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.
And I am positive as a result of my investigations that I was able to with concrete cases that the agents which were used for the bloody practices became absolutely criminals. Absolute putrid.
THE PRESIDENT: Don't let the witness get away from you. Go ahead with your question. Unless you ask him questions quickly, he starts on a ride of his own. So keep the questions "popping" at him.
Q. (By Dr. Hoffmann) Witness, in connection with the secrecy question, don't you think that the deportation of millions of people had to create suspicion somewhere?
A. You must think about the irregularity of things during the war. At the beginning of the war millions of racial Germans were brought back to Germany from the east. Millions of German citizens were engaged for the Organization Todt or for other construction projects. Then due to the bombardment of the cities, hundreds of thousands of people were on their way. This connection between those civilians and the Army was such a movement for weeks and months that the slow deportation of the Jews, of course, did not strike- did not stick out too far so that one could not actually notice it very easily.
Q. Witness, one did know in Germany though that concentration camps existed. The witnesses testified here again that they knew about the camps of Dachau and Oranienburg, and that is correct, isn't it? One also knew that people were being committed to concentration camps, and one knew that he concentration camp was a large limitation on personal freedom, and it was even more feared than a prison. Couldn't one see from those facts what was going on behind the concentration camps in reality, the way we know it today?
A. One hears again and again that the public knew that the concentration camp was not a sanatorium, but no factory, no prison, no Army is a sanatorium. There is nothing else in life which is like a sanatorium. If it is not a sanatorium this does not necessarily mean that a concentration camp must be a site where inhumane actions are committed. Those camps, in which people were being committed without judgment, without a sentence, simply because of their potential danger, existed even prior to the National Socialist Order, and even exist today. The internal conditions within the concentration camps are the reason for their inhumanity, hidden behind the word "concentration camp."
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Hoffmann, why don't you hold him to your question? Now, you ask one very simple question about the knowledge of the people of conditions in concentration camps. He proceeds to give us a lecture on what existed prior to the National Socialist regime, compare it to a sanatorium, which you didn't mention in your question. It seems to me you should hold him in line.
DR. HOFFMANN: All right, Your Honor, very well.
Q. (By Dr. Hoffman) Witness, if the public, as you said before, knew nothing about the inhumane acts of the concentration camps, then the question is still open whether the SS generally speaking knew anything about them. You were an SS member. Please make a statement about it.
A. The SS knew nothing about it because the large mas of the SS during this war was out in the front line, and I mean in those front lines which were the hottest ones to be in.
Q. Fine, witness. Now the next question. Now, somebody must have been responsible for those conditions. Who was responsible?
A. According to my opinion they were individuals, in other words, individuals who belonged to the inner staff of a concentration camp and who can be sought there, and also people who were in certain central offices who had something to do with administering those things. As far as the extermination of Jews was concerned, you had the organization Eichmann, E-i-c-h-m-a-n-n.
Q. You are speaking about central offices. Would you consider the WVHA as such a central office?
A. Not necessarily, because the WVHA, I mean from an institutional point of view, had to do with supplying the troops. The members of the guard personnel of the concentration camps also belonged to that troop.
I mentioned before, this amounted to thirty-five to forty thousand men. As compared to he mass of the other tasks, the supplying of this group alone only meant one-twentieth of the entire task.
Q. Witness, the Defendant Scheide, who is my client, had to take care of the transportation. As an administrative lawyer you are in a position to give us information about that, Judge Toms, during the examination of Defendant Scheide, asked him, "How did the concentration camp inmate get to the camp?" Now, can you give us some sort of statement about that?
A. He was sent to a concentration camp by a commitment order issued by the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office. The commitment and the transportation of the inmates to the concentration camp was the task of the Gestapo and of no other agency.
Q. Witness, Judge Toms asked, "The inmate did not walk; he did not walk into the concentration camp; he was transported in come manner." How was that done?
A. The police did that with their own means, and they carried it on with special trucks. They used trucks and also special prisoners vans which were used on the German Reichsbahn, railroad carriages They had their regular schedules, and they delivered the concentration camp inmate into the concentration camps themselves.
Q. Now, if inmates came from abroad into the concentration camps abroad, that is to Poland, how did they get there?
A. A railroad transport had to be carried out for those inmates who were abroad. The man who organized these transports was a delegate of the Gestapo. Before the inmate was turned over at the gate of the concentration camp for a commitment order, he did not exist for the concentration camp, and for he concentration-camp administration either.
Q. Whom would the Gestapo use now, and by that I mean actually, for the railroad transports?
A. They carried out their negotiations with the Reichsbohn Agencies through their police offices, and when major transports were concerned, of course, then again they worked with the police for escort personnel.
Q. How was it now, witness with the commitments or the transports with trucks? Now, when the Gestapo sent inmates to the concentratration camp with trucks, did they use their own trucks, or did they get trucks from somewhere else?
A. The Gestapo had trucks of their own which had special security measures, which were used according to a schedule or depending on the cases. If those means were not sufficient then the Gestapo would apply for transports, and then they rented buses or trucks from private enterprises.
Q. Witness, it has been stated here that he Defendant Scheide was in charge of six hundred trucks for all concentration camps. Could any major transportation of human beings have been carried out with that number, or were those six hundred necessary for internal traffic? I am only thinking of supply and I am only talking from a supervision point of view.
A. I found out myself that the concentration camps had a definite lack of trucks. For instance, the concentration camp at Guchenwald, which contained approximately 80,000 inmates together with its outside camps, had two or three truck columns. Due to the large number of concentration camps with their outside camps, the number of six hundred trucks is absolutely insignificant. The internal traffice of the camp and such can probably be kept up in that case, for emergency, but I do know that the concentration-camp administration borrowed additional trucks from both the Army and the civilian sector.
Q. Witness, if civilian firms now used inmates for labor assignment, do you know anything about it, how those inmates were transported if they didn't walk; but if they were transported by trucks, who supplied the trucks?
A. Whenever there was a construction project or a work project by a civilian firm, then they also had to provide the necessary trucks and the necessary means for their transportation and the billeting of the inmates. As there were so many applicants of labor inmates, the administration could select a few of those applicants, and they used those applicants with whom they had as little work as possible, that is to say, such people who had all means in their hands.
Q. Witness, it has been stated here that the Defendant Sheide was also competent for arms and ammunitions, that this was already dealt with before, because the administration of arms and ammunition for guard personnel cannot be considered a crime. But amongst all the weapons in the concentration camps there were also two machine guns. Did you at any time hear that machine guns were used for executions?
A. I never heard that machine guns were used for executions. The executions were carried out either by hanging or by gassing in the extermination camps, and I believe that cases where shootings took place by a military unit were absolutely seldom, by the special shooting squads, and even the use of the ammunition at the time can only have been so small, that according to my opinion it was not very much anyway, and the central office could not learn about it.
Q. Now, Witness, you had a large insight on the entire conditions as far as they were in connection with the concentration camps. The Defendant Scheide was in the WVHA. He was in charge of the Agency B-V, Transportation, Arms and Ammunition. Do you believe that he had any knowledge or could have had any knowledge about internal conditions in the concentration camps, namely that one could assert that generally speaking?
A I do not know the Defendant Scheide, and therefore I don't know what he knows or does not know about concentration camps. However, I can say that based on his official position, namely from his sector, he could not know anything essential about the concentration camps.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I herewith conclude my examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Other Defense Counsel?
BY DR. SEIDL (For Defendant Oswald Pohl):
Q Witness, you testified that the extermination camp at Auschwitz was the camp of Birkenau. Now, I can recall that you testified already before the International Military Tribunal that the extermination camp of Auschwitz was the camp of Monowitz. May I assume at the time when you gave your testimony before the I. M. T. it was a mistake?
A It was a mistake on my part. When I say Monowitz I mean Birkenau.
Q Witness, you also submitted quite a few affidavits which I would like to ask you about. Let me ask you about an affidavit which you gave on the 28th of January, 1947, which you signed on that date. This, your Honors, is Document NO-1900, which was introduced by the Prosecution as Exhibit No. 549.
THE INTERPRETER: 549, Your Honors, 1900. I am sorry, your Honor.
Q (Continuing) This is the case of Sauerzweig. Witness, I would like to ask you, who was it that found out about this corruption case? Do you remember any more about it?
A Yes, I was the one who took up that case.
THE PRESIDENT: He answered your question. Now go ahead with another one.
Q (By Dr. Seidl) Did that case of Albert Sauerzweig have anything to do with concentration camps?
A No.
Q Do you know that the Defendant, Oswald Pohl, had refused recommending the petition for pardon, which resulted in an early execution of the sentence?
A I didn't know that, but I think it possible.
Q Do you furthermore know that Pohl used that sentence as a pretext in order to inform all the administrative leaders of that sentence?
A Yes.
Q And to tell them to be absolutely clean?
A Yes, I know about it.
Q Do you also know that the Main Office SS courts, with reference to this order by Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, used it as an exemplary proof for the support of the SS justice in the Main Office SS court?
A Yes.
Q Witness, in your affidavit you assert that one or two trucks of those things which had been embezzled from Sauerzweig went directly to Pohl. Do you have any tangible reasons for reaching that assumption, or is that an assumption of your part? Or do you only know that from hearsay?
THE PRESIDENT: This has nothing to do with the indictment, Dr. Seidl. Pohl is not charged with embezzling trucks or property of any kind.
DR. SEIDL: However, it is contained in the document, your Honor, which the Prosecution introduced. This document exclusively deals with such corruption cases. In view of the fact that the Tribunal has accepted this document in evidence, I reached the conclusion that the Tribunal also attaches some probative value to that document, and that is the reason which made me ask the Witness a question about that.
THE PRESIDENT: We attach no probative value to a statement that is not connected with the indictment. There is no charge of corruption in the indictment.
DR.SEIDL: Then we will ask no further questions of this witness on the case of Sauerzweig.
THE PRESIDENT: A very commendable decision.
Q (By Dr. Seidl) In your affidavit which was introduced by the Prosecution as NO-1907 and in connection with the case of Leckebusch, you made some statements there. This is an affidavit by this witness dated the 29th of January, 1947. It is Document NO-1907. Witness, do you know that this case, Leckebusch, was taken up by the auditing office of the WVHA and that later on it turned out that Leckebusch was not at all a member of the WVHA but rather a member of the SS Main Office. Did you know anything about that?
A I assume with concentration camps?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't see any connection between this and concentration-camp matters.
Q Do you know that Leckenbusch committed suicide?
A Yes.
Q Can you tell me how this whole thing came about?
THE PRESIDENT: No, no; who in the world is Lieckenbusch?
DR. SEIDL (Counsel for defendant Pohl): Liechenbusch is the man who is described in the affidavit by Dr. Morgen, dated the 29th of January, 1947. The affidavit was introduced by the Prosecution as NO-1907.
THE PRESIDENT: What did Lieckenbusch do?
DR. SEIDL: According to the description given by the witness in his affidavit, this is a corruption case which is brought in connection with the defendant pohl.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, didn't you understand me, Dr. Seidl before?
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, it is very difficult for me to decide in individual cases if a case which is brought up by the Prosecution is in connection with the indictment itself, since the indictment only speaks about it in general terms. The document was accepted in evidence, and from the Defense point of view I consider it a duty to discuss matters of evidence which are introduced by the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Even when it hasn't any relation to the indictment?
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I don't know what the Prosecution will make as its subject when it concludes the introduction of evidence, and I don't know what the conclusion will be on the part of the Tribunal. The reason being that the indictment has been compiled in a general way.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Prosecution is limited by the indictment. The Prosecution is limited by the charges in the indictment.
Now, how can they make any claim about Leickenbusch, or somebody, having been corrupt? That is not a war crime; it is not a crime against humanity; it has nothing to do with the indictment.