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.
Q. Witness, let me interrupt you here. I would like to ask you this. Generally speaking, Auschwitz was considered an extermination camp. Yesterday we spoke about it, and you stated that between Auschwitz and Birkenau, at least locally speaking, there must be a difference made. Now I would like to ask you, what was the connection with reference to personnel between Auschwitz and Birkenau? Hoess was the commander of Auschwitz. Who was the commander at Birkenau?
A. As I stated yesterday, extermination camps were installations to which the inmates were sent directly for extermination. They didn't live there and they didn't work there, and they weren't kept there either. They were all separated from the concentration camps. I stated that yesterday and that applies, for instance, to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
When one arrived in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, there was nothing to indicate that the extermination side of Birkenau existed right nearby. It is correct that the commander of these two camps, at the time Obersturmbannfuehrer Hoess, was also the commander of Birkenau; that was a so-called personal union. According to the impressions which I gained during conversations which I personally had with Hoess, it really was as follows, namely, that the channel of orders to Hoess, in his capacity as commander of the extermination camp of Birkenau, did not derive from the WVHA, but from Bormann himself - in order to be more accurate about it, from the Reich Chancery of the Fuehrer in Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 4, which in my opinion is to be considered the actual central office of the entire extermination of the Jews.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. Witness, would you apply the same line of reasoning to Dachau, where the gas chamber was actually within the compound of the concentration camp?
A. As far as Dachau is concerned, I would like to say the following, namely, that I never heard that a gas chamber existed in Dachau. After the capitulation I had the opportunity to speak with inmates, Capos, and SS members from Dachau about this question, and to my surprise I heard that a gas installation was being prepared there.
However, that project was not completed and no executions ever took place there.
Q. In order that I may be absolutely certain as to your answer, let me repeat what I understood you to say, that in Dachau there was no gas chamber actually functioning prior to the liberation of that camp by the Allied Forces. Is that what I understood you to say?
A. Yes, that is my knowledge.
Q. All right.
DR. HOFFMANN: May it please Your Honors, I just heard from my colleagues - because I was very much interested in the question of Judge Musmanno as to whether there was not a gas chamber in Dachau. I wonder if Your Honors decided to ask that question based on the film, which I did not see. My colleague Rauschenbach has just told me that a shower room was shown in Dachau, which, however, I don't know because I did not see that film.
THE PRESIDENT: The shower room is still there, you can go see it tomorrow, and all the signs of it having been used for a long time are still there.
DR. HOFFMANN: In the film, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: No, in Dachau. The furnaces are all burned, ashes are there, the iron is all rusty from long use, there is blood on the walls; it is all there today.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I just wanted to ask the witness a question.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. I was not in Dachau and therefore I don't know, but do you think there is possibly a mix-up? I mean, do you think we are getting it mixed up with the crematory, is that it?
A. There can be two misunderstandings about it. In every concentration camp there was a disinfection chamber, a decontamination chamber, where the civilian clothes, or anything else were disinfected with gas. Those chambers, however, were made in such manner that according to my opinion no misuse of the chamber could be possible, and did not take place, either. After I heard about the establishment of the extermination installations in Birkenau and in the Government General under the Eastern Territory, you must realize that I tried to find out whether gassing took place in other concentration camps, also. I really did not find anything like it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, don't waste any more time at your trying to tell us what happened at Dachau. We have seen it, both in pictures and on the grounds, and, we know about the delousing chambers. We know about the false shower bath, and we know about the crematoria, so don't bring any witnesses to try to tell us that there were no exterminations at Dachau. It has been established not only in this case but in other cases that had been tried. There is not any question about it.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I did know that owing to the expert knowledge of the Tribunal such results would ensue. However, I would like to ask the witness if it is not possible that he missed seeing that because if the Tribunal saw that in Dachau then--
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Just in a few brief terms, witness, just in a few brief terms, I would like to ask possibly you missed seeing it because the Tribunal has a very good knowledge of it?
A. I did not miss the crematory there, because a crematory existed in every concentration camp; but the presence of a crematory does not necessarily prove that people were being gassed before being taken to a crematory.
THE PRESIDENT: That is a perfectly ridiculous statement. If you had taken the pains to look for it, and it is not even inside the barbed wires, it is outside.
You will find in one building the delousing chambers where clothes were taken away; the shower bath where the gas was introduced to kill the victims, and right next door, just through the wall four furnaces for cremation, and right next to that a large chamber where the bodies were piled up to the ceiling, and spilled out into the yard. It is all there, in one building.
THE WITNESS: Mr. Ponger from the Prosecution talked to me about this issue and he also told me personally that installation was not used, because of the fact it never functioned and was never completed, and if that were the case, then I could not possibly know that people were being gassed there.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, it is at a very recent time we have come across a blueprint of the gas chambers and the crematory at Dachau, as well as several other places, and these are made up by Amtsgruppe-C of the WVHA, and, on cross examination I would like to have Mr. Ponger put these facts in the form of questions to the witness. Mr. Ponger as a matter of fact was an inmate himself at Dachau, and he can make his explanation now, or merely wait until we reach that point during the cross examination, whatever the Court desires.
THE PRESIDENT: So far as we are concerned, any proof along this line is carrying coals to Newcastle. Well, it is useless. I mean, there is not use talking about it.
BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness, we spoke about the reasons for the high mortality rate and you spoke about executions. Can you tell us about any other causes for the death rates?
A. When dealing with mortality one forgets the normal death rate due to the number of inmates, and due to the short period of time that the concentration camp itself existed which also leads to very high mortality rates. If you take normal death rate of say sixteen, that was sixteen to one-thousand persons a year, then this means 600 thousand inmates per six years, which is a mortality of over sixty-thousand dead.
That means people in civilian life also would have died in that same time anyhow. In addition to that, the age groups at the concentration camps were such that they ranged between thirty to sixty years of age, in which cases the normal expectancy of life was shorter; further, a large number of concentration camp inmates consisted of members of intellectual professions, and, they, of course, possibly die faster than other people, so according to my opinion without the fault of anybody, there was a death rate which was above the normal death rate. As to natural deaths, you must also consider the victims of epidemics. From my own experience, I can tell you that through this war the epidemics in typhus, and spotted fever in the East was very large. The epidemics were not only limited to the concentration camps, but also to the Wehrmacht PW camps, and their own armies, and also amongst the civilian population, and I can tell you about that camp of Lublin that in there twice all the staff died -- that means that approximately eighty-thousand epidemic death cases happened in one single camp. I know that the administrations in the concentration camps did whatever was humanly possible in order to prevent the breakout of such epidemics, and also to fight such epidemics when they appeared, for the very simple reason that epidemics does not make any difference whether it is amongst inmates, or SS-men, or civilians, or soldiers. That is the reason why for the known and hygenic interests of the country everything had to be done in order to stop the epidemics', and then I can tell you that the most modern and the most extensive methods were used in order to stop the epidemics. But the strength of the epidemics in the East, and in order to keep the inmates from the East clean, as well as the other circumstances to help along or to make it more possible in order to stop the epidemics. Also among those hundreds of thousands of the dead persons who died in concentration camps, there were deaths cases with which one cannot charge the administration.
And as to the third point, I would like to draw the Tribunal's attention to those death cases which occurred, due to the fault of the inmates. The inmates had a self-administration in the camp. This inmates self-administration lead to the fact that individual groups which held the leading positions and who were opposed to each other, fought each other with all means, and they made life hard for themselves. That all started with the simple hardships of their work. The Capo had the effective power without being prevented from exercising it, for instance, not to distribute valuable fats or sausage to unpopular inmates, for instance, in order to pass them on and sell it in the blackmarket for cigarettes, schnaps, or money. He had the possibility to give, to illtreat or put individual inmates under pressure. Or workers who were working in sickbays, or the experimental stations, practically speaking had every possibility to eliminate the unpopular inmates in very simple manner without being detected.
Q. Now witness, you have stated three points in connection with death rates in concentration camps. Now I would like to ask the following question: You do agree with me, witness, that your objective explanations which you gave so far is not to be understood to the effect that inmates are responsible for the three points, for the three points which you have mentioned before, because even the last point as shown on the conditions existing as to each inmate, you say that the differences were such in the camps as the result -- as the fundamental result of their imprisonment there?
A. Yes, of course, coming back to the actual reasons, we will find that the establishment of concentration camps, as such, was responsible, but apart from that guilt, I believe there is another question, whether the administration of concentration camps there is responsible for those deaths, but I believe there you have to make a difference between the two.
That is the reason I stated that difference in order to introduce it as facts, and it is up to the Tribunal to make a decision about it.
Q. Witness, there are, a series of other reasons which led to this high death rate. I do not wish to go into it now, I want to ask first; did you have the general impression that the concentration camps were institutions of extermination, and by that I mean, during the time in which you carried on your investigation, namely, 1943, and '44?
A. I stated before that from the outside there is an instance where one could not gain that impression, sofar as I know the Leadership instructions of the Administration were in quite a different line. The concentration camps at that time were used for labor assignments in the armament. That is the reason why the most urgent interest existed in keeping these people healthy, fit for work, and in a good mood. It is perhaps possible to get special results out of human beings by putting him under pressure, but that you can only do by having a guard behind every one of those inmates.
However if it is as it was actually the way in the concentration camps, that possibly one guard was used for one-hundred inmates, then in that instance, it is absolutely impossible and then one simply must depend on the voluntary collaboration on the part of the inmates. That is the reason they have to build living conditions in such a manner that the inmates at least would not become unwilling to work. That is the reason why you have had the establishment of the practical policy of the concentration camps, in order to answer in the negative, namely, that the concentration camps were no extermination installations.
Q. Witness, we heard here that the hygenic installations at a certain period of time were not sufficient. Undoubtedly, yesterday you said that the hygenic installations, were good. Now how can you explain the whole thing?
A It is absolutely correct, sir. There was one period of time when the camps were over crowded, that every inmate did not have a bed of his own, and that the sickbays were simply full. The reason for that is that you can not compare a concentration camp with a prison. The reason for that is that all prisons were built before the inmates came; because the number of claims for the number of imprisonments are possibly already named, that is the reason why you take the actual institute, or you build as many jails as you actually think you need, but with concentration camps it was a different thing. There was no experience whatsoever, as to the so-called political criminality. This also depended upon the war events. For instance, when the resistence movement started, the Partisans movement, from the extension of the war theatre. Then it happened that constantly large masses of human beings were suddenly arrested without the camp commandant having any idea of this, suddenly ten-thousands of inmates were in front of his gates. He simply had to take the men in without knowing how to billet them. During those years of the war it was in German as follows: There was a lack of nails, planks, and mess kits and drugs, and unfortunately the war production had its priority, and it was only after that the civilians and everybody else had the right to such facilities, and only at the end the prisoners were considered. I believe that objectively speaking one has to recognize the fact that these factual and technical difficulties were overbridged relatively quickly because the SS was behind the Concentration Camps. If the inmates had been left at the responsibility of the civilian justice administration, then I believe that a catastrophe would have been much greater; so I believe I owe it to the fairness of the Tribunal to mention all those technical things without asking for any merits namely, that in the welfare of the inmates and also the medical installations are the merits of the defendant Pohl.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Witness, here again and again I have to come back to the same question. You are describing objective reasons, but here again the concentration camp inmate was not at fault, that he was brought together with thousands of other men to a camp and he did not get any bed and maintenance and equipment?
A I shall repeat again and again that those authorities are guilty which carried out this mad policy. It will be up to the Tribunal to decide who whether the defendants here partook in this policy; I believe I can say that after the inmates were all there, it was not the guilt of the camp if they had such bad conditions. That is the only thing I would like to add.
Q Witness, I am asking you one more question in connection with point. How do you explain that Himmler, for instance, allowed investigations in an extermination camp, he was the instigator of those exterminations himself?
A I did not have an order to carry out the investigation in the extermination camps, but I did so inspite of everything, and the pretext for that was to investigate the corruption which was to be expected here also, and when I had already gained the knowledge about those things which were going on, then Himmler could not remove that knowledge from my own brain, either but I distributed that knowledge amongst those people and those circles who possibly could do something in order to change this condition which existed.
Q Witness, we do know that Mueller was the second in command, generally below Himmler, concerning the extermination of Jews. Did you speak with Mueller?
A Yes, I did.
Q Can you tell us briefly who Mueller was, very briefly?
A Gruppenfuehrer Mueller was Chief of the Gestapo.
Q Was he surprised when you told him about your knowledge of the extermination of the Jews?
A Obergruppenfuehrer Mueller was surprised to hear about the illegal execution in the concentration camps, namely about the acts committed in the concentration camps against the law and he was also surprised at the large extent of crime, but he was not at all surprised that there was an extermination of the Jews, that there were inhuman treatment which had been ordered, and, he said to me, ironically, "Why don't you arrest me."
Q Witness, why didn't you do that?
A I am a Judge, or I was a Judge of military justice. I can only order the arrest upon the recommendation of the competent president, of course, because his signature next to mine, and one could not dream of doing such a thing. But in spite of that I tried to get it, because I had an order for the arrest to be submitted to Obergruppenfuehrer Kaltenbrunner against Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, who is also know to this Tribunal. The Chief of the executions of extermination of the Jews. This form of arrest was not granted me. I reported Remonstrated this incident to the defendant Kaltenbrunner here in the IMT, and the defendant Kaltenbrunner did not deny that fact.
Q Witness, did you ever speak to Judge Bender, who was chief Judge of the Reichsfuehrer-SS about this matter, and what impression did you have then? Did he know anything about those things?
A I have the impression, at least I thought at the time, the man was absolutely surprised about it. Of course, I did tell him, I did tell Oberfuehrer Bender because he was a judge who reported to the Reichsfuehrer-SS directly, and he also consulted him. I also told the Chief of Main Office SS Court, Obergruppenfuehrer Breithaupt. I can state under oath that both personalities were horrified to hear about those things. I am a man who studied in all sorts of fields, and I was quite familiar with International Law, and about principles or all the laws which existed for all the legal countries, and that is the reason why I left no doubt that if a State committed such crimes, that those things can have a dire and horrible result against the State as such.