from Hamburg, for which our Commandant received the Iron Cross, 1st Class, I believe.
Q What were the means you had to keep informed about what was happening outside?
A We received newspapers for our own money, the Uniform German newspaper. We had our wireless connections which we could use sometimes. Of course, we also had our secret radios and we listened to BBC and Allied soldiers stations. We had first rate sources of information from our own initiative.
Q These were secret radios which you had in the camp?
A Yes, we had secret receivers and transmitters.
Q And from there you gained your knowledge about what was going on outside?
A Yes, Apart from the fact that people would tell us things and we would tell people things. There was an exchange of ideas and facts going on because from that time onwards inmates worked among the people. I said before that the whole camp went out in so-called "con Court No. II, Case No. 4.struction brigades" to dig up the corpses after air raids and the people were kind and receptive after we dug up one of the corpses of their relatives.
They talked to us and were receptive to what we told them, until the next propaganda speech restored their former peace of mind again.
Q Therefore your knowledge is confined to a particular sector among the German people?
A No, our knowledge went quite beyond what the German people themselves knew because we had unlimited -- in our eyes unlimited -possibilities of receiving news by radio.
Q You therefore had means which a large part of the German people did not.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A They would have had the same means had they had the same will as we had.
Q That is your assumption, a quite subjective opinion, is it not?
A Yes, quite so.
Q What is the truth?
A What is a human being?
Q Well, you could say where was the truth and what is the truth. Do I understand-
A I am afraid we are losing ourselves in philosophy.
Q Do I understand you correctly, that you, on the basis of the communications and experiences, you formed the impressions of which you have given us this picture here?
A Yes, I have endeavored to speak objectively, such as we have learned from the Allies, and which is the first condition if you want to be Democrats.
Q Witness, one of my colleagues asked you how it came about that you were examined before this Court, and you told us that at the time you wrote to the Prosecution and to Mummenthey's defense counsel, whose name you did not know, that you were at their disposal as witness.
A It is quite correct. It is only for the fifth time I am telling you this.
Q Yes, quite so. All I wanted to state was that I heard from you in the course of this year that you were quite ready to appear as a witness, and that you also told me that you had also informed the Prosecution of this.
A Yes, I don't think anybody could be fairer. I don't think that the SS would ever have been quite so fair as we have been to them.
Q Is it also correct that even then, and not only under the impression of conversations, you emphasized that you regarded it as your duty to tell the Court anything and everything which might be favorable to Mummenthey?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A If you want to describe facts, you cannot be influenced either in the good or the bad sense of the word. I don't think that you have gained the impression that any good or bad influence can be exerted on me. Facts are so tremendous that only history will form the proper picture. No influence can be exerted in this or in another way.
DR. FROESCHMANN: May it please the Court, I have no further questions to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other questions by any defense counsel?
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. McHaney, have you finished?
MR. McHANEY: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may be excused then.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Just a minute.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Witness, on a point of information, will you please tell me the numerical strength of a block? I presume it varies according to the camp, according to the make-up of the camp, but just tell me generally what is the strength of a block?
A Generally it was to comprise 150 men, that is to say, one hut. As conditions grew worse we were as many as 600 men in one block.
Q And how many men did a capo control?
A That depended. There were capos who were in charge of two to three hundred, and there were some who were only in charge of five or six men. For instance, in a craft shop, electrical workshop, there was a capo who was in charge of two, three or five men, but in the harbor detachment a capo would be in charge of one hundred or two hundred men who worked on earth-removing detachments.
Q Did the unit which the capo controlled have a distinct name?
A Yes, each unit was named by the activity on which it embarked; for instance, the electrical detachment, concrete detachment, the heater detachment, etc.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q From what you tell me it would seem that the capo was limited in his leadership to work details. Did he not also have charge of these same men in the concentration camp barracks?
A They only supervised labor detachments. In the camp itself they had nothing to say, because the blocks, the huts and barracks, the so-called block leaders were the ones in charge. Subordinate to them and their assistants were the so-called "room leaders" (Stubenalteste).
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, the witness may be excused from the witness stand.
(Witness excused.)
DR. FROESCHMANN: May it please the Court, I request that Mummenthey should be the next witness on the witness stand.
KUNZ ANDREAS EMIL KARL MUMMENTHEY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Repeat after me, please.
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE PHILLIPS: You may be seated.
DR. FROESCHMANN: May it please the Court, I would like to remark quite generally that Mummenthey in the last few years lost his sense of hearing in the right ear through an illness. I therefore, hope he will be excused if he seems to have difficulties in understanding a question.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Herr Mummenthey, please give us the date of your birth, the place of your birth.
A My name is Kunz Andreas Emil Karl Mummenthey. Karl is my first name.
Q When and where were you born?
A I was born on the 11th of July, 1906 in Aue, in the Ore Court No. II, Case No. 4.Mountains, in Saxony.
Q Is that the same Aue which lately has made news because of the - in connection with the forced labor camp and the uranium discoveries there?
A Yes, that is quite correct.
Q Please tell us very briefly about your youth.
A I grew up in Aue and in Olbernhau in the Ore Mountains. My ancestors on my father's side came from lower Saxony. They settled near Hannover, and they can be traced back to the Fourteenth Century. We were impoverished because of the Thirty Years' War. For centuries they were miners in the Harz. My ancestors on my mother's side hail from the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains, and from Frankonia. They were usually craftsmen. In our family history the fate of the German people is mirrored in its ups and downs through the centuries.
Q You are, therefore, a mixture of the heavy and serious people of lower Saxony and the same orderly and reserved character of the people of Frankonia.
A Yes, that is right.
Q Will you please give us a brief description of your upbringing at home?
AAt home my upbringing was strict and modest.....
Q What was your father?
AAlthough my father was a member of a cooperative bank, on the board of directors of a cooperative bank. Genuine religiousness and practical Christianity and absolute truthfulness is what I found in my parents to follow as an example. At an early date I had to start work in order to learn about the seriousness of life.
Q What schools did you go to?
A In Olbernhau in Saxony I went to the elementary school up to the eighth form.
Q And after that did you go to the Commercial College in Chemnitz?
A Yes.
Q Is that correct?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Yes, I visited that college from 1921 to 1924. The area around Chemnitz was in old days one of the most highly industrialized ones in the whole of Germany. It was called the Saxonian Manchester. As a result of the inflation I was unable to visit that high school beyond my first graduation, although I had been a very good pupil and could have skipped one year.
Q What did you do after you left school?
A I was apprenticed with the Olbernhauer Volksbank between 1924 and 1926, and my father supervised me there. As the expression goes, I learned from the bottom of the ladder all branches of the banking business, and the principles of a conscientious and orderly banker were impressed upon me.
Q Did you then go to a university?
A Yes, my parents made it possible by leading an economic life for me to go to a university. After 1926 until 1933 I studied in Frankfurt am Main, in Kiel and Leipzig, first of all economics and social science and later on law. In 1928 I took one year's leave in order to prepare my matriculation. In the same year I actually did matriculate at the Oberrealschule in Dresden-Johannstadt.
Q Now, Herr Mummenthey, we have now reached a period of time which was to be of great importance for your future life. Just a moment, please, did you, while you were at the university, gain any experiences about administration of punishment?
A Yes. This is how that came about. The legal faculty of the Kiel University once arranged for a trip to Hamburg in order to inspect the penal institutions there, which were supposed to be particularly up to date. The impressions which I gained there I shall describe later on.
Q When did you pass your first legal examination in Leipzig?
A That was in 1934. I thereupon took up a preparatory legal service occupation and became an assistant to the courts, in district courts, the Prosecutions, in Burgstaedt, Chemnitz and Leipzig.
Q Did you during that period of time take part in any practical training courses?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Yes, such courses were being held at the time in order to show the various types of penal institutions, particularly in Waltheim and in Banzen.
Q Is it true that in 1937 when you had finished your preparatory status you made your final legal examination?
A Yes, that happened at the end of 1937.
Q What were your intentions at that time as to the choice of a profession?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
AAs I had this particular professional training, it was my intention to become a solicitor and return to a bank; but at that time this was made particularly difficult by new decrees. In order to be admitted as a solicitor, you had to work for four years as an assistant with another firm of solicitors. In order to expand my personal horizon, I looked for the possibility to combine these four years' assistantship with the professional activity which other colleagues of mine were doing also. Through an advertisement in the official Gazette of the Lawyers League, I established contact with Dr. Salpeter. At that time, he was in charge of the legal department in the Administrative Office of the SS in Munich. He was about to be admitted as a solicitor in Berlin. He was just about to settle in Berlin as an attorney. He offered me the opportunity of becoming his assistant, and simultaneously, a civilian employee in the legal department of the Administrative Office of the SS. As his personal impression was impeccable, and the way in which he described the work which I had to concern myself under his supervision moved me to avail myself of this offer.
Q Therefore, you left the Reich Trustee Services and on 1st of February 1938, you went as a legal assistant to the legal department of the Administrative Offices, is that correct?
A Yes, that is quite correct.
Q Herr Mummenthey, we heard frequently during this trial the name of Dr. Salpeter. A number of witnesses have made statements about him. Is it true that Salpeter since 1938 and until 1941 was your superior and that from 1939 to 1941 he was in charge of the destiny of DEST, is that right?
A Yes.
Q Will you please, very briefly, give us the impression which you formed of Salpeter's character and his work during the period of time when you were with him and under him?
A His character, I should like to describe briefly, in its essential features. Dr. Salpeter was considerably older than I was, he was much more experienced in life than I was. In the first two years, Court No. II, Case No. 4.I regarded him, as it were, as my teacher and tutor.
From the beginning of my work for DEST, I was his managerial secretary (Direktionssekratar) as one calls it in German industrial life. As time went on, I was to find out that there were a number of fundamental points where we differed fundamentally. Dr. Salpeter was a trained merchant and also a fully trained legal lawyer expert. This double training of his did not consolidate his character, but rather made him feel uncertain of himself. The result of this was that his aims and decisions were extremely unreliable and elastic. For instance, he would make a decision in the morning and rescind it in the afternoon. That made it very difficult to work with him. His decisions were dictated more by his mind and less by any inner sentiment. That applied particularly to all questions concerned with personnel. His mood varied. He was usually extremely reserved toward his subordinates. He was not very open, in fact, he was reserved, and in many official or business matters not very communicative. He wanted to deal himself with everything. He really was more of a professional expert, and he did not understand how to let his collaborators work according to their talents and qualifications so that the joint achievement would be satisfactory. He would never drop the reigns. In that respect, he was extremely selfish, and he guarded jealously his position. He wanted to be regarded as an idealist, but he was ambitious and tried to explain the measures he took with the National-Socialist ideology as an embellishment.
Q What were Salpeter's aims in life?
AAs far as I could find out, his aim was quite obviously to combine military and economic principles in administrative matters and to have DEST as an enterprise like a government department. This proved to be impossible.
Q Well, that is enough about Salpeter's character, and I would like to ask you -- you married in 1939?
A Yes.
Q And you have two children who are now 4 and 7 years of age?
A Yes, quite so.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q You were married in church and your children were brought up on a Christian basis?
A Yes, quite so.
Q Now, Herr Mummenthey, we shall now talk about your tasks with DEST in '39, between 1939 and the autumn of 1941; that is to say, the period of time when, as the Court has already learnt in this trial, you immediately took your leave in order to go to the front. I should like to ask you what were your duties, first of all, in the legal department of the Administration Office of the SS and later on with Salpeter?
A In the legal department of the Administrative Office of the SS, I worked mainly on giving expert opinion on contracts of all types. I also had to look after other legal matters.
Q Now, as we have heard, Salpeter and a man called Arenz were the founders of DEST in 1938, is that correct?
A Yes, quite.
Q Then he was the sole manager, then Arenz was sole manager until the spring of 1939, is that correct?
A Yes, it is.
Q Now, did DEST in the meantime between '38 and '39 have begun to build or reconstruct certain plants?
A In that period of time, the new construction of Berstaedt and Oranienburg, as well as the reconstruction of Neuengamme, were begun. A number of building films had been entered into for important contracts.
Q But you were still in the legal department of the Administrative Office of the SS. How was it that you went over to DEST, what was the event that made that come about?
A Toward the end of January 1939, Dr. Salpeter gave me the orderpresumably at the suggestion of Pohl-to substitute for Arenz who was on a month's leave; and on that occasion, to look into some of the confused legal matters of DEST.
Q Did you, while Arenz was away on a month's leave, try to gain a general impression of conditions in DEST?
AAs far as that was possible, I did so.