He had to observe the regulations of the Trustee General also when there was an order to extend the factory. For his work or for the fact that the work existed at all he received his compensation, in that he was paid as though he was a paid employee and works manager. This payment was given him independent of the fact whether or not there were any profits. If there had been any profits over and above that payment, that profit would have remained with the assets of the works.
The third case which occurred was that the owner, although he was not present, he, as an individual had fled the country, the family was still living there. In those cases the HTO had given me permission to pay other members of the family a certain sum for their support, but only if and when the works made a profit; but I also made such payments, even if there were not profits at first. I believed I could answer for that action because the transitional period from one economy to the other, indubitably raised difficulties, particularly in the field of prick economy, and I did not wish that the family suffer from conditions of which they were innocent. Of course, these payments were made within certain limits. I believe this is the answer to your question.
Q. I shall now talk about the next set of problems, the Central Works of Bialystock. Did you administer that Central Administration?
A. No, I did not administer that Center. I was merely a technical expert supervisor.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the name of it?
INTERPRETER KURTZ: Bialystock, (spelling), B-i-a-l-y-st-o-c-k.
BY DR. GAWLICK:
Q. Who was in charge of the administration of that Central Works?
A. The manager of the Central Works.
Q. What was the difference between administration and supervision?
A. The administration of the Central Works and Bialystock, in commercial and technical aspects, was independent. I had the right to supervise them, of which I availed myself, of course, in order to prevent the wrong technical arrangements being made or that by negligence work would be handicapped.
THE PRESIDENT: Where was this located, in Poland?
A Bialystock is at a distance of about 200 kilometers northeast of Warsaw. That area was formerly Polish, and by the end of 1939 it was taken over by the Russians, and then when the Russian campaign started, it was reoccupied by German troops.
THE PRESIDENT: It started out Polish, it then was Russian, and then was German, and then was Russian again?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes, exactly. May I perhaps inform the Court of the fact that Poland, in 1939, was divided between Russia and Germany. The eastern part fell to Russia and the western part to Germany. That was laid down in the RussoGerman Pact of Friendship which we have mentioned before. Bialystock was in the area which in 1939 fell to Russia.
THE PRESIDENT: What was Mr. Bobermin doing administering a plant that went to Russia, or was that after Germany took it back?
DR. GAWLIK: It had been Russian until 1941 only, and when in 1941 the Germans occupied that area, Dr. Bobermin took over the supervision of that factory.
THE WITNESS: May I say something about the legal and political background of that area?
THE PRESIDENT: That would be 1941?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes, your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: And what kind of a plant was it, what did they manufacture or make?
A.- They were brick works, tiles, and potteries. May I say something about the legal and political background of this area, your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
A.- I do not wish to create the impression that area had been made part of the German Reich territory after the opening of the Russian campaign. That area was regarded as a special district, that is as occupied country. It was not made part of the government general, even. It was regarded simply as the Bialystock District which was under a Chief of the Civilian Administration, but it was not part of the Government General. The final solution was postponed until the end of the Russo-German War; and the basis of the Russo-German Treaty of Friendship was still regarded as the basis of the solution of the whole problem.
THE PRESIDENT: But you had to wait to see who held it last?
A.- Certainly, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: You could hardly settle its status until you found out who held it at the end of the war.
A.- Exactly, quite so.
THE PRESIDENT: Quite sensible.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q.- What happened to the Brick Works which were later coordinated to the Bialystock Central Works and which belonged to Polish citizens, after the occupation of that area by the Russians?
A.- Those Brick Works were disappropriated by the Russian State. They were declared to be state owned, and were put under the administration of the Stone and Earth Trust which is the official economic administration.
THE PRESIDENT: We are a little confused by the word "disappropriated". I don't think it is an accurate word. It means confiscated?
DR. GAWLIK: In this case, it is correct. The Russians confiscated those enterprises.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q.- What was the legal status after that area was occupied by Germany in 1941?
A.- The Works continued to belong to the Russian State.
Q.- What measures were taken by the German administration?
A.- The German administration, represented by the chief of the Civilian Administration, appointed trustees for all these enterprises. The exception again was made by the Construction Material factories. There a trustee general was appointed who administered all those enterprises with the exception of a concrete factory. That one had an individual trustee.
Q.- Who was the Trustee General?
A.- Herr Pohl.
Q.- What measures were taken by Pohl?
A.- Herr Pohl had a new central works formed, appointed a manager, and this man was put under my administrative and technical supervision.
Q.- Were the Brick Works, which were coordinated to the Bialystock center, looted?
A.- No, Those Works again were run with the care typical of a commercial expert. They were repaired, extended in some cases, and that, of course, could not be done on a scale which applied to the Eastern German Building Material factories, because meanwhile we had reached the end of 1941 and material had become considerably more scarce. In any case those factories were kept in a good condition and operated economically. Nothing was taken away from that factory to transfer it to another area. On the contrary, considerable quantities of material were taken there in order to improve the factory conditions.
Q.- Were forced labor or inmates used in those factories?
A.- No. Here again voluntary workers were employed who in most cases had worked there under the Polish system and during the Russian period.
Q.- What happened to the profits?
A.- The profits remained with the works.
Q.- Please take up Document NO-1021, which is Exhibit 448. It is in Document Book 16, on page 82. Did Office W-II run the Russian enterprises which are mentioned here in this report?
A.- No. W-II never operated factories in the old Russian territory.
Q.- Did you operate the Russian factories which are mentioned here, you yourself?
A.- Do you mean outside the task of W-II? No.
Q.- We are concerned here with the letter, I mean, only with a suggestion on your part which was not carried out as far as Office Group W was concerned?
A.- Quite. It was purely a suggestion caused by a questionnaire, it seems to me. Otherwise, I could hardly explain the fact that I am going into various points in detail.
Q.- What measures did you intend to take which were then not carried out by you, Office Group W, or Office W-II?
A.- One can only understand these suggestions if one knows anything about Russian Economy.
I only interested myself with these things theoretically, but especially after the beginning of the Russian campaign, I received reports about the situation in the industries there. Russia does not know private property in the commercial sector. Now, after the German front had penetrated deeply into Russia, the various commercial enterprises were without leaders. The reason for that was that the Russian factories were administered centrally by the Trusts in Moscow. Once connections were disrupted from their central agency, and after a large number of the leaders had been taken by the Russians, with them to the Hinterland, the factories were closed down and could be operated. For that reason, and that becomes also clear from other documents submitted here, a correspondence between Goering and Himmler which unless I am very much mistaken was not connected at all with the WVHA.
And this correspondence formed the basis, and there is one letter from Goering to Himmler among the documents for this questionnaire which I am here to answer and fill in. In the whole of my letter I have not mentioned one word of confiscation because the word would be completely out of place here because here we were not concerned with private property; nor have I spoken about seizure -- only of administration, or taking over, or operating, or looking after.
That was the tenor of my letter, and I can't say in how much these suggestions were ever realized. All I know is that, for instance, in the Ukraine the construction material factories were taken over by the Reich Commissioner himself, who operated them, and an expertly trained SS officer was assigned to him. But he did not work together with my office. That is all I can say about this document.
THE PRESIDENT: The former Russian territories mentioned in Exhibit 446, the document you were just talking about -this does not mean the same group, the central group, that you were talking about before in Bialystok?
DR. GAWLIK: No, it doesn't.
THE PRESIDENT: You said that these were factories in old Russian territory. It has nothing to do with the Polish factories?
DR. GAWLIK: No.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
THE WITNESS: May I just add one sentence, lest there is confusion? It is possible that the Reich Commissioner for the Ukrained, or his deputy in construction material matters, was given a few machines which I had bought for my own works, but if so they can only have been small in number. They were spare parts of machines probably which I had bought in Germany for my own factories which were in my depot in Posen and which were then discovered by the expert for the Reich Commissioner in the Ukraine, and he asked me for support -- which, of course, I gave him to a modest degree.
That may have been the only case when we collaborated for a brief period of time, but it did not lead to anything, because we were so separated in space.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q: Please tell the Court who the Reich Commissioner was? To what sort of agency he was subordinated? Whose orders he was under? How many Reich Commissioners did you have altogether in the Eastern Territory?
A: The Occupied Russian Territory had been placed under civilian administration. It was divided into two areas; each area was under the orders of a Reich Commissioner. In the north it was, as far as I know, Reich Commissioner Lohse; and in the south it was Reich Commissioner, the Gauleiter of Eastern Prussia, Gauleiter Koch. The Reich Commissioners had sub-divided their area into general districts, and they were administered by a commissioner general. All these commissioners were under the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories. It was therefore part of the German Reich administration.
Q: Who was the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories?
A: Alfred Rosenberg.
Q: I shall now reach the next set of problems: Klinker Concrete, G.m.b.H. When was that company formed?
A: Early in 1942.
Q: Why was it formed?
A: The Klinker Concrete G.m.b.H. was erected in order to administer, take over, those works which were not under the trusteeship arrangements of the H.T.O.
Q: Where did the capital come from?
A: From the DWB.
Q: What did that capital amount to?
A: One hundred fifty thousand marks, when it was founded, and, later on, by the end of 1943, it was increased to two millions.
Q: Who were the partners?
A: After the foundation which had to be carried out by two partners, the shares were with DWB to a hundred percent.
Q: Who were its managers?
A: I was the manager.
Q: Did they have any Prokurists?
A: Yes.
Q: Who were they?
A: When it was founded, Dr. Vok was the Prokurist of the company, at first. A little later, I think by fall of 1942, Dr. Volk was relieved and two colleagues of my main administration were appointed Prokurists. In the course of '42 a third Prokurist was appointed.
Q: What was Dr. Volk's task as a Prokurist?
A: Dr. Volk, immediately after the foundation of the company helped in purchasing the majority of shares of the Golleschau Portland Cement factories from Swiss concessions. Furthermore, Dr. Volk, on some occasions, dealt with certain matters pertaining to civil law, but only for a brief period of time. I don't think he did anything else.
Q: Was that all Dr. Volk did as the Prokurist of the Klinker Cement G.m.b.H.?
A: Yes.
Q: What were the tasks of Klinker Cement G.m.b.H.?
A: It had two tasks. Once it was a holding company. It administered the share lot of the Golleschau concrete factory, and the shares of the Prago Construction A.g. Then it had leased about ten factories and operated them at their own expense. Then in the courst of 1943, the Klinker Concrete G.m.b.H. took over an administration on a trusteeship basis, This was the fireproof factory of Krejsa in Stankau near Pilsen. That trusteeship was carried out by agreement with the owner, to whom, for instance, had to be submitted all propositions for the extension of the works. A small brick works was also part of that plant, which I want to mention simply to be correct.
Q: Were the enterprises which were administered on a trusteeship basis by the Klinker Concrete G.m.b.H. confiscated?
A: No, if they were on a trusteeship basis, they were not. We only had this one factory of Krejsa.
Q: What about the others?
A: The others had been leased.
Q: Had they been confiscated?
A: Some of them, yes.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q: Were all the enterprises of the Klinker Cement works in one place?
A: No, your honors. They were dispersed between Eastern Galicia, as far as Pilsen.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, was there one central plant, the Klinker Cement Works?
A: The central area was Eastern upper Silesia, on which the whole enterprise was based.
PRESIDENT: That is what I meant, the principle plant, the central plant was in upper Silesia?
A: Yes.
PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q: Were the factories which had been leased, had they been confiscated?
A: Some of them, yes.
Q: What factories had been confiscated?
A: Those in Eastern Galicia.
Q: Who had done the confiscating?
A: The Russian State. Here we had the same conditions that applied in the Bialystok area.
Q: When did Russian do the confiscating?
A: When it took over the area, by the end of 1939, for the Russian administration.
Q: Who became the owner?
A: The Russian State.
Q: What measures were taken by the German authorities?
A: The government in Lemberg established a trusteeship agency, and that agency had the task to handle economic life and commerce in that area. For that purpose it appointed trustees for the various enterprises. In some cases the enterprises were even leased. Negotiations were carried out one day whether or not a general trusteeship agency was to be established in that area for the construction terms. These negotiations did not lead to a result.
The trusteeship agency of the Government in Galicia prepared the lease contract. These two contracts had been made for a very short period of time, that normally they would have been terminated by the end of the war. Therefore, the normal period of time of five years, which is observed usually as the minimum time for a lease contract has been deviated from and a shorter period of time was substituted.
Q From whom was it that the Klinker Cement, G.m.b.H., leased the enterprise?
A From the Trusteeship Agency of the Government in Galicia.
Q Did the Klinker Concrete G.m.b.H., administer seized factories in the Eastern areas?
A No. You cannot call that a seizure. Apart from the leased factories to which I have just referred, the Klinker Concrete Company leased a factory for fire proof products. That factory had been deserted by its owners and it was taken over for administration by the Trusteeship Agency in Cracow. It was administered by a Trustee Chief, or, I believe, there were about three trustees successively, for conditions in that factory were extremely difficult, because it was located in a difficult situation from the point of view of transportation and communications. And from the trusteeship administration in Cracow the factory was leased by the Klinker Cement.
Q Please tell us very briefly the figure and equally briefly the legal status of the various factories owned by the Klinker Concrete, G.m.b.H.
A The Klinker Concrete factory was the owner or part owner of two factories, the Golleschauer Portland Cement, A.G., of which it owned 89%, and the Prago Construction, A.G., which is again a factory producing construction material, of which both Klinker and Golleschauer owned 54% together. Then the Klinker Concrete Factory had leased certain factories in Galicia, the plant for fire proof products in Scarbina it had leased from the Trusteeship Agency in Cracow and the concrete factory in Streenicz was leased from the Eastern German Chemical Works, and, for a short period of time, it had the trusteeship administration of the Krejsa plant in Stankau near Pilsen.
Q Was the employment of inmates intended when the Klinker Concrete, G.m.b.H., was erected?
A No.
Q When Golleschau was acquired, did you intend to employ inmates?
A No.
Q Where is Golleschau located?
A In upper Silesia in the Teschen District.
Q How was the Golleschau factory acquired?
A The representatives of the Swiss Bank who owned the shares, had as early as the summer 1940 started negotiations with the aim to sell their shares. We concluded these negotiations by the beginning of 1942.
Q Did you or Pohl seize any factories and enterprises in the Government General?
A No, as far as I can speak about my own sphere of work, no.
Q Did you, or any of the firms under your control, carry out the seizure or confiscation in the Government General, or, at least, did you cause such things to take place?
A No.
Q Please look at Document NO-1006, which is Exhibit 449, and it is in Volume 16 on page 88 of the English book, page 86 in the German Book. It concerns the taking over of the brick works of Bonarka. Who administered the Bonarka Brick Works?
A It was not administered at all at that time, but it came under the assets administration.
THE PRESIDENT: Who signed this document?
THE WITNESS: I signed that myself. It was, as far as its assets were concerned, it was administered by the Trusteeship Agency in Cracow.
Q (By Dr. Gawlik) Was the Trusteeship Agency of the Government General in Cracow part of the WVHA?
A No.
Q To whom was the Trusteeship Agency subordinated?
A Under Governor General Frank.
Q Was that Brickworks ever taken over?
A No.
Q Were inmates of a forced labor camp employed as it was intended in the document?
A No.
Q Therefore, what the document says was never realized, either by you or Office W-II?
A No.
Q When for the first time there in one of your enterprises any inmates employed?
A In the spring of 1943.
Q Prior to that time were there any inmates employed in any of your factories?
A No.
Q In how many enterprises which belonged to Office W-II, of which you were in charge, were inmates employed after that period of time?
A In one enterprise.
Q How many enterprises were at that time part of W-II?
AAlmost 400.
Q What was the enterprise in which inmates were employed?
A The Golleschauer concrete Factory.
Q Where was your agency located at that time?
A In Posen.
Q How far is it from Posen to Golleschauer?
AAbout 300 kilometers.
Q Was the concrete factory in Golleschauer administered by the Klinker Concrete, G.m.b.H.?
A No.
Q What was the legal status between Klinker Cement, G.m.b.H., and the Portland Cement, A.G., which employed the inmates?
A The Klinker Concrete, G.m.b.H., was the main share holder of the company. Later on, that was in the summer of 1943, the General Meeting decided to have what was known as a "organ contract" between the plants. The company was an independent enterprise and had its own officials under it. I was the Chairman and a qualified engineer was also the work manager. The Chairman of the Augsichtsrat was Herr Pohl.
Q What did you do in your capacity as a member of the Vorstand of the Portland Concrete, A.G.?
A What I did was mainly concerned with the handling of the more fundamental problems. You have to make a difference here between the AG as an enterprise and the actual plant. Part of the enterprise was also the administration of the capital. The enterprise owned still 27% of the shares, Prago Construction Factory also 5% of Upper Silesian Concrete Factory and as to liabilities, it owned to the Swiss Bank 2.7 million Swiss Franks.
Q Who was the works manager of the Portland Cement A.G. in Golleschau?
A The technical member of the Vorstand, Diplom Engineer Goebel.
Q What were the tasks of the works manager?
A The works manager is the man who is in charge of the technical management and in particular the social welfare of the employees of the plant. His hours and duties become clear from the law regulating national work.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q What camp did your Colleschau concentration camp inmates come from?
A From Auschwitz.
Q Were they Jews?
A I'm afraid I can't tell you about that. There may have been Jews among them.
Q Now you are certain that in your plants in Poland you had only voluntary free workers.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS (continued):
A Yes, if you understand by free workers what we understood it to mean in Germany.
Q I understand that.
A That means a worker who lives with his family but whose work is under certain obligations. He must report to the labor office and will be assigned by the labor exchange to certain factories.
Q I understand that. But that is the only kind of labor that you employed in conquered Poland in any of these plants?
A Yes, Sir.
BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q How often did you visit Golleschau while inmates were working there?
A Two or three times.
Q Can you give us a reason why you only went two or three times?
A The plant worked more or less independently. The reason being that it had a legal status of its own and also I had a co-manager. It was really the only enterprise where I had a second c-manager or coGerman. Also Goebel wanted to handle all matters pertaining to the plant. He had insisted on that when joining us. He really wanted to be the works manager and I had this right ceded to him.
Q Would it have been feasible for you to deal with all the details of the Golleschau plant, witness?
A Of course, that wouldn't have been feasible. For instance, if I had the chance to visit the plant two or three or perhaps four times, and especially then I dealt with all matters concerned with my immediate sphere of duties, I had on those occasions carried out a general inspection of the plant, but any details, of course, I could not investigate. I did not have the expert knowledge for that. I am not a technician.
Q What Goebel did, in other words, was to run the factory in Golleschau?
A No. He was also the Procurist of the Klinker Cement G.m.b.H., and for instance, on some occasions I sent him to Bialostok to check up on the chalk pit where he went once or twice. As far as I know he also worked for the Fire Proof Factory in Scavina, but that was at a distance of only 80 or 100 kilometers from Golleschau and he had the technical supervision, but as a matter of principle he lived and worked for the Golleschau plant.
Q Who assisted Goebel in running the Golleschau works?
A The works had its own management both in Administrative and technical matters. There was a so-called sub-manager and, too, a number of department chiefs, foreman, a few commercial employees, chemists, and all such employees as you would find in an independent concrete factory.
Q In how far did you have any actual influence on the management of Golleschau?
A On the management, that is to say on the works management, I exercised no influence at all.
Q Did you order that inmates should work in Golleschau?
A No.
Q Who gave the order?
AAt that time I and Goebel discussed the fact that we wanted to close down the factory and that decision on the part of the management I communicated to Pohl in his capacity as chairman of the Board, requesting him to give us his approval. Herr Pohl turned this down because he said we must produce concrete, as it was important for the military situation.
Q Did you request or suggest that inmates be employed?
A No. I said that I had requested to have the works closed down.
Q Why did you recommend that Golleschau should be closed down for the duration of the War?
A The employees, the workers of the plant, were almost exclusively Germans and a large number of the actual workers were by the beginning of 1943 called up to do military service.
We were therefore, short of laborers and hence the difficulties to continue production.
Q Now if you as a member of the Vorstand suggested to close down the factory did you not thereby damage the interest of the Klinker Concrete G.m.b.H.?
A No, I don't think so and I can prove that.
Q Will you give us briefly your reasons in order to make your statements credible?
A When I purchased the enterprise, or purchased the majority of shares, I expected that during the War the factory might have to be closed down and that was part of my calculations. Therefore, when we drew up the Purchase contract I expressly provided that the interest on the purchase price be calculated only on the production basis. If nothing was being produced no interest need be paid. Also, I had inserted a clause in this contract that the old debt which the concrete factory had in Switzerland which was not too heavily burdened with interest, should then become subject of new negotiations. In that respect also I would have saved money had the factory been closed down. On the other hand, once the factory was closed down if this was caused by the military developments, I could demand from the German Reich what we called compensation for a closed down factory and that compensation would have covered my expenses which would have incurred had the factory been closed down, which became necessary because of care for the machines and equipment. Moreover it was to be expected that the so-called deliveries and taxes on them from the concrete syndicate would have been paid by the concrete syndicate to the enterprise. As I remember, this amounted to 1 to 2 marks per ton. As the quota of the syndicate amounted to 210,000 tons the enterprise, if it had been closed down, would have been able, after all expenses had been covered, to receive a compensation or profit of about two to three hundred thousand marks.
I believe that is an amount which would not only have made it possible to have reasonable interest on the capital but would have made it possible to arrange for deposits.
Q Did you, therefore, have any interest, commercially speaking, that the Golleschau works should continue to operate?
A No.
Q What did Herr Pohl answer when you made your suggestion to close down the factory?
A Herr Pohl decided that the plant must continue to operate because concrete production was an urgent necessity and he ordered that concentration camp inmates should be used.
Q What was the channel of command once it was decided that inmates should be used for Folleschau?
A It started from Herr Pohl, then went via office Group D II, that is to Standartenfuehrer Maurer, to the commandant of the concentration camp Auschwitz and from there to the labor allocation leader. The labor allocation leader then contacted the mangers of the factories and decided how many inmates would be used, where they could be billeted, etc.