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?
A. No, at no time.
Q. Were any compulsory labor employed in the enterprises?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: He didn't finish his answer. What enterprises are you talking about?
DR. GAWLIK: I am speaking about all the enterprises which were being administered by the Ostdeutsche Baustoffwerke and the main Department III-A-4, which is identical --- all the brick works.
THE WITNESS: No, at no time.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. And your answer also refers and applies to all the brick works of the Ostdeutsche or German Construction Material Company and the main department III-A-4 ?
A. Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, all your 400 plants were not brick works, were they?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: What about any of the plants administered by Office III-A-4, brick works or anything else. Did you use inmates?
THE WITNESS: Yes, in the cement factory at Golleschau, but that was not part of the main department III-A-4 nor did it belong to the Eastern German Construction Material Company, I shall come back to that later on, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
DR. GAWLIK: Your Honor, in order to explain the whole thing may I state the following: In my examination I am going from a chronological point of view. I am now speaking about the main department III-A-4 chronologically and also about the Eastern German Construction Material Company. In order to make this whole complicated material understandable to you, I prefer to proceed in a chronological order.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
Q. What kind of labor was it that you employed in those enterprises of the Eastern German Construction Material Company in the main department III-A-4?
A. Only free workers who had already been working with those enterprises prior to the Polish campaign. Of course, there was a certain change in personnel which change, of course, I could not control in detail, but fundamentally speaking nothing changed. The workers resumed their work after the end of the Polish campaign and that with a pleasure.
Q. Were those workers in any way compelled to resume their work?
A. I can answer in the negative, generally speaking; but, of course, the labor offices which were competent for the entire Reich area did supervise the work as such and the labor allocation as such.
Q. Were those workers ordered to go into any German agency and were they then transferred into barracks under military guard or escort?
A. No, not at all.
Q. Where were those workers living ?
A. The workers lived with their families in their own homes and, as far as I knew, I believe they lived in exactly the same homes where they were living prior to the Polish campaign. Of course it is possible that in individual cases workers were possibly moved away by the police not on my initiative to provide billets for other people, but principally speaking, the workers did remain in their homes and, in any case, with their families.
Q. Did the workers have a right to complain?
A. Yes, indeed. They had that according to the regulation of the enterprise and they also had the right to hold certain claims against the German Labor Front.
Q. Were working hours for those workers limited?
A. Yes, The working time had been fixed by the trusteeship for the workers. That was a Reichs agency which would fix the working conditions in the individual countries as far as working was concerned.
Q. Did the managers of the individual enterprises have the right to punish the workers or reprimand the workers, rather?
A. No. I believe by that you meant a right to punish them physically. I believe "flogging" was the word. No, they didn't have that right.
Q. Were the workers forbidden to follow their religion?
A. No.
BY THE PRESIDENT: Were the workers permitted to go to church?
THE WITNESS: Yes, indeed. As far as I was concerned, there were no misgivings whatever about that, nor did I issue regulations against it. Whatever the workers did outside of their work I was not interested in.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. I shall show you document NO-4341, Exhibit No. 622. Were you informed of this letter of the Reich Labor Ministery?
A. No, I was not informed of this letter due to two reasons : firstly, that letter is dated the 14 of March, 1941. That was the time when I was on sick leave; and, secondly, the agency of the main department III-A-4 was already in Posen at the time. So that even my former agency - after all I was no longer in charge of that -would not have gained any knowledge of this letter; and, finally, we were not at all interested in all this, because we did have enough labor in the Warthebau at the time; but according to my opinion it is absolutely stated here that excessive numbers of workers were to be brought from the Warthegau into the Reich.
Is that sufficient for you, Mr. Defense Counsel?
Q. Yes. What do you know about the working conditions in the enterprises of the Eastern German Construction Material Company or the main department III-A-4?
A. Of course, I did visit a large number of factories in the course of all those years and it is quite natural that I visited the larger enterprises much more often than I visited the small ones. The working conditions in those plants, generally speaking , were exactly the same as they applied normally to the brick industry.
It is a know fact that the brick industry, I believe in the entire world, is absolutely backward seen from a technical point of view. The reason for that is not to be found in the fact that the technique in manufacturing the bricks is sort of backward but, rather, to the fact that a brick industry is something that is extremely difficult, regarding it from an economic point of view.
This branch is not very agreeable to large capital investments and perhaps that is the reason why, in Poland which did not have too much capital, the plants were not very backward, in the technical sense but they had already lost quite a bit of their machines. I looked upon it as my duty, and I also acted accordingly , to bring those plants into a condition which would enable them to come up to the same level as the German brick industry --- not only come up to the same level but even exceed that level; and, of course, those technical improvements were of considerable advantage to the working conditions of the workers.
I do not know if you want me to go into detail and to describe the whole thing more in detail.
Q. No, thank you; that is fine.
A. I am very sorry that my photographic album, which I had and which contained hundreds of pictures, was lost during the war, because those pictures would describe to you much more clearly how things had changed under the management of the general trusteeship company much better than any words.
Q. How did the payment of the workers take place?
A. The payment of the workers took place in cash, according to the official wage scales which prevailed for all industry workers within that area. Shall I continue, Mr. Defense Counsel?
Q. Thank you, no. Do take a look at your affidavit, which is Document NO-1566, Exhibit No. 19 in Document Book No. 1. In this document you stated that the Polish workers had to pay a socalled Polish tax. Is that correct ?
A. Yes. This so-called Polish tax had been introduced by the Reichs Finance Minister probably because he was of the opinion --I believe that was the reason stated at the time --- that the social level which, prior to German occupation, was very low, must not be assimilated to the German level so quickly. I am not quite sure if that was the reason but that was what was being said at the time.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: How much did the tax amount to?
THE WITNESS: 20 percent of the net wages.
JUDGES PHILLIPS: And what was the minimum wage for a Polish worker?
THE WITNESS: That I couldn't tell you in figures, Mr. Federal Judge. I simply can't remember those figures, but in any case I would like to point out the efforts made by the enterprise managers how they finally succeeded in getting a change in the whole thing.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: I just wanted to know if you knew what the minimum wage was so we could have some idea of the compilation of 20 percent of it. That is all. If you don't know, why, you can't help us out any.
THE WITNESS: I would think that the lowest wage could have been about 50 pfennigs per hour.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q. Could you stop the deduction of this so-called Polish tax in any way? 5852
A. No, I couldn't. That was a tax which applied to all the enterprises which employed Polish workers.
In any case I did, if I may state so in this connection, try to have this Polish tax eliminated and I tried that together with other business managers. This Polish tax was quite an amount in our accounting. There were a lot of disturbances in the enterprises. That was the reason why we endeavored to possibly have those Polish taxes stopped or even at least kept down in applying to the Reichsstatthalter of Poland. As far as I can recall we finally succeeded in having this Polish tax eliminated for the lowest wage scales. In any case a cut was carried out so that a strong social help took place.
Q What would have happened if you had refused to deduct this Polish tax, witness?
A I would have been punished for not declaring it or rather I would probably have been punished for not paying the tax and I probably would have been personally liable for the amount of taxes that had not been paid. It probably would have amounted to sums which I could not possible have provided myself.
Q Witness, you told me that the wages of the Polish workers corresponded to that of the German workers in the old Reich territory, is that correct?
A I do not believe you can express it that way, Mr. Defense Counsel. In the entire Reich area, that is to say in the new German eastern territories, we had so-called wage areas, that is to say, in each wage area the trustee of the area would fix the wages of the inmates depending on the total cost of living, and, of course, it is clear that in the industrial circles in the cities the wages were higher than in the rural districts. As for instance, the wages of workers who were working in the brick factories of Posen were higher than those in the Rhineland, in that area.
Q But generally they were the same as those of the German workers in the Reich area?
A Yes, undoubtedly they were approximately the same.
Q How was it with the purchasing power of the money, witness, in the occupied Eastern territories?
A The purchasing power of the money, of course, was higher than that of the old Reich territory, particularly with reference to food stuff.
Q What were the reasons for that?
A Those areas are largely agricultural ones and the transportation of agricultural products was not very expensive, and there also there was a direct contact from the manufacturer and from the producer to the consumer.
Q Were the wages in spite of the Polish tax sufficient to take care of the workers for whatever they wanted to buy?
A Yes, indeed, you can actually say that.
Q How did you, witness, improve the living conditions of the Polish workers or employees?
AAs the man in charge of the enterprise I was very, very interested in having a group of men who were gladly working for me, for only a worker who is satisfied, works satisfactorily. The conditions during the war, of course, were not very happy ones everywhere in Germany and the enterprise manage is tried in every way, and I was not an exception in that, to possibly eliminate or build bridges across the war economic conditions which prevailed at the time for their workers. The main worry, of course, was provision of food. That was the reason why I considered it one of the most important tasks to establish works-kitchens there. I got many agricultural products for those kitchens where the farms were in connection with the brick works and the workers received currently a warm meal at noon, which was quite cheap. I believe it cost ten pfennigs per day and we hardly collected any food coupons for that. I, furthermore, saw to it that rabbit breeding farms were installed in those enterprises. That was very interesting because that was the only kind of meat that was not rationed at the time. We then slaughtered thousands of those rabbits and turned them into the kitchens in those plants and sometimes we gave those rabbits to the workers to take home.
I believe, I, furthermore, saw to it that the workers were receiving the heavy, and most heavy workers rations, and the long workers' rations, and I did that upon my own responsibility. As far as granting additional food amounts was concerned there were special regulations concerning that and I tried to apply those regulations in a broad sense, and not a narrow sense, and I believe I can state I was quite broad minded while applying those regulations for the additional food. The procurement of the textile and the leather goods was also one of our main worries. Those things were naturally taken care of by the city economic office or by the rural economic offices by coupons, but, of course; it was more or less to be expected that the applications submitted by the Poles were not dealt with very favorably. That is the reason why in urgent cases I very frequently gave the economic office under those circumstances would have refused such application. Finally, I saw to it that there were several wagons of working clothes sent to these Poles, that is to say, over-alls, in order to help the workers preserve their own clothes, furthermore, working shoes and rubber boots for the workers in the pits and similar things. Generally speaking I can say that the working conditions of the Polish workers who, of course, were not spoiled in their own homes, in spite of the difficulties during the war, did not become any worse off, but generally speaking they even improved their conditions. As far as the technical things are concerned, do you want me to continue about that?
Q I believe we will come back to that. Did you have anything to do with the deportation of the Poles into the old Reich and did you participate in the re-settlement of the Poles?
A May I say one thing about the question you just asked, please?
Q Yes.
A I stated before that the question of wages had been fixed for both Poles and Germans according to the tariffs. In other words, there were official regulations I had to comply with.
In order to detour those regulations I for instance purchased the monthly street car tickets for my worders in Posen, which, of course, would have cost them quite a percentage of their wages, in order to enable them thus to have a certain amount of money which would be tax free. As far as the other question is concerned which you asked me, Mr. Defense Counsel, of course, I did not participate in such deportations, apart from the humane point of view that would have also been against the interest of the enterprise which I was in charge of. I was satisfied if I could keep my staff together and on the contrary the deportation of one of my worders had resulted into GG, which meant re-settlement, or if a worker had been conscripted into the Reich, I protested against it quite emphatically, and I was also successful in protesting.