Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Did you know that there was an SS man with a minor rank named Klein at the camp?
A No, I didn't.
Q You didn't learn that a Scharfuehrer whose name also was Klein was there, did you?
A No, I just couldn't tell you. I can't recall the names of people who were there.
Q When Mr. Wolf asked you about the figure 500 and as to whether that figure is approximately correct, how do you know that figure is correct? Is that something you heard, or did you personally convince yourself of the correctness of that figure?
A No, I didn't. I could not convince myself of that. I was told at the time that approximately 500 inmates were interned in that camp.
Q Therefore, you couldn't tell me that the figure is correct, could you? You can only tell something like that if you know it yourself and if you have convinced yourself of that fact.
A Well, yes, when Mr. Wolf asked me about that figure 500, I said that it was correct as to corresponding to the figure which I stated during the examination.
Q In other words, you didn't mean to say, then, that the figure actually existed?
A No, I couldn't. There may have been more or fewer.
Q Witness, you said something before about nettles. Did you know that the German Wehrmacht was collecting nettles in order to improve the food?
A Yes.
Q Do you know that the German soldiers also were receiving nettles for food?
A Yes.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, I'd like to make a statement to the Court right now. In America it might seem horrible to you to eat Court No. II, Case No. 4.nettles.
However, in Germany even my children picked nettles every spring because those nettles contained vitamins which can be used in soups and also when eating vegetables. They taste about the same as spinach. I eat nettles every year. For weeks and weeks on end I eat those nettles with my meat, and I love them. That is, I eat them if I can get them. Of course, right now I won't get any meat with my nettles; but I'll be satisfied with nettles.
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe that's why you haven't been feeling so well lately.
DR. BERGOLD: No, your Honor, I don't believe that's it.
Q I have one more question, Witness. After you had signed the first affidavit, you stated before you returned to the camp and thought over the entire matter to make sure of whether what you had stated was correct. Did I understand you correctly?
A Yes.
Q Why did you think about the whole thing afterwards? Why did you think about it if what you had said was correct?
A Well, it can be understood that if one gives an affidavit one will have certain misgivings and at least think it over afterwards and let the entire matter go through one's mind again to make sure that the testimony was correct.
Q Did I understand you correctly to say that you didn't worry too much about it because you wrote the following sentence in the affidavit--that you knew those things from hearsay, rather than from your own knowledge?
A Yes, I said that.
DR. BERGOLD: I believe this is enough of this civil evil play.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further questions?
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. WOLF:
Q Witness, you said that you heard in connection with the Wewelsburg castle that a certain Mr. Klein was up there. What was that Mr. Court No. III, Case No. 4.Klein supposed to have been according to your opinion at the time?
Was he a "big-shot" or was he just a plain soldier?
A He was an SS officer.
Q An officer?
A Yes.
Q Therefore, you were told that Mr. Klein was an officer?
A Yes.
Q Dr. Bergold mentioned another man by the name of Klein, who has allegedly been in Wewelsburg; and he says that man was a Scharfuehrer. Would you please tell the Tribunal what a Scharfuehrer corresponds to in the army?
A A Scharfuehrer in the army is a Sergeant.
Q Therefore, he's much lower than an officer, is he?
A Yes, he's a sergeant to be quite sure.
MR. WOLF: No further questions.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I have no further questions. I just have one question to the prosecution. It is known to me that the prosecution had certain inmates examined who had been at Wewelsburg, I believe at the same time as they did when the other witness was here. Don't you think it would be a good idea for the prosecution to bring some of those inmates from Wewelsburg up here to testify as witnesses? I'm quite sure they will all state that they don't know Herr Klein; but nevertheless-
MR. ROBBINS: I think all of my interrogators are here at the prosecution table, and they tell me that they have never interrogated an inmate from Wewelsburg.
DR. BERGOLD: This time I happen to know it better than the prosecution, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: This witness may be removed. The witness Dr. Morgen may be brought.
DR. KONRAD MORGEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
THE PRESIDENT: Raise your right hand and repeat after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HOFFMANN (For the Defendant Scheide):
Q Witness, you are identical with the witness Dr. Konrad Morgen who testified in the trials before the IMT in Nurnberg for the defense of the SS; and in the Dachau and Buchenwald trials you also appeared as a witness for the defense? Is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Witness, would you please describe to the Tribunal your curriculum vitae, starting with the day when you were born and with your family, also speaking about your university training and your professional training?
A I was born on the 8th of June 1909 as the son of a railroad engine mechanic in Frankfurt on the Main. I went through the Liebig Gymnasium there, and in 1928 I graduated. After I had graduated, I was an apprentice in a bank. Then I studied law at the Universities of Frankfurt on the Main, Rome, Berlin, and in the Academy Internationale in the Hague and at the Institute of World Economy at Kiel. In 1934 I passed my Referendar examination, which later developed into the training service of the justice; and in 1938 I obtained permission to hold the office of a judge. In 1936 I was promoted to Dr. Juror, Doctor of Law.
Q Witness, were you a member of the NSDAP or one of the affiliated organizations?
A In May of 1932, I became a member of the NSDAP and of the General SS.
Q Witness, would you please continue with describing the conditions after you completed your training, and particularly do devote Court No. II, Case No. 4.yourself to your activity after 1939 to 1945.
A In 1934 I had already difficulties with the Party. I did not vote when they were selecting a state president. As a lawyer, I had certain misgivings about leaving the entire power of a state in the hands of one man. It was held as a very grave offense against me as a member of the Party. A Party trial was started against me. I believe it was only thanks to my membership in the General SS that this was not concluded. However, in the SS I was kept on their files as an SS aspirant.
I should like to add that in 1936 I published a book concerning war propaganda and prevention of wars. That book also was considered bad by the Party and was criticized in a derogatory manner. I was reproached with not having pointed out that the Jews were the actually instigators of the wars.
In 1939 I became an assessor and judge at the District Court (Landgericht) Stettin. I was released from the disciplinary justice of the Reich. That was on the 1st of April 1939. The reason for that was that as a judge of a Penal Office (Strafkammer) of a District Court (Landgericht) and also as a president of the Landgericht I refused in one of the official sessions to participate in the judgments, leaving the courtroom in protest. That was a political matter, and I was under the impression that right and law was to be violated here. After that I was a legal advisor of the German Labor Front, Deutsche Arbeitsfront. I represented people who were working with other firms before courts. A short while after that I became the man in charge of several advisors' offices in Germany. At the beginning of the war I was conscripted into the Waffen SS.
Q What was your career in the Waffen SS, Witness?
A I was sent to the Reserve Battalion East in Breslau and received my basic training there. After that I was sent to the staff of a newly established regiment; I was transferred to that staff. In that regiment I became the personnel, social and legal advisor and expert.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
The regiment was not assigned to front-line duty; and it was dissolved after the French campaign.
After that I was transferred to the SS Jurisdiction Department. That was in the month of October 1941. I served there with the SS and Police Court number 1 in Munich. On the 1st of January 1941 I was transferred to the SS Police Court Number 6 in Cracow. At Pentecost 1942 I was dismissed from my office by Himmler. The reason was the following.
As a judge in a court martial I had acquitted one of the defendants, in spite of the fact that I was dealing with a case of rale pollution. The reason why I could do so was that when the sentences were passed which declared the defendant not guilty, they did not have to be submitted to any other authority. But somehow the Reichsfuehrer SS heard about this sentence. The Reichsfuehrer SS told the Main Office of the SS to start a trial against me with the aim of sending me to a concentration camp for two or three years. Due to the resistance which was put before them in the form of the opposition of the judges, the Reich Leader SS did not carry out that decision of his and ordered that I serve as a simple soldier on front-line duty, holding my weapon in my hand.
I was degraded from first Lieutenant to corporal and was sent to the reserve battalion Stralsund. There I was placed in the company of former criminals and I had to go through a six months horrible severe training. In December 1942 I was sent to the southern part of Russia, wearing a summer uniform, and was assigned to the Division "Viking." I went through with all the withdrawal fights through the steppe, and I also participated in the counter-attack at the Donez. After that the division was completely disrupted, and a company contained only seventeen men. The division was sent back to be reestablished. At that moment a telegram came, which transferred me back to Munich.
I again received my former rank, and by order of the Reichsfuehrer I was transferred to the Reich Criminal Office. The reasons for that were that they wanted to make use of my criminalistic talents. But I was to be kept away from all political matters. One of the first cases with which I dealt was the one in Weimar. That was the case of Bornschein, who was a member of the Kommandantur Headquarters of the concentration camp of Buchenwald. Certain investigations developed there against other concentration camps which I was in charge of.
After that, with the sentencing of those criminals from the concentration camps, a special court was employed, the SS Tribunal ZBV. I became the permanent prosecutor in that court; and that is how I returned to the Main Office SS Court.
In the middle of 1944 I was gradually withdrawn from the investigations and for a certain short while I dealt with other matters. After that I was a deputy prosecutor in the trials against Koch, the commanders of Buchenwald concentration camp, and others. I was transferred away from the Main Office SS Court then. On that occasion I was promoted to Sturmbannfuehrer, or major. In the month of December I was again transferred to the SS and Police Court in Cracow as a judge. On the 18th of January 1945 the Russians moved into Cracow, whereupon I was transferred to the SS and Police Court as a judge in Breslau. I was captured by the Russians when the capitulation took place.
I fled then, trying to find my way through Czechoslovakia to Bavaria, However, I was in constant danger of being shot at and killed. Then I fled northward to the Sudetenland, and from there I somehow managed to get across the border. I walked for a distance of over 1,000 kilometers, and arrived in Seckenheim in September 1945. I heard there that an officer for the CIC was already trying to find me, as they needed me as a witness for the investigations in connection with the concentration camp problem. I found the agency of that officer, the place where he was working. That was the headquarters for the CIC of the 7th Army in Mannheim. I reported there, and was thereupon placed under automatic arrest.
Q. Witness, as you were an SS judge, please describe to us very briefly the whole structure of the SS jurisdication and their relationship towards other justices.
A. The SS jurisdiction is a war jurisdiction. That means that that jurisdiction was only competent for soldiers of the Waffen SS, members of the Waffen on SS, and members of the police in special assignment.
The material and the formal right and law absolutely corresponded to the other courts and other laws, particularly the war courts as established by the Wehrmacht. It is necessary to stress the point that SS courts had nothing to do with civilians and in particular they had nothing to do with civilian population of the occupied territories. That is, SS courts had no right to take any political measures or pass such sentences; they simply could issue sentences based on the German penal code which existed.
Q. Witness, while describing your curriculum vitae, you stated that from approximately the middle of 1943 to the middle of 1944 all sorts of investigations were carried out by you in many concentration camps. How did you get to carry out those investigations? What were the points of view to be considered when carrying out those investigations?
A. I received the job of carrying out those investigations in the following manner. Shortly after I joined the Criminal Police Office, I went to the SS and Police Court in Kassel. The SS and Police Court in Kassel was carrying out a trial against a grocer Borncheim. This grocery was sending food-stuffs to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Certain rumors had been passed on by the population that man was engaging in embezzlements. After a six-month investigation the Tribunal ordered the arrest of that person, who was, as I mentioned before, also a member of the headquarters staff in Buchenwald. The Tribunal could find nothing incriminating against that man. That was the reason why he was again released. The rumors among the people were widespread and it was believed that man had been let alone because he was an SS member. The SS and Police Court in Kassel therefore asked the Reich Criminal Office to send somebody down there, somebody who was a corruption specialist and who also was to be an SS officer at the same time, because certain investigations were to be carried out in the concentration camp of Buchenwald.
The Criminal Police had no permission to enter a concentration camp, I should like to add that. As the Reich Criminal Police Office had nobody else but me who fulfilled those prerequisites for the investigation, I was sent to Weimar. The case of Bornscheim was cleared up by me.
Bornschein missed getting hanged by a hair's breath. He was sentenced to eight or nine years in jail.
Q: Witness, did you find out that the charge of Auschwitz embezzlements at the disadvantage of the inmates were correct, - or what did you find out?
A: The contrary was found out. It was peculiar enough. The man in his dealings, in his official activities, was absolutely correct towards the camps and the inmates of the camp. Even his business competitors had to tell me that he was more effective and more capable than they were. Against all expectations the "Bornschein crime" developed itself in the civilian sector rather than in the military sector; while, of course, at the beginning there was the serious charge that he had made certain embezzlements in food at the disadvantage of the inmates at Buchenwald.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, this all seems to be a long way from the indictment. What is the purpose of this witness?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I want to ask him about all the points contained in the indictment because the witness was in all the concentration camps, at least in a large number of the concentration camps in the years 1943 to 1944, and therefore he acquired an exact knowledge about conditions there. However, in order to clear up the expert knowledge of this witness I took this long detour. Apart from that, he can also testify about the transportation of the inmates, possibly. I will talk about that later on. He will also speak of the transportation of weapons and ammunitions.
THE PRESIDENT: But the offense of a grocer in Kassel seems to be remote from the indictment. Can't we get the witness in the concentration camp pretty fast?
DR. HOFFMANN: We are quite close to it, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: It's in sight, is it?
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, your Honor, it is.
Q: (By Dr. Hoffmann): On the occasions of those investigations of Buchenwald what did you notice, quite apart from the order which you received to carry out?
A: On the occasions of those investigations a large number of rumors came to my knowledge, namely, that since, the action against the Jews in 1938 had taken place, the members of the concentration camp of Buchenwald had violated certain rules concerning the property of the inmates. These rumors were of such an urgent nature that I considered it my duty to tell the chief of the Reich Criminal Police office, Obergruppenfuehrer Nebel, about it and to suggest to him to carry out a special investigation of the concentration camp of Buchenwald. Nebel agreed with my idea and he referred me to the chief of the SS jurisdiction, Gruppenfuehrer Breithaupt. He again referred me to the liaison judge with Reichsfuehrer-SS, and after that I was given the order to carry out corruption investigations in the concentration camp of Buchenwald.
A: Did these investigations limit themselves to the concentration camp of Buchenwald, or did they extend themselves?
A: The investigation also extended to other concentration camps quite soon. The reason for that was that the people charged with the Jewish action in 1938 in the meantime had been transferred to other offices and to other concentration camps. That was the reason why I had to carry out the arrests in other concentration camps; and when interrogating those charged with that crime, it was found out that they had continued their criminal activity in other concentration camps. For instance, the investigations went from Buchenwald to Lublin,then to Sachsenhausen near Berlin, then to Auschwitz, then again to Dachau.
Then the investigations were transferred to Herzogenbosch. Finally I also dealt with investigations with reference to the concentration camp of Warsaw and Cracow Plascow, but I only worked on part of the investigations there.
Q: Did you carry on the investigations in the concentration camps of Majdanek, Treblinka and Birkenau near Auschwitz, or is there a difference between concentration camps and the three camps which I just mentioned now?
A: During those extensive investigations I also got acquainted with a special kind of camp as time went by, and by that I mean extermination installations. Those were several camps in the Eastern territory, in the government general, and there was also the extermination camp of Birkenau which was in Auschwitz. Those are not camps where inmates were kept, nor were those camps in any connection with the other concentration camp administrations. But those were nothing but execution places.
Q: As an example, witness, as far as I know Auschwitz and Birkenau are absolutely close to each other. Auschwitz was a concentration camp and Birkenau was an extermination camp. Is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: How far was Birkenau from Auschwitz?
A: Birkenau was several kilometers from Auschwitz, away, and in a special part which was absolutely independent.
Q: Who ever entered Auschwitz - was he in Birkenau at the same time?
A: No, not at all. He could not possibly have any idea about the existence of Birkenau while in Auschwitz.
Q: Can you tell us anything about the safe-guarding and the camouflage of Birkenau?
A: The extermination camp of Birkenau was in a special wooded area, an industry area. It was rather small, relatively speaking. There was one road leading there from the outside world. There were also buildings along the road. These buildings were not very high but only consisted of one floor. From the outside you could not possibly gain any impression about the inside of that area. However, once you entered the building one had to perceive that the buildings were much larger than they looked from the outside because one story was underground. The guard personnel was under the command of a special group of soldiers, consisting of - Ruthenians, White Russians, and Baltics. That troop was not very strong. A machine gun tower was right in every corner of that area, and beside them a double guard. The personnel for the largest part were Jewish prisoners. An SS Unterfuehrer was in charge of every crematoria unit.
Q: Witness, did they have any camouflage installations in the other extermination camps?
A: As far as I know the safeguarding and camouflage measures as compared with other extermination camps were even better there because these were really far away from settlements, in large hoods.
Q: Witness, I want now to defer from the extermination camps and turn again to the concentration camps where you carried out your investigations, and I would like to ask you, what were the general conditions which you found in the concentration camps?
A: The moment you entered the concentration camp for a longer period of time one could see nothing to indicate that there was such a thing -- or such things existing as mentioned by the propaganda today.
Inmates were billeted in stone houses or in barracks; in every barrack there were apart from sleeping halls for the inmates, a day room. There were also shower baths and washing facilities. Until the beginning of the war every inmate even received sheets for their beds. The food was absolutely sufficient. The inmates could receive just as many parcels as he wanted. There was also a large library and a radio for the inmates, and there was also a screen for movies, certain floor shows; and apart from that in every concentration camp there was also a brotherl. The thing which I like in particular was the very good medical installations they had there. During the time in which I carried on the investigations in other concentration camps -- that is to say, from the month of July 1943 until about May 1944, I never saw any human beings who looked tired or exhausted; they didn't look under-nourished, nor did they look as if they had been badly beaten up. Nor did I see any piles of corpses or anything else which would indicate a criminal activity in the concentration camps.
MR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I shall now reach a different point of the examination and I am going to talk about details.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. We will recess until tomorrow morning.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will be in recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal recessed until 0930 hours 22 Aug 47)
Official Transcript of Military Tribunal II, Case Iv, in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 22 August 1947, Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II. Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the courtroom.
DR. KONRAD MORGEN - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. HOFFMANN: (Counsel for the defendant Scheide)
Q Witness, yesterday you described upon my questions the outside impression which you gained, when you began carrying out your investigations in the concentration camps, based on your order to investigate cases of corruption. Did your investigations limit themselves to corruption cases?
A Yesterday I simply described the outside impressions of a concentration camp.
THE PRESIDENT: Just answer the question: Did your investigations stop at investigations of corruption?
A No, they were not limited to corruption cases, because behind that outside impression there was something else. Apart from corruption I also investigated murder and mistreatment of inmates on a most incredible scale. My investigations were extended, due to the knowledge of facts which I had gained.
Q Witness, how did you deal with the entire complex as a single individual? Did you have anybody who helped you along?
A I could not possibly investigate all the number of crimes, in the concentration camps, alone. I received investigating commissioners from the Reich Police Office for my investigations. Those were special criminal commissioners, together with a staff of officials. Apart from that, I could get the help of the criminal police, the Gestapo, and the local SS Courts, and I could make use of them.
In two cases the WVHA also helped us in the investigations which were carried out in Herzogenbusch, Hauptsturmfuehrer Skorzeny also helped.
The investigations of the Concentration Camp of Warsaw were started by the immediate order of Pohl, who also ordered a preliminary arrest of two commanders and two officers.
All the strings of the investigations met in my office. I directed the commissions, I evaluated the results, and, after I had the reports, I prosecuted most of the cases before a court.
Q Witness, were you surprised at the atrocities which you saw in the concentration camps? You were an SS member, and I asked you yesterday if you knew anything about those things before the investigations.
A Prior to the investigations I did not know about those things, and I did not consider them possible.
Q When did you reach the conclusion that there were killings?
A It took me possibly two months, together with my officials, to find the first trades of those killings. It took me approximately four or five months to find the first traces of the extermination of the Jews.
Q Why didn't you find out about it earlier, witness?
A The reason for that was that all these crimes were not developing openly, not even in the concentration camps, but they were carried out in secret places with the most incredible preventive measures -- for instance, in the custody institutions of the concentration camps, in special rooms of the sick bays, and in far away stone quarries in secluded places.
Furthermore, the reason for that was that the traces of those crimes were always destroyed completely. The victims were secretly burned immediately and a falsified report or a falsified document was written for every case. It was so cleverly done to such an extent that even the expert, in spite of being skeptical, could not possibly have suspected that this had occurred.
That is why it was so absolutely difficult, not only for myself but also for those expert criminal experts, to discover those crimes.
Q. Witness, in this Tribunal we have tangible evidence about what was going on in the concentration camps, so that what you said yesterday about floor shows and movies and radios seems incredible. That is the reason why I would like to ask you again, would you tell us now, what was the outside appearance of things when you first came to the concentration camp?
A. I don't believe that anybody who hasn't seen a concentration camp can have any idea of what a concentration camp is. A concentration camp is a place of incredible contrasts. What I said yesterday about positive impressions I didn't just say carelessly or take from the air. I lived in the concentration camp of Buchenwald and I worked there for seven months, and I was in the concentration camp of Dachau for two months, and as far as the other concentration camps are concerned which I mentioned to you, I repeatedly visited those for hours and days. And prior to the investigation, at least, I carried out a long tour of inspection. I told you yesterday about the facts, but one cannot infer from that this was the whole reality of the concentration camps.
Apart from those positive things, there were also those secret crimes of which the concentration camp inmates themselves knew nothing about accurately. They simply assumed that they existed. That is the thing that every witness repeatedly mentions in court, the hell of the concentration camp. For the feeling to be opposite to an unknown menace, which menace could break out at any given moment against any individual who came to the camp. That exceeded all the positive things and the realities which were good. And again, this negative part of it cannot overweigh the positive cases of the concentration camps.
Q. Witness, I want to ask you something else. We have heard here figures of death rates, and I would like to ask you this. Can you give me any information, first of all, as to what the reasons were which led to this high death rate?
A. Several witnesses made calculations and estimates which ran from five to twenty million dead. All those calculations are not quite exact, and they are simply more or less assumptions.
However, Your Honors, I believe I can give you a few points of view as to how this complex ought to be judged.
First of all, according to my opinion, you have to eliminate all executions which occurred in the concentration camps from the death rate figures. The reason for that is that those executions were not carried out on concentration camp inmates but on persons, rather, who were transferred from the outside of the concentration camps in order to be executed there. Those executions, figuratively speaking, do amount to quite a number. For instance, you have executions of courts martial which were used in the East against persons, to a large extent, because of guerrilla warfare or because of illegal carrying of weapons, or because of resistance against the occupational forces, or because of other severe violations during the war. For those reasons they were condemned to death in a regular manner.
Furthermore, you had executions without sentences upon order of Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, chief of the Gestapo. They were executions which had a legal basis in the Reich law, for instance, concerning the Penal Code against Poles and Jews. All these executions might also have been carried out in jails or at any other place in the world. I assume that they were merely economic aspects which led to carrying out those executions in the concentration camps.
Since these executions did not apply to concentration camp inmates, then you cannot charge the concentration camp or the concentration camp administration with such crimes. These perpetrators did die in the concentration camp, but they were not inmates of the concentration camp and they had nothing to do with it.
According to my opinion, you also have to eliminate the extermination of the Jews. According to the results of my investigations, those extermination installations had nothing to do with the concentration camps. That is the reason why the figures of millions which one hears in connection with the extermination of Jews should not be considered as figure of human beings who died in the concentration camps.