Nevertheless, there were a number of fundamental differences. As far as III-A/1 was concerned, we had plants which belonged to the enterprises. They owned them. In the case of III--A/4 it was on a trusteeship basis. A second difference was that in the case of many of the plants of III-A/1 inmates were used which did not apply to the plants of the Eastern Construction Material Works at any time.
Q. Did III-A/4 have any joint tasks with the other offices of the Main Office Economy and Administration?
A. No.
Q. Did III-A/4 have any tasks which were different from those of the other offices and the Main Department?
A. Yes, that becomes clear from what I have testified to so far.
Q. How long did III-A/4 exist?
A. Until 31 May 1941.
Q. What happened then?
A. Effective the first of June 1941 or perhaps a few days later, Main Department III-A/4 was taken out of Office 111-A. It was assigned to Staff W as a Main Department, but that was purely a temporary solution from an organizational point of view which becomes clear from Document NO-1299, which is Exhibit 35, in volume 2 on page 67 of the German text.
Q. Were there any changes in the activities and tasks of III-A/4 after that?
A. Fundamentally speaking there were no changes, but the department was extended in order to have the few fundamental tasks which up to then had been taken care of by Dr. Salpeter as Chief of Office III-A.
Q. How long did the Main Department remain with Staff O?
A. Until the autumn of 1941.
Q. What happened then?
A. At that period of time, about September or the beginning of October, the whole economic side of the Main Department Economy and Administration was broken down into 8 categories.
Each of these 8 categories was given the designation W Offices. From the Main Department Staff O, there grew W-II.
Q. When was the WVHA established?
A. In February of 1942.
Q. What organizational changes did the establishment of the WVHA entail as far as W-II was concerned?
A. No changes at all. Its tasks remained the same and the organizational designations remained the same also.
Q. Approximately what was the number of enterprises under the direction of W-II when the WVHA was founded?
A. About 400.
Q. When did you become an Office Chief, Amtschef?
A. In the autumn of 1941.
Q. Please look at Document NO-1561, which is Exhibit 19. This is your affidavit of 16 January 1947.
THE PRESIDENT: You asked how big W-II was when it was incorporated into WVHA, and he gave the figure of 400. Does that mean there were 400 different enterprises or people or what?
A. 400 plants, Mr. President, about 400 plants. The figure may be slightly too high. Perhaps there might have been only 380.
Q And what type of works were they?
A They were brick works and other works of the stone and earth industry.
Q I have the document; it is your affidavit of 16 January, 1947, in Document Book I, Book I, page 118. In that affidavit you have said this: " I became Office Chief of W-2 when the W-offices were newly established on 28 June, 1942." What comments have you to make about that?
A The date when I was appointed office chief I didn't remember very precisely. When I was appointed office chief, this was not quite so significant to my work and position as one might be tempted to think. As far as my legal position or the way I worked were concerned, not the slightest change occured. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the date was not quite correct and I, therefore asked the interrogator to show me the document from which the date could become clear. My documents were requested, and they were brought along, but that particular document happened to be missing. It was once again confirmed to me that a document existed with the precise date, and I had no misgivings, therefore, to leave the date as it was without checking up on it on the basis of the document whether or not the date was correct.
As a matter of fact, as I have now seen from the documents submitted by the Prosecution, the date is now much clearer and correct: This is Document No-1004, Exhibit 445, in Volume 16 on page 78, dated 15 August, 1941; and I still signed that as Main Department Chief.
Document NO-1013, Exhibit 447, on page 81 of Document Book 16, as of the date of 14 October, 1941, and this is the first document submitted here which I have signed as an Amtschef, Office Chief. From there I may conclude that the appointment occured between the 15th of August and the 15th of October, 1941. At that time, by the way, I did not think that the designation "Office Chief" or the date of the appointment would ever become so important in the course of this trial, of course.
Q When you became an office chief, were you informed about all important matters in the WVHA by circulars?
A No; every office group was a separate unit, and there were very rare points of contact.
Q As an office chief were you informed about all important matters of Office Group W by circulars.
A No, that was not done either. The various W-offices worked on different fields, and that automatically, led to the various offices working independently, to a large extent, at least as far as interoffice-relations were concerned.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Witness, I am a little confused by these dates. The WVHA was organized in February 1942, is that right?
A Yes.
Q And yet you say you were appointed Office Chief of Amt W-2 between August and October 1941?
A Yes, Mr. President. The designation was not coined when the WVHA was newly organized. It was done quite independently of that, and the whole group W was taken over as it was founded in the autumn of 1941 by the WVHA.
Q There were W offices before WVHA was organized?
A Yes, quite; the designation existed previously.
Q I understand.
WITNESS: May I continue with answering you question?
BY DR. GAWLIK: Counsel for defendants Volk and Boberlin:)
Q Yes, continue.
A I have said before that the various fields on which the W offices worked quite logically led to a separation of interests. Furthermore, our offices were separated geographically, and as early as October, 1941, I had transferred my offices to Posen.
The documents also show that seemingly common interests such as allocation of inmate labor was communicated as a rule to only those offices which were interested immediately and vitally in the allocation of inmate labor. For instance, the order that people must work for eleven hours, which is contained in Document NO-1290, in Volume 14, on page 46, was not communicated even for informative purposes, although at that time inmates were working in Golleschau. Certain connections existed between the W offices by what we called the DWB interests.
Here we had a magazine which was published at irregular intervals which dealt exclusively with accounting and taxation matters. I do not remember that any other matter was contained in this DWB publication.
Q What rights did you have as an office chief?
AAs an office chief I had no rights whatsoever. I was simply allowed to have the title. We discussed that point quite frequently in this court. I must say that it was never clear before --- and it certainly has not been cleared up here. Therefore, I can only speak as far as my own sphere was concerned. The only right -- if I can call it a right -- connected with my appointment ans an office chief was the fact that I could, without any intermediary, go and report to Pohl directly. As far as I am concerned, I am inclined to compare the designation "Office Chief" to that of a counsel; that is to say, the man who works in the economic field but who, for official reasons, has been given this honorary title in order to be able to place him at the right place at a banquet, for instance.
Q When were the Eastern German Construction Material factories established?
A Those plants were established at the beginning of 1941.
Q In other words, that was at a period of time before Main Department III-A-4 had been changed into Staff O, is that correct?
A Yes, that is quite correct.
Q What was the reason why those plants were established?
A I had proven itself impossible to work economically under these long-winded routine designations. In addition to that, when we had negotiations with Dr. Winkler, with the HTO, he had recommended to have the tasks taken care of by a company of the German Reich in order to thereby have the financing of the plants taken care of in a better manner. That was the reason why the company was founded. I was at that time not on duty when this establishment was carried out, but, of course, I insisted before that these things should be given a correct form under commercial law.
Q What was the purpose and what were the tasks of the Eastern German Construction Material factories?
A Those factories had the task, by order of the Custodian General, to operate and to extend the brick works. That is part of the contract, and I pointed out at the time that we must have a written order by the Custodian General to the company. If I may make a brief statement about the nature of that order, I would say that it was a task for the national economy in order to have certain areas supplied with building material and other items. The company did not have the aim -- or at least not the purpose -- to administer enemy property. It did so in certain cases, but it was not its task. It was not the essence of its existence. Its assignment was of a purely economic nature. This becomes evident from Document N0-1008, which is Exhibit 444, in Volume 16, on page 70 of the German version. In that letter of Pohl's to Himmler which I had drafted at a time after a conference with Pohl, it is stated expressly that those brick works with German nationals or citizens of the Reich interested up to 73 percent were made part of the seizure and put under a commissioner.
The purpose therefore was to have as many trick works as possible run properly in order to have as much construction material available as possible. One must bear in mind here that the construction material industry is a key industry and that much depends on it. Many branches of economy rely on it and thousands of people exist by them. One should also bear in mind that in those areas damage caused by war had to be made good and I should finally like to point out that the areas in some cases were agricultural ones which by improving the drainage system were to produce more. Therefore, the production of drainage pipes was an important item of my duties.
Q: What form was given to the company behind the Eastern German Construction Material Factories?
A: It was a company with limited liability, a G.m.b.H.
Q: Were the Eastern German Material Factories an SS company?
A: No.
Q: Can you explain that a little more?
A: As I see it, a company can only be regarded as an SS company if the capital belongs to the SS or if exclusively and overwhelmingly SS members worked there or if the profits were being given to the SS. None of these things applies to the Eastern German Construction Material Works. The capital was with the Reich, with the HTO on a trusteeship basis. Only a negligible number of SS men worked there and the profits were not given to the SS but remained with the organization.
Q: Did the Eastern German Construction Material Works have the task to supply the SS with construction material?
A: No, this plant simply supplied the general market and sold its products to anybody who needed them and who had permision by the departments to buy construction material.
Q: Does the same apply also to the other construction material works which you administered later on.
A: Yes, those organizations again only supplied the market in general and worked according to the same principles, as far as the people were concerned.
Q: Who were the partners of the Eastern German Construction Material Factories?
A: Although I was not present, I can only assume this must have been the DWB on the one hand and Herr Pohl as an individual on the other. Herr Pohl then gave his shares to the DWB with the result that for a certain period of time the DWB was the sole partner at 100%, but the shares later on -- I believe in 1943 -- were handed over to the German Reich.
Q: How large were the investments?
A: Do you mean the actual capital? The actual capital amounted to 20,000 Reichsmarks, which is the smallest sum allowed by law in order to establish a G.m.b.H. That money -- I would like to say right away -- was not touched upon at all when the factory was later on developed and when sales and purchases were carried out. The capital came, as I shall explain later on, from different sources and was considerably larger so that sum played no part at all.
Q : What was the difference between the tasks of the Eastern German Construction Material Works and the Main Department III-A/4?
A: There were no differences at all; both designations are simply two designations for one and the same task.
Q: Why, after the establishment of the Eastern German Construction Material Works, did III-A/4 continue to exist?
A: For no reason at all. Main Department III-A/4 is simply a designation for the same thing. That is to say an organizational designation for internal relations with Herr Pohl. As far as the outside was concerned, this did not appear on the scene, and we only talked about it as the Eastern German Construction Material Works. That also applied to the internal relations within my own Main Department.
Q: What organization had been established in order to have these many brick works administered?
A: The brick works in one district or in various districts were organized into what we called a work group. Several working groups made up a working center.
Q: How many such centers and groups existed within the Eastern German Building Material Factories?
A: The figure varied. During the war there were a number of reorganizations, in some cases because we were short of personnel and in others because certain plants had to be closed down. At the beginning of the war, that is to say, when the trusteeship agency was established we had about 50 working groups and 5 centers. Later on, for the first time in the autumn of 1940, three centers of the Warthegau were organized into one center with the result that of 5 centers only 3 remained, and these groups were also later on centralized with the result that we had about 30 in the end.
Q: Please look at Document NO-1045, which is Exhibit 23 in Document Book II on page 26 of the English Document Book. Is this document correct in the way it gives the organization of III-A/4, the various centers and so on?
A: Yes, this is how the organization was when the Main Department was established early in 1940 and that state of affairs applied until the autumn of the same year. After that the centers in Litzmannstadt, Kalisch, and Posen were united into one center, Posen, and that, in its turn, was united with the main administration and all that was managed in Kalisch and was what we called a technical office.
Q: What were the tasks of the centers and the groups?
A: The groups had the task of operating the factories, that is to say, special practical tasks which would result from the management of the plant. At the same time the groups were in charge of accounting for the various factories as the central agency. I should like to add here and now at that/all times we had separate accounts for each factory maintained that so that it enabled us at any time to change whatever was a necessary. For instance, to have one plant, which was given up by the trusteeship agency draw up its final balance sheet and transfer the capital somewhere else. Did you also ask me about the centers?
Q: Yes.
A: The centers supervised the groups. They requested the money from the Main Administration which they required to pay the workers. They also sold the products; they supervised the accounting an bookkeeping. They were the important people when we contacted Government departments and they were the link between the groups, the factories, and the main administration.
Q: Who was in charge of the individual factory?
A: That depended on how big it was. A large factory was directed by a works manager, and in a small factory we had what we called the Werkmeister or foreman.
Q: What were the tasks left to the management of the Eastern German Construction Material Works?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A You can only understand that if you know how the German war economy was organized. Apart from the problems of the German War economy negotiations had to be carried out with Reich agencies, with the Reich Minister of Finance and the Reich Trusteeship Agency in order to get sufficient funds for the plants. These funds had to be passed on to the centers by request and with the various safeguards and supervision. Then the Main Administration as far as the requesting parties were concerned, namely, the economic groups of the national economy, also had to apply to the various agencies and departments for the contingents of timber and iron. That was a highly difficult task because at that time we did not get a single nail unless we had the proper voucher for it. Later on there was a further complication because in order to obtain a machine, for instance, we did not only have to have the vouchers for the material but we also had to have permission for production. And, that, of course, claimed much time and energy of the Main Administration. Then the Main Administration was also in charge of the technical supervision of the factories. Any plans for extension were drafted by them and the work itself was supervised, the accounting of the centers and groups was audited, statistics about production were drawn up and balance sheets were checked up on and later on compiled into one balance sheet. Those, generally speaking, were the tasks of the Main Administration, I think.
Q Was the manager of the Eastern German Building Material factories in the position to know all about the details of the management in the various brick factories?
A No. He could not supervise them, of course. If you bear in mind that in the scope of that enterprise I had to administer three hundred factories and we only worked 300 days a year, I would have had to visit a different factory each day of the year without doing anything about the central tasks which I have just indicated to you. After all, I regarded it as my main task to cover all those difficulties which resulted from the war economy and raw material problems especially with re Court No. II, Case No. 4.gard to coal which we needed to a large extent, to eliminate them and overcome the transportation difficulties in order to actually receive the supplies.
Consequently, I was not in a position to visit the works too often and I only made spot checks. Not only for reason of saving money but also because I wanted to save human material I tried to keep my main administration on as small a scale as possible and, therefore, I could carry out my task with five or six leading men under me.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q When you said you were concerned about saving human material I presume, from the rest of your answer, you mean those working directly with you. You wanted to have as small a force as possible?
A Yes.
Q Weren't you concerned about human material working in the factories themselves? Wasn't it important to inspect to see whether working conditions were reasonably good?
A Yes, that also was very important. I received reports from the groups and I convinced myself that the conditions were good and I can say with the best conscience that conditions were not only good but improved compared to the beginning. This was confirmed to me by the managers and most of them employed Polish citizens.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q Were the managers members of the SS?
A Most of them were not. I only had a very few managers who were SS members but then I did not employ them because they were SS members but because they were trained experts.
Q Give us the names of the managers who were not members of the SS?
A I could give you a large list of them. Perhaps it would be more practical if I gave you, as far as I remember, those who were members of the SS. But, in order to answer your question there was Herr Kropf who was in charge of an important factory and who was not an SS man, then Bantan, an engineer, who was later called up for service in Court No. II, Case No. 4.the Wehrmacht.
Weber, was an engineer and was a Czech national. VogtReetz was not in the Party nor the SS. The same applied to Mainberg and Bodermann. I don't know if that is enough for you.
Q I shall now talk about the details of your work after having covered the large outlines of your organization. When did you join Main Department III A/4?
A. On 2 January 1940.
Q What did you do at first in the Main Department III A/4?
A What I did at first was to establish the commercial administration for the Main Trusteeship Agency. To name a few individual tasks to you - we had to have lists and forms in order to have a list of the inventory of all the plants in the same manner. We had to organize everything for bookkeeping and accounting. The statistical department had to be set up. Also the negotiations about money had to be carried out. Here I did not take a leading part but I attended these negotiations and also, for this was very important, we had to have liaison between factories and the economic organizations, the economic groups which gave us our supply of iron and timber. All decrees and regulations of the war economy, taxation matters, special legal regulations had to be communicated to the centers so they would pay attention to them. I think that is about what I did there.
Q Were you from the beginning an independent man or were you tied to orders?
A I was tied to somebody's orders. After all, I was only the collaborator of Dr. Salpeter in Office III A. I was not allowed at that time, for instance, to issue circulars to centers and sign them myself. I could only do that when Salpeter was absent. There were times when I would have to issue circulars but he didn't like it if a general directive was not signed by him.
Q Did you work in any other office of Office III?
A No.
Q In what Main Department only did you work?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Only in Main Department III A/4.
Q Please look at Document NO-1045 which is Exhibit 23 in Book II on page 26 of the English text. According to that document you were appointed second deputy of Salpeter? Does that document not contradict your testimony, namely, that your activity was concerned only with III A/4, namely the Trusteeship Administration?
A No, this document bears me out. The organizational chart only showed one deputy for each office chief. The fact that Office A III was at that time given a task which was not connected with the other tasks of the office made it necessary to have a second deputy appointed for this special field of tasks. Salpeter did that and explained that to me and I believe also to Herr Mummenthey, who I believe was with me at the time.
Q The Prosecution on page 89 of the German transcript have said this - "Bobermin as early as May 1940 took over the management of the Stone industry in the East", is that correct?
A No. At that time I was the expert and in charge of the administration in Berlin. Incidentally, we are not concerned here with stone industries but brick industries. Stone quarries did not exist within the whole scope of my duties and were not important, although one firm of mine had a stone quarry but it never worked. It was taken over when it had been closed down and was never opened up again.
Q Where was the office of the III A/4 situated?
A The office first of all was in Berlin and later on, on the 1st October 1940, it was transferred to Posen on my insistence.
Q Please tell the court the distance between Berlin and Posen approximately?
A I think about 250 kilometers.
THE PRESIDENT: What office was transferred to Posen, just III A/4?
A Yes, only III A/4, not office III A, only office III A/4.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q Why was the office transferred?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A I and Dr. Salpeter, shortly after I joined, had certain differences of opinion as far as the organizational matters and the conduct of business were concerned. Dr. Salpeter, for instance, intended to have a far-reaching organizational liaison between Main Departments, 111 4/1 and III A/4. For instance, it was his intention, and he actually translated it into action for a certain period of time, that both main departments had one technical head which was Herr Schondorff. That was eliminated very quickly because for technical purposes not one man could work on these two fields of tasks which varied so greatly. Then Dr. Salpeter tried to have iron and timber contingents to which I have referred before and which were destined for a certain purpose - connected with each other and he wanted to give them to whatever place he thought was most in need of them. He further issued an order that if any collaboration between the two purchasing departments should take place, he wanted to be told about every individual purchase after it had been effected, in order to decide where the purchased goods were to be sent.
This must again be understood because of our War Economy, because at that time every rail railroad track, every push rack was a highly valuable item and you had to be extremely clever in procuring them at all, in order to solve this conflict I told Pohl at that time that it was a necessity to have tho department III A/4 transferred to Posen, so that we would be separated in space from Office III/A.
Q.- How was it possible that the transfer was carried out at all?
A.- It became possible, because the tasks and duties of III A/4 were completely independent. From the very beginning I also organized the main administration of the General Trustee ship agency in a way that it should become a completely independent unit, which could work indepently. No liaison to the other offices existed, and therefore our work was never interferred with. Neither in the Case of III A/4 nor in the case of the General Trusteeship Agency did the work suffer from any interference by the Office III A.
Q.- What ever became of Obersturmfuehrer Opperbeck? I find his name on the organizational chart?
A.- If Your Honors, please, I don't think we have discussed that yet. I can explain.
THE PRESIDENT: Were you going to speak about it later?
A.- I wanted to speak about it for certain.
Q.- Please continue.
A.- I believe I have now stressed sufficiently how independent our sphere of tasks was. It is my opinion that if these tasks had been assigned to somebody else, let's say an expert in an industrial enterprise, or some other department, no liaison would ever have existed between the Main Office Economy or administration. I would have done exactly the same and I don't believe I would now be sitting on this dock.
Q.- How long were you with Main Department III A/4?
A.- Until the end of 1940.
Q.- What interrupted your activities?
A.- I said briefly before that there were differences between Salpeter and myself in factual matters. Those differences lead to the transfer which I had been able to effect. Salpeter, of course, disapproved of this, and by the beginning of 1941 he managed that I would be relieved of my leadership of the department III A/4. He did not comply with my wish to be assigned to a different sphere of tasks now or at least to be dismissed. He said that I had to work on the final balance sheet for 1940 and then we would see. I did that, I must say, in a very negligent manner which should be plausible from the psychological point of view, until the end of February 1941, and then on the basis of a medical certificate I was given 8 weeks sick leave because of my heart trouble.
Q.- Who took charge of the department after you left?
A.- Obersturmfuehrer Opperbeck was the one who was in charge after I had left. That is why his name appears on the organizational chart which apparently was drawn up during that period of time.
Q.- When did you resume your work with the Main Department III 4/A?
A.- After Easter 1941.
Q.- Did you resume your work voluntarily?
A.- No, I received an order from Salpeter to report to him after the Easter holidays.
Q.- On what was his order based?
A.- On the fact that I was still a member of the Waffen SS and Dr. Salpeter was my superior officer. I told him at that time that I did not wish to return to my sphere of tasks after all these incidents, and that I had no intention to have Obersturmfuehrer Opperbeck relieved simply because someone was in a bad temper, and I would like him to have Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl give me a different task within the sphere of the group, but he turned me down.
Q.- It was within an order of your Military Superior?
A.- Quite.
Q.- What would have happened if you had not complied with the order?
A.- I would have been courtmarshalled and sentenced.
THE PRESIDENT: We will now take the recess, Dr. Gawlik.
(Thereupon a recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please. The Tribunal is again in sessions.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. The Prosecution stated that all three main offices of the Main Office for Economy and Administration were in close connection with each other and with the concentration camps. I would like to ask you, therefore, witness, did the main Department III-A-4 actually have a close contact with Offices 1 and 2?
A. No. There was no contact whatsoever.
Q. Did the main Department III-A-4 have any contact with the concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Who was administering the concentration camps during the existence of the main Department III-A-4?
A. That was unknown to me at the time in detail because that was entirely outside of my field of task and of my competency. Today I do know that it was the inspector of the concentration camps which, at the beginning, was under, Eicke, later on under Gluecks.
Q. During your activity with main Department III-A-4 were, at any time, concentration camp matters dealt with by that department?
A. No.
Q. The Prosecution furthermore stated that Office III was supervising the individual plants where inmates were being employed as labor. Is that correct? And does that apply also to main Department III-A-4?
A. No; this does not apply to main Department III-A-4. I believe I have told you that the task of Office III-A-4 was absolutely outside of the other tasks of Office III-A-4 and that this separation exactly was the reason why I became second deputy for Salpeter.
Q. In the brick works, which were administered by main Department III-A-4, were any inmates employed there?