Q. It doesn't matter.
A. By that law the possibility of confiscation existed; and this had not existed until then. When this was done on the basis of law, it could only be a confiscation against a full compensation which was concerned. Under the Prussian law of confiscation of 1882, together with Article 153 of the Reich Constitution, the person always had the possibility during the process of becoming a plaintiff about the amount of the compensation sum. He could address himself to the district courts.
THE PRESIDENT: Now we'll take a recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I believe that you have not yet finished the explanations of your activities in Wewelsburg. Please continue.
A. In Wewelsburg actually no confiscation procedure took place. That is to say, nothing was ever completed in this time. Only voluntary contracts of sale were concluded. That is to say the company offered the farmers and the real estate owners always such good conditions for sale that they seemed to think that these contracts were favorable. The last contract was the one which was made about the estate Boedecken in 1942, in the summer. It was concluded at that time. At that time it was no longer necessary to make contracts for sale since the Country Cultural Office in Muenster established a so-called transfer proceedings or amelioration proceedings in Wewelsburg. Thus there was no point in making any further contracts of purchase and my activity was thus concluded.
Does the Tribunal desire that I explain further what amelioration proceedings means?
DR. BERGOLD: That is a concept which, as far as I know, is known in America too.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it is called condemnation proceedings. I think we understand.
A. (Continuing) Indeed buyers in Wewelsburg, or rather those who sold, were always very much satisfied. A survey over the contracts that were concluded can be seen from my monthly report which has been introduced here as an exhibit.
Q. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, if I now summarize what you have stated, you said that you had nothing to do with the construction management; was requested by the management; you had to carry out the buying of the real estate on the orders of the construction management; inmate workers were again asked for by the construction management; and the real responsible management of the business was with the Amt Wewelsburg.
Why were you involved in this whole affair why how?
A. The construction management in Wewelsburg did not have any legally-trained person and nobody who could represent, would have been authorized to represent the company in real estate matters.
Q. That is an explanation in regard to your person, but why was the company involved?
A. Of course, for this construction enterprise they could have founded their own company, but this did not happen. There is a historical reason for that.
Q. Could the Amt Wewelsburg not have become the owner of real estate property?
A. The Amt Wewelsburg could not become the owner because that is apparent from the uniformity law. This was an office of the NSDAP, and in that case Reich Treasurer Schwarz would have had to agree to every transfer of property and every transfer of money to Wewelsburg. The Reich Treasurer Schwarz, as far as I heard about him, was a very strict gentleman and probably would not have agreed to this construction plan.
Q. Thus if I have understood you correctly, Amt IV-A was involved in order to make it more easily possible to have Himmler's plans realized. Please make a pause.
A. If I may say so, the Office for Promotion and Care was involved, and not Office W-VIII, this was also only a fiction.
Q. All right. To come back to the purchase of real estate, do you also carried out the purchase of church property too, is this not to be considered as prosecution of the church?
A. No, I have to explain this occurrence more in detail. Wewelsburg is situated on a mountain which is an extension of a larger mountain. If the Wewelsburg castle was supposed to be enlarged this could be done uphill because the nature of the territory made it impossible to do it in some other direction. The territory of the castle was cut off by the church and the parsonage on the uphill path, thus if it was to be enlarged this could only be done on the territory of the church and the parsonage.
In the summer of 1939 after I went to Paderborn, to the Archbishop, and explained the situation to him, which was a result of the geographical situation. The Archbishop had full understanding for the fact that the territory here made the purchase necessary and was not done for any religious or antiecclesiastical points of view and agreed to the sale of the church. The further conclusion of the contract of sale was carried out in Wewelsburg, with the Catholic ecclesiastical community, and I believe approximately eight other parties who participated in this contract. It was very difficult to draw up this contract, but it would lead us too far afield to go into details here. In the course of that contract I succeeded in having the Prussian state, to whom the parsonage and the nuns' residence belonged, agree to it, that the money from the sale be given to the catholic church immediately by the company. The reason for this was that the time of socialization by Napoleon in 1805 approximately, the Prussian State had taken over the obligation for giving a parsonage to the Catholic community and had not met its obligation during this part hundred years. The church, the contract -
Q. That is all right. That is enough. You said that you did not carry out a confiscation. Now in your own report, that we shall discuss later, a confiscation is mentioned, the confiscation of the Boedecken estate. What about that?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Dr. Bergold, perhaps I may add something to that last question briefly and say that until the last days of the war the church was used for services, that until the last day the minister lived in the parsonage, and that the execution of the sales contract remained theory to the extent that this company did not take over possession of the church and the parsonage. In order to answer your last question: a confiscation procedure of the Boedecken estate was introduced. The previous history was as follows: When Himmler once paid a visit he must have discussed with Bartels the fact that the Boedecken estate was supposed to be bought in order by subdivising it to give it to the farmers in Wewelsburg as a resettlement territory. Obergruppenfuehrer Taubert at that time was given the order by Himmler to start negotiations with Geheimrat von Vallingrod, the woner of Boedecken.
Q Do not go into so much detail but more to facts, to the point.
A These negotiations failed because von Mallingrod asked for too much money. Thereupon Himmler ordered the confiscation. Bartels informed me that he would have to make a request for confiscation to the Government in Minden. The confiscation procedure was started and in the course of time, however, an amiable agreement was reached. This was achieved by May or the companies offered such favorable conditions that Geheimrat von Mallingrod decided to sell. The contract was good business for von Mallingrod. The company obligated itself to see to it that he would get a substitute estate.
Q That is enough.
A Only the Mallingrod contract was carried out. It was only carried out in form. Actually Mallingrod remained in the real estate register as the owner.
Q That is sufficient. As I understood this was the last you carried out in 1942?
A Yes, that was in the spring of '42.
Q Did your financial activities make it necessary for you to go frequently to Wewelsburg?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A No, my financial activity on behalf of Wewelsburg didn't make it necessary at all that I was present there; the money could be transferred from Berlin, or later on from Kranichsburg.
Q Did you not also procure contingents for the construction management, witness?
A Only in one case. This was the situation. Basic competency for the contingents of the construction management did not exist and the construction management by way of exception had to obtain the contingents themselves. That is to say, on the black market, in a certain sense. Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl and I once negotiated with Kammler and told him that he should make contingents available for Wewelsburg. Kammler, however, assumed the position that he was only competent for the Reich construction and only occasionally he could put at the disposal the remaining contingents which he would sent to the construction management on his own initiative. That made further negotiations on my part unnecessary. Bartels then occasionally went to see Kammler himself.
Q You confirmed to me before that you never did war service in Wewelsburg and that your financial activities didn't make it necessary for you to be there either. Were you ever in Wewelsburg and how often?
A In 1939 or '40 I was in Wewelsburg perhaps once every 4 months. In 1941 and '42 I was perhaps there 4 times a year. In 1942 I was there once in March for the negotiations with von Mallingrod. In June and July I was not there at all. In the course of August I was in Boedecken for a brief period. In August 1943 was in Boedecken once and in 1944 I was in Wewelsburg twice.
Q Did you ever stay over night?
A No, my parents lived about 50 kilometers from Wewelsburg and I always stayed with my parents and in the morning went over to Wewelsburg and in the evening came back home.
Q You remember that Herr Schwarz asserted in the first affidavit that you were living in the castle. How often were you in the castle itself?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A I only visited the castle once, inspected it once, with special permission from Taubert. Bartels took me through the castle; in the ante rooms of the castle, I called on Taubert as a matter of politeness.
Q When you were in Wewelsburg did you observe inmates working? You were not in the camp as you already stated?
A I did observe inmates at work. I did so when Bartels occasionally led me to places that were especially interesting from an architectural point of view. The place where the construction was being carried out was not limited to the outside by a fence but by a thin chain of guards who were so far apart, they could just about see each other. Through this chain of guards due to conditions of the territory the Wewelsburg farmers went through with their carts. The inmates whom I saw at those places of work never made an impression on me as being undernourished and I never saw that an inmate was incited to work. I did not talk to the prisoners since Bartels told me this was strictly forbidden. The foremen of the prisoners were civilian workers of a private construction company by the name of Scherpel, the owner of the company. These foremen assigned the prisoners to their work.
Q Was the work which you observed of an unusual nature or normal?
A It was the usual construction work.
Q Do you know Document P-129? It is in Book No. II, German Page 70, English Page 66. This is the famous order regarding the exhausting work. Volume II, Page 70.
A I saw this document for the first time here. It was quite new to me.
Q All right. But I have to put to you that in the list of distribution, all W offices are listed. What do you have to say to that?
AAll W offices are listed but at that time it happened quite Court No. II, Case No. 4.frequently that W-8 was not on the distribution list, because it was regarded as little important.
This document is from May 1942. Moreover, in May 1942 I was for some time in Ar*o in Upper Italy in order to negotiate with the former owners of Strasser and to examine the possibility to use that house for a home.
Q The Tribunal will recall that Exhibit Klein No. 6 of Herr Steuer also gives information on this point; he made the same statement as the defendant himself does now.
Witness, did Bartels not perhaps tell you something about the work of the inmates, about the circulation of the inmates, or other matters.
A No, Bartels did not do so. Bartels complained to me only occasionally that he did not have enough skilled workers, that not a sufficient number were put at his disposal by the camp, and he complained that there were not sufficient guards there and the inmates could only work in one place instead of several places. Moreover Bartels told me at the time that the construction management had given a large field to the inmate camp as far as I remember, about 10 hectars, so that the inmates could grow some vegetables there for themselves in the country; it is usually quite difficult to obtain vegetables because it is too much work for the farmers to plant vegetables.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Did you, on your own, take any steps regarding the food of the inmates?
A Yes. I instructed the estate Boedecken to send vegetables to the camp and to cultivate the field in accordance with the wishes of the inmates of the camp.
Q Did you have anything to do with the food in the concentration camps?
A No.
Q Did you know the conditions?
A Not that either.
Q Well, why did you interfere here and nut something at their disposal? Then you must have heard something about it, that the food conditions were bad.
A I did not hear anything about it, but I wanted to assure myself a good customer who was near the estate. Moreover, I knew the general difficulties in obtaining vegetables from the homes of which I had been in charge. In regard to the field hospital divisions in Bad Nauheim and Homberg which were more than a hundred kilometers from the Boedecken, I wanted to supply them too with vegetables.
Q Thus you can say that you concerned yourself for food for your own reasons as a businessman and not because you knew the bad conditions in the camp?
A It seemed to me to be a sensible provision for both parties concerned.
Q Witness, what influence did the construction management have on the came management? Could they influence them for better or worse?
A. As far as I know, the construction management had no influence on the camp management. From occasional remarks made by Bartels I know that his relationship to Haas was not a good one, apparently, because either was concerned with his own field of competency, and once Bartels told me that he had used Taubert to mediate for him in some matter.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Who, in the last analysis, was competent for employing the inmates in Wewelsburg?
A That was first, of course, the camp commandant, Haas; further, Standartenfuehrer Bartels; and, as the senior officer of the garrison Obergruppenfuehrer Taubert.
Q And you, yourself?
A I myself was not concerned with that at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, what was the relationship between Camp Wewelsburg and Sachsenhausen?
WITNESS: I assume, Your Honor, that during the time when Wewelsburg was a work-camp, Sachsenhausen or Buchenwald, in a certain sense, was the parent camp. During the time when Wewelsburg was a concentration camp it must have been directly subordinate to the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. That is apparent from the documents.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, as to the word "Sachsenhausen" in Exhibit No. 1, entered there, the defendant told me he could not say with certainty whether it was Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen, and I believe that I could gather from the documents that it was probably Sachsenhausen.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it doesn't make any difference. The point is that it was a labor camp; Wewelsburg was a labor camp subordinate to a large concentration camp.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, you just said three men: Haas, Bartels, Taubert. Now, please describe their respective fields of authority. What authority did Taubert have?
A Taubert was the chief of the Amt Wewelsburg on the personal staff of Reichsfuehrer-SS. He was the commander of the castle and the senior official at Wewelsburg. Bartels was the chief of the construction management of the SS School Wewelsburg. His official rank was SS Court No. II, Case No. 4.Standartenfuehrer, and his professional title was Baurat, Construction Councillor.
Q At that time he was subordinate to Bartels?
A. Bartels at that time was a subordinate and Haas was a commander of the concentration camp Wewelsburg. He was directly subordinate to the concentration camp inspectorate. Taubert, as senior official of the garrison, had certain functions as his superior, and certain functions only.
Q Now, tell me one thing. Schwarz testified in his first affidavit that you were his superior. You denied that. Did you know him at all?
A It may be that I saw Haas once briefly. I do not have any recollection of him.
Q But if you were his superior you must have seen him at least a few times, and must have spoken to him?
A One must assume so.
Q I now come to Document Book 3 of the Prosecution, and am concerning myself with Document 1292, Exhibit 56, Page 51 in the German, Page 46 in the English. Do you know this document?
A Just a moment, please.
Q It is Book 3, page 56 in the English transcript, Page 51 in the German document book.
A Document 1292?
This was the first time that I saw this document. Wewelsburg is mentioned in this document, and this with two different requests. One request for the construction management of Wewelsburg, and one order for the construction management of the concentration camp Wewelsburg.
Q Did you have anything to do with that?
A No.
Q Now, you have told us that you had nothing to do with it, but it appears in the main division for special tasks--that is, in Amt W-8-there was a main division for cultural monuments. Did this have anything Court No. II, Case No. 4.to do with Amtsgruppe C?
A This main division for cultural construction of monuments had nothing to do with Amtsgruppe C. It had nothing to do with Wewelsburg either. Its chief was Regierungsbaurat, Construction Councillor, SS Obersturmfuehrer of the SS, by the name of Giesemann. He was Obersturmfuehrer on the personal staff of the Peichsfuehrer-SS.
DR. BERGOLD: Gentlement, I see you are still looking for the document. In this document we are concerned with the appendix to the document.
WITNESS: This man was on the personal staff of the Reichsleader-SS and was only assigned to this company for economics. His field of work was the planning of changes and extensions or other construction of other monuments, other than Wewelsburg. Since Himmler was very much interested in these matters, the construction manager had to belong to Himmler's personal staff. To that extent it was a similar model as the one in Wewelsburg. Occasionally, when I requested him, Giesemann also undertook constructions for the convalescent homes association.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Thank you. Did you ever have anything to do with the main division I-5, or with Amt D-2?
A No, these offices I had nothing to do with. That also can be seen from the documents.
Q. Did you ever get from D-II or its predecessor main office I-5, the circulars about inmate works?
A I did not receive the circulars.
Q Are you on the distribution list?
A I am not on the distribution list.
Q Did you know the defendant Sommer at all, who is not present at the moment?
A I saw Sommer for the first time here in jail, in Nurnberg.
Q Did you ever have anything to do with his superior, Maurer?
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A Not him either.
Q But in your affidavit you concede such a possibility. Is that the case which you have explained already before?
A I have explained that case already before. I was surprised because once I had actually negotiated with Kammler because of construction material contingencies, and at that time I saw that the official channels for concentration camp matters were quite different because a representative of the Inspectorate was always at Wewelsburg itself.
Q For how long, as far as you know, were inmates employed in Wewelsburg?
A I said already that, according to knowledge I have today, the inmates, in the spring of 1943, were exchanged, and only about fifty Jehovah witnesses remained there. The beginning of the Kommando was about 1939.
Q What can you say about Document 1290, Exhibit 60, in Volume III; it is on page 64 in the English Document Book, page 65 in the German.
A This is a memorandum of Office D-2 which was addressed to the offices which had to deal with inmates. Office W-8 is not listed on the distribution list.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I may point out expressly that Amt W-8 is not listed on the distribution list, and, furthermore, I want to point out expressly that in the abbreviations, "AU-1 Auschwitz, Buchenwald...etc," the word "NI" is not among them. The concentration camp Wewelsburg did not exist at all at that time. "NI" meant Niederhagen.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, now I would like to know from you on principle, what did you hear about the employment of inmates. Did you not think about it at all?
A Yes. In 1939, when the first inmates came to Wewelsburg, I Court No. II, Case No. 4.made inquiries with the construction manager, what kind of prisoners they were.
At that time the construction management told me that they were in security detention, and they were habitual criminals in detention for security. Political prisoners would not be turned over to such camps because the danger existed of their escaping, and the possibility of their sending out news, smuggling out news was too great.
Q. Did you worry about the employment of prisoners, regarding the admissibility of such employment or the humaneness of it?
A. I did not worry about it, especially, but it seemed to me to be quite to natural occurrence; keeping people in protective custody happened in Germany already before 1933 and it was discussed in the Reichstag Commission and by a revision of the Reich Penal Coade, and this was in 1928. At that time this was already discussed. Keeping people in protective custody was only done in the case of habitual criminals, wh, after they had served their term would probably again commit a crime. This was the most serious punishment that German judges ever passed, because there was no time limit to it and from the time when I was referendar, I know that the courts did not like to issue such a sentence.
Q. Well, you are speaking about habitual criminals, heavey criminals, but you also heard that opponents of the political government were also incarcerated in concentration camps.
A. I would first like to add, if people were kept in protective custody, the sentence, was reviewed every three years by the legal courts who had passed that sentence. Moreover, I, as every other lawyer in Germany, knew that in Germany there was so called protective custody and that in certain cases people were arrested by means of protective custody.
Q. What did you imagine by this proceedings? Did you imagine that some Gertapo man or other writes a warrant and a person is arrested?
A. I considered it to be a regular police procedure and a form of administration of justice in a cabinet form of government.
Q. Did you ever hear whether such a warrant for protective custody was issued on the basis of interrogations and hearing to witnesses?
A. Yes, as far as I heard about it at that time, witnesses were examined in such cases. The defendants were interrogated extensively and in that case of my sister by looking at the penal files of my sister. I found out that a very extensive evidence had been submitted.
Q. It is correct that the method of protective custody was discussed in German legal journals extensively by recognized legal theorists?
A. Perhaps I may briefly go into the question protective custody. For the first time during the first World War in 1916 this method was used in Germany. This was the internment of persons who had been suspected of having done something criminals to the state. When the Weimar Constitution was drafted, the author of the Constitution, Preuss, incorporated certain basic rights in the Constitution. Among these basic freedoms belonged the right of any citizen, if he was arrested, to be brought before a legal judge within 24 hours. As we have to see today, unfortunately, Preuss, however, in Section II of Article 48, created the possibility to render this basic privilege ineffective. Apparently he had as an example the provision of 1916, Reich President and on the basis of such emergency decree by the Reich President, in February 1933 protective custody introduced.
Q. Thank you, that is sufficient.
A. The leading German Constitutional theorists, especially Professor Karl Schmidt, who was regarded as the highest leading German theorist, before 1933 already wrote a scientific work about the right of protective custody and in that work he recognized the legality of this method. I myself at that time did not consider myself to be more intelligent that the leading professors and the Reich Government together.
Q. Witness, did you know that prisoners of war were also put into concentration camps.
A. I did not know that.
Q. Did you know that foreigners were put into concentration camps?
A. I did not know that either.
Q. But I have to put your own report to you, Document 545 in Book 17.
THE PRESIDENT: Exhibit number?
DR. BERGOLD: 555 Excuse me, 54 --455 Exhibit 455.
A. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, you just rectified that you knew nothing about the fact that foreigners were sent to concentration camps. In this report that you drafted yourself you referred to the affair of a Czech, Franski; was he not a foreigners?
A Not within the meaning of the law. Franski had lived in Germany and therefore had received German citizenship.
INTERPRETER: I am sorry, Your Honor. There is something wrong with Channel No.1 There is a noise on Channel No., and it is dead.
THE PRESIDENT: Let's quit anyway.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will br recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until August 14, 1947-at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript pf the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on August 14, 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No.2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now i session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
HORST KLEIN -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION -- Continued BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, yesterday I asked you about the Czech Domansky, and over that question we had difficulties with the technical apparatus, and, therefore, I am going to repeat my question, but I don't know whether it is entered into the record. In answer to my last question, when the apparatus was damaged, you said that you knew nothing about the fact that foreigners had been sent to the concentration camps. Again I put your own report to you in Book XVII of the prosecution, Document No. 547, Exhibit 155. In that report you mentioned the Czech Domansky receiving material, and yet today you state that you did not know anything about foreigners getting in concentration camps.
A. No, Domansky, according to his descent was Czech, but he had opt for the German Nation and therefore he had become a German citizen under the law concerning the incorporation of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the German Reich.
Q. Thank you, Witness, yesterday you said that the protective custody proceedings you considered to be some kind of cabinet justice and you told us how you formed that opinion on the basis of your legal training. Concerning this protective custody, did you consider it necessary when Jews were arrested?
A. I never heard that Jews were arrested differently. I assume that whenever an arrest did take place, those arrests were made for the same reasons for which Germans had been arrested, because the persons concerned have violated certain lawa, or because they were suspected of having an attitude which was hostile to the German Reich.
That is to say, that some reasons that applied to German citizen.
Q. Witness those commitments to concentration camps took place without court proceedings. Yet you do not deviate from your opinion that this was a police proceedings with the exclusion of the public?
A. No, the competence for these proceedings lay in the hands of the police for the reason that it was considered most feasible as the regular courts did not have the necessary experience concerning that point of view of the prisoner concerning the protective custody. in the law of 1916 the same point of view were applied.
Q. did you not consider those proceedings illegal for the reason that the prisoners did not get paid for their work, for, after all, they were made to work?
A. that the prisoners did not pt paid, that I didn't know. I assumed that the prisoners would get a little pay about 30 pfennigs a day if they were unskilled laborers. That arrangement was in accordance with what I know from my mining as a referendar with the German Prison Administration. As referendar I worked in here ford 18 days and got to know the prison administration. The German prisoners were paid something like 30 pfennigs per day. That pay as only handed out to them when they were discharged.
Q. But the people had not been sentenced by a court and yet you regarded them as penal prisoners, as convicts, and at the prisons at which they were held there were people who had been sentenced by the regular courts.
A. What I heard at Wewelsburg about the people in protective custody or inmates in concentration camps, they were person who had been sentenced by regular courts. Later on in the course of the war a labor conscription was introduced that was in accordance with the rules by by which the entire German people were affected and that had been developed in the course to total war.
Q. If you can consider the concentration camps, the protective custody proceedings as a kind of cabinet, justice, now, at your own trial and at the many other trails which are being held in allied countries, during those trials, you heard a number of things. Did those make you change your views?
A. No, my opinion does not date from the present. I am of the view that the basic law, the basic ruling, that within 24 hours you must be brought before an ordinary court is absolutely necessary as a basic for all personal liberty. Through the fate of my family and my own fate that has become an absolute certainty for me. Anyone who has not that right cannot consider himself a free person. I consider it unwise to make a policy other than that and I also consider it immoral, and the point of view which I have taken is that this protective custody was a regular police proceedings and was a form of cabinet justice, but I think it was unwise and immoral. Even such laws that have been legally promulgated can be immoral.
Q. Witness, were you of the opinion that protective custody had something to do with the SS as such?
No, for the protective custody that Reich Ministry of the Interior was competent. Himmler was the Undersecretary, Staatssekretaer of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. That was a personal office that Himmler held as Undersecretary. He was the Chief of the German Police and in that capacity, the Gestapo was subordinated to hom. The Gestapo, however, I did not consider a formation of the SS. In that respect, I myself in two cases heard from the Gestapo that the Gestapo did not consider as a formation of the SS. In one case I heard that when Obergruuppenfuehrer Frank, when he had intervened for my sister, told me that my sister's files had been looked into and that Fuller had told him the General SS had nothing to do with the Gestapo. Consequently, the fact that I looked into the files had been high treason.