At that period of time he had already been arrested on my orders. He was sentenced to death and shot. The harmless nucleus of this experiment, which was ordered by Gruppen fuehrer Mueller, and not I or an SS and Police Court, was carried out in the case of a murder affair. Here we dealt with the claim of an expert that it was possible that in small amounts pervitin could be taken together with a sleeping powder and that these two drugs together could lead to death.
THE PRESIDENT: The only question that was asked was, "Were you there? Were you there when the experiment was performed?"
DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the answer?
Q. Witness, just answer the question of the Tribunal. Where were you when this experiment was carried out? I believe that was the question of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right, it was your question.
A. I did not see at all an experiment which you have described in its course.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Witness, did the prosecution ask you about this matter?
A. Yes.
Q Was any charge ever raised against you about it?
A. No.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH (for the defendant August Frank): Your Honor, I believe that my questioning will be completed before the recess.
"22 August 47-M-AK-12-2a-Caming-(Garand) RECROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, you deposed an affidavit which was submitted before the IMT by the defense of the SS. It is located here in the document book of the defense for the defendant Scheide; and it contains the following paragraph:
"Against the persons carrying out blood orders, trial proceedings had already been started on my orders. Among others of the persons concerned...." Then comes a series of names, among them Eichmann and Hoess. Then follows a new paragraph:
"Against SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl and Frank preliminary investigations were already under way; and enough evidence had already been accumulated against both of them to a considerable extent."
I ask you, did you have any suspicion against Frank because he had carried out blood-orders or any atrocities connected with the concentration camps?
A. No, that can't be understood in this way with regard to the person of Frank because a new paragraph starts here; and, of course, that paragraph contains a different idea.
Q. Of what did the preliminary examination of Frank consist?
A. Well, there was a very sever suspicion of corruption against Frank.
BY DR. GAWLIK (for the defendant Volk):
Q. Witness, in your investigations were you ever to determine whether the defendant Dr. Volk had dealt with any concentration camp matters?
A. The name of Volk means nothing to me at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Could you want anything more than that
DR. GAWLIK: Just one more question, your Honor.
Q. Would Dr. Volk have been sure to have come to your knowledge in connection with your line in the concentration camps and investigations matters if he had had anything to do with the concentration camps?
THE PRESIDENT: Why don't you let well enough alone? He says he never heard of Volk. Now, be smart; just stop right there. You'll get into trouble if you go any further.
Let's recess until 1:45.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal II will be in recess until 1345 hours.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. SCHMIDT (Attorney for Joseph Vogt):
Q. I would like to ask a few small question to the witness. Witness, on the two affidavits which yon mentioned this morning, which you wrote on the 13th of July, 1946, and on the 29th of January, k947, where in you made certain charges against my client that he was willing tool of the defendant Pohl and as such he collaborated with Pohl. I would like to ask you witness, this charge, on your part, dies it refer to the official function of the defendant Vogt in his capacity as auditor?
A. Yes.
Q. In this charge, therefore, in any connection with the corruption cases which were considered and declared irrelevant of this Tribunal?
A. In this why yes.
Q. In the last affidavit which you recorded dated 29 January 1947 you stated that the defendant Vogt utilized his official position to enrich himself. I only want to ask you t is one question in this connection namely, do you base this knowledge of you own perception, witness, or can the cource be founded on hearsay?
A. Those were reports from my investigation agents.
BY DR. SCHMIDT: No further questions.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Attorney for defendant Mummenthey):
Q. I have only two questions. Herr Dr. Morgen, this morning you spoke of secluded stone quarries. Were you thinking about any stone quarry in particular, witness?
A. I was thinking about the stone quarry at Buchenwald.
Q. In your investigations did you come across Mummerthey while carrying on investigations at the camps?
A. No.
DR. FROESCHMANN: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: And other questions by defense counsel?
If not, Prosecution may cross examine of desired.
BY MR. PONGER: CROSS EXAMINATION
Q. Dr. Morgen, yesterday at the beginning of your examination you spoke about the impression of the concentration camp left on a visitor when he came to a camp. In this connection you mentioned installations like radios, floor shows, and you also said that the food there was good and the billeting was wonderful. In order that you don't create a wrong impression, in order that one does not gain the felling that you are not speaking of a German subur but of a concentration camp, I would like to discuss some of this questions. You personally carried out a number of tours in the camps and both know the concentration camp at Buchenwald?
A. Yes.
Q. It is correct, it it not, that there was a movie in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. You spoke about it yesterday, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know that executions were carried out during the day and that the space where the movie was and in the evening where the movies were?
A. This absolutely now to me. All I know was that executions took place at the site of the crematoria and at the Crematoria itself, and not that they took place in the movie of the concentration camp at Buchenwald?
Q. Well. did you think that Pister should have know anything about it?
A. Certainly; he knows something about the incidents during his time there. I don't know if the information you have refer to the commanders in General or to Pister.
Q. Do you know furthermore, witness, that the radio installations at the concentration comp was used in order to transmit Hitler's speaches to the inmates while it was raining and while it was snowing in the winter?
A. Every-thing was communicated to them through that camp radio, orders to the camp inmates themselves and also when special communications were made.
Q. How do you mean that everything was communicated to them?
A. I mean that they were not only used to entertain the inmates but they had among this purpose, Among other purposes.
Q. Did you listen to any of those entertainment programs through the radio at Buchenwald concentration camp.
A. Will you please be more precise.
Q. I am asking for the following reasons: the inmates were not in the concentration camp and therefore they could not hear the things?
A. Yes.
Q. The inmates had to work up to 12 hours a day and therefore they had every little time left for entertainment purposes. Don't you think so witness?
A. Not all the inmates were outside of the camp all along, in the evening, and at the end of the afternoon, and particularly Sunday afternoon the radio was at their disposal. Namely, to transmit programs form German stations.
Q. To come back to something else. Did you ever hear those programs?
A. Yes, you could hear that some distance.
Q. It is correct that the concentration camp at Buchenwald wal abandoned?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know that sometimes there was part of the morning prayer and the band played Sunday mornings and you also had a special scaffold there in the camp and the inmates were places in that scaffold and beaten as part of my experiences.
A. The camp played every morning when the inmates went to work and when they returned in the evening. There was also chamber music once in a while and small civilian concerts on certain Sunday afternoons. Then at the some time people were beaten at the time of the music which was one of the innovations I heard about after the capitulation.
Q. You also mentioned the brothel which also existed at Buchenwald. I believe you said that yesterday?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know why inmates were sent to the brotherl?
A. According to my knowledge this was established in all concentration camps at the same time.
Q. Unfortunately this is not correct; it only applied to a few camps Did you know this was done by order of Himmler in order to revive the will of work among the inmates?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know the establishment was boycotted by the political prisoners.
A. I was not under the impression that the brothel was boycotted at any time. On the contrary there was quite a crowd out there and I think it is correct that many inmates, in spite of the fact that they hadn't seen a woman in years and years they declared that they did not want to make any use of the brothel.
Q. You also knew that the feeling for art in Buchenwald was so great that the wife of the former camp commander Koch whom we know very will, collected the tattooings of the prisoners in order to give them to people later on, and sometimes she even helped them turn it in much sooner and faster.
A. Excuse me, I think about this question: I am very well informed and both there and in the Buchenwald trail I would like to explain explicitly that was propaganda lie. I have visited the house of the commander from top to bottom and for two days after, that I saw three criminal agents there and we searched the entire house, piece by piece, and not one single occasion did we find one single item which had anything to do with lamp shades of human skin or picture albums which were covered with that skin.
Q. Witness, I would have to come back. You told me today that it took you two to seven months to find out the murders in the concentration camp.
INTERPRETOR HI*HA: Your Honor, it is impossible to translate as fast as the witness and the lawyer are talking.
Q. Shall I repeat the question?
A. It took me approximately two months to find out about the murders of the concentration camps. It took approximately four months to find out that there were also extermination camps apart from the concentration camps.
Q. I want to all you that it only took one day to find that and it took you two months, and therefore it is absolutely possible that the question of the lamp shades and gloves of which Frau Koch was convicted, to a life sentence in jail, is true, and I can also tell you that the lamp shades and gloves were found among the inmates of Buchenwald, that general Eisen however saw them personally.
A. Then those items should have been used in the Buchenwald trial and the Dachau trial as evidence. I know they were not introduced. There was a piece of skin which was tatooed which was in the laboratory camp there but according to my knowledge Frau Kock had nothing to do with it. I personally arrested Frau Koch and I indicted her.
Q. I would like to turn to something else now, and I would also like to talk about Auschwitz. Were you personally at the concentration camp at Auschwitz at anything.
A. Yes.
Q Three weeks ago I had opportunity to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz and around that area. I had the opportunity to check up on the statements made by Hoess and I spoke with him of the defendants on that trial, Liebehenschel, etc.etc. names which you usually know. You stated yesterday that the camp of Auschwitz, Birkenau was a some what purely extermination camp. Therefore, I would like to put the following before you, applicable to the statements made by Hoess, and according to the class of the camp which has been founded and also of my inspection there, I believe that the camp of Auschwitz consisted of three parts: Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2 and Auschwitz 3. The camp Auschwitz 1 was the main camp which was the so-called model camp and that is where the first crematoria existed and where the first gassing took place. The concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a purely extermination camp but the largest concentration camp of that area and that consists of two parts, mainly a male and female camp and up to 200,000 inmates were kept there. Among the concentration camp of Auschwitz you can find the Crematoria 2 and 3 and later on four and five where the exterminations took place. Now, do you know those things, witness?
A I don't quite understand what you are asking me about.
Q The point is, witness, that you testified yesterday that AuschwitzBirkenau was a purely extermination camp and therefore you could deduct conclusions that very few people knew about the executions. I can tell you that right near the loading point was a small point where there were civilian workers. I spoke to those civilian workers and they knew exactly what was going on and the same applies to hundreds of thousands of people in the camp who watched the unloading of the camp's inmates into the Crematoria. Therefore, I think we can agree.
A Mr. Ponger, I believe we agree, therefore, that the camp of Auschwitz was separate from that of Birkenau.
Q Yes.
A The only differences which exists between my statements and your statements is that according to the picture today apart from the extermination camp there was also a small labor camp, as you stated yourself. During my visit which took place art the end of 1943 and early 1944 I never saw such a small labor camp.
Q I believe we don't quite understand each other. There is no extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau but there is an extermination which took place at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp had a capacity of 200,000 inmates, which were not destined to be exterminated, but were working there. That is where our two statements differentiate.
A Then you can comprise the extermination camp from an organizational view together with the Auschwitz camp. All I stated was this extermination camp was separated from a space point of view from the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Q Not from the camp at Auschwitz Birkenau, and it was also separated from Auschwitz No. 3 which is at Monowitz. Hoess, for a period of time, was commander of all those camps?
A Yes.
Q I would like to talk about the extermination of the Jews which took place there and there are also a few points which are not quite clear and I would like to clear them up. Now then, in one of your affidavits you spoke about the extermination of the Jews, that you were told about it by Grawitz.
A Yes, quite so.
Q Hoess states that he, in 1941, in the month of June, received the order by Himmler to make certain proposals to him as to how extermination of Jews could be carried out. Do you know that?
A No, I don't.
Q Do you realize what part Hoess played in there and what part Eichmann had to play?
AAccording to my opinion, and according to my findings, it was Eichmann who had the organization of the seizure of the Jews and the transportation of those.
Jews into the extermination camps and that Hoess at Auschwitz, or in Birkenau respectively near Auschwitz, carried out that extermination.
Q. Hoess alone couldn't do that, could he? There was the gas chamber for the extermination and the crematoria necessary.
A Yes.
Q We assume that gas chambers do not grow like trees in the woods, they have to be built. Anyway, I would like to ask you who built the gas chambers according to your belief?
AAt the time it was with Hoess or the head leader at the camp, I asked the question about it whereupon I was told that special inmates construction detail had been used for the construction of that and also a special department for the construction men.
Q Let me tell you more explicitly of the horror that was there. The prosecution will bring a series of documents for rebuttal purposes which will show very clearly who built the gas chambers. In order to make quite clear, they were built by Amtsgruppe C. There is a correspondence between Bischoff and Kammler in Auschwitz. The DAW also participated in the building of those chambers. A whole series of W enterprises were participated in. The gas chambers were built and kept in a going condition by using all the means at the disposal of the WVHA. Did you hear about it witness?
A No, the internal files of the WVHA as to this question were not available to me.
Q In spite of that you saw the gas chambers on one occasion.
A Yes.
Q I saw them too and the gas chambers at Auschwitz are extremely modernly built. These gas chambers had electric lifts and special furnaces and they were built supremely. If it is placed before your eyes that experts were working there who drew up the plans and set up everything and they further developed matters, if you furthermore think civilian firms were working there, for instance S. Topf und Soehne, and if you realize in a large measure the technical measures were necessary and a lot of things were constructed, then you can really tell me there was no such thing as too much secrecy?
A Yes, I'll tell you about it, Mr. Ponger. Just a moment, this establishment, in my opinion, was not very modern, at least not too complicated, but at least a very simple construction, because the socalled gas chambers were simple cellars which had been built with cement; the installations were rather primitive and the gas was inserted in a crystoline manner through a special shaft which went from above down below. Therefore, they were installations which one could have built with their own means at their disposal with a few tools. It was something entirely different with the crematoria possibly , but according to the entire methods with which things were kept secret in the Third Reich, I don't believe that the concentration camp of Auschwitz ordered approximately 100 crematoria with some firm or gave to any other firm any sort of an order, which is rather striking, Mr. ponger. Perhaps you are better orientated about it than I am.
Q The firm S. Topf und Soehne had a man who was at Auschwitz constantly who was supervising the construction of the crematoria. The name of the man is Pruefer -
DR. HAENSEL: I am under the impression that the questions and answers are all mixed up between the witness and the prosecution and I believe the Prosecution says more than the witness. I should perhaps suggest that if short questions are asked the witness can give more information I believe you call these questions "leading" questions, or something of that nature.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you realize the doctor has an objection there?
MR. PONGER: Yes, I do.
THE PRESIDENT: If you do relate a long story, rising from your personal knowledge, the least you can do is to ask the witness whether or not it is correct.
MR. PONGER: Yes indeed. Thank you, Your Honor.
Q How then, this morning, Witness, you testified in detail how there were so many death cases in the camps. In one of your affidavits you also testified that the WVHA had no possibilities whatsoever to order executions and that this was absolutely up to the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, is that correct?
A Yes, according to my knowledge, yes. From a purely legal point of view the WVHA did not have that possibility. The WVHA had the administration of the inmates, but they were not to decide about the fate of the inmates.
Q Witness, do you know anything about the disciplinary authority of the camp commander?
A Yes.
Q Do you know that he had the rights, in case inmates should try to escape, in case the inmates should resist regulations, that he had the right to demand their execution immediately?
A During my investigation which I carried out there was no such regulation. However, later on towards the end of the war when the signs of collapse increased such an order was intended to be issued.
Q Did you ever read some of those camp regulations?
A Yes.
Q Do you know that every SS man had the right to immediately shoot an inmate in case he shouldn't carry out one of his orders, and in case he should attack one of the SS men and in case he should try to escape?
A Yes, indeed, but that is a matter of course. When an inmate attacks one of the guards, then, of course, the guard has to defend himself.
Q Do you know of many cases when inmates attacked some of the guards of the SS?
A Yes, indeed. I do remember two cases from Buchenwald where inmates attacked two of the guards from behind and knocked them down.
Q They were hanged?
A Yes. Yes, that is a famous case.
Q Now then, do you know any cases where that passage of the camp regulation was used as an excuse in order to kill inmates?
A Would you please be more precise in your question?
Q During the investigations which were carried out, did you at any time find out that inmates were not actually escaping, but they were only forced to try to escape, and they were shot down, or then they were told, or it was stated that they attacked some guard or that the inmate did not comply with some regulation that had been issued?
A The two later reasons, I mean for the execution, or punishment of crimes I really don't know, but as far as the shootings while trying to escape are concerned, investigating I found out that numerous cases had occurred which were nothing but pure raw-blooded murders, and which were also charged against the defendants as murders.
Q Do you realize now that the inmate who was dead no longer cared whether the guard shot him because he wanted it or because the RSHA wanted it, do you realize that, Witness?
A Yes, of course; but that was not your question, Mr. Ponger.
Q Yes, but let me come back now because there is quite a series of such questions here where you can tell that quite a few death cases occurred in the camp.
A May I give you a few figures about that, Herr Ponger, if you would like me to?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I just want to interrupt for just one second. I believe I dealt with the question of death rates today together with the witness, but I don't believe I dealt with them to a conclusion, and the reason why I stopped the questioning was a decision on my own part, because now only I am realizing that the testimony as given by the witness in this connection, after the Prosecution - after a few points which the witness brought out yesterday were confirmed today by the Prosecutor, yesterday it looked as if the witness by confronting or being confronted with such facts, for instance the case with the radio and the broadcasts, and that the witness testified to those things in a one-sided manner, this was neither the witness's nor my intention; but in order to come back to the death rate question, if the witness should make additional information and recall additional information now about the death rates, then at least he should have made that statement, those statements during my direct examination, but I did not ask him any further questions in order to shorten the examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if this seems important to you, Mr. Ponger, you may go into it briefly.
MR. PONGER: Yes.
BY MR. PONGER:
Q You also mentioned that the death rates, in spite of the efforts on the part of the camp physician and the competent officers to stop certain epidemics could not be stopped.
A Yes.
Q Confronted now with the fact that all camp physicians who could be used were sentenced to death and that Dr. Lolling committed suicide, preferred to commit suicide when he was captured, if what you said was correct then he should have applied for the Nobel prize for humanity.
A I believe there is no such prize as a Nobel prize for humanity, Mr. Ponger, but the following is correct. I know the head physician of the concentration camp, Dr. Lolling, personally. He was not an exceptionally good physician - but he was a bit of a charlatan.
Q Let's not have the gallows' chanty of Dr. Lolling. We know more or less about the whole account. I am asking if you don't believe it wasn't quite the way you said it, that the people tried everything that they could in order to stop the epidemics?
A I am terribly sorry to have to contradict you, Mr. Ponger, but I saw the installations at Auschwitz, for instance, I watched the diathermic installation they had there, the electrical equipment they had there from the A.E.G. in Berlin, which they used for fighting the epidemics.
Q Was this equipment sufficient for the number of inmates?
A Yes, the capacity of those machines was enormous, because through those electrical waves a special heat was developed, even in their underclothes, and at the same time the bacteria were killed. And their laundry went through those rays at a very fast speed, and that cleaned it off.
Q Now, Witness, we are not talking about laundry or anything of the kind, but we are talking about the medical treatment and the hygiene of the camp. May I ask you something, Witness, please? Did you know that there was no water at the Birkenau-Auschwitz camp?
A No, I didn't know that. All I know is that almost all of the concentration camps had a lack of water and that they were suffering from that lack. The water was not sufficient because the pipes, when the camp was extended, were not extended, and because at Auschwitz in particular, the drinking water which was extracted from the ground was not good.
Q Hoess stated in his trial in Cracow that one of the worst things that was going on in the camp was the hygienic and the medical treatment, that Hoess had addressed himself to the WVHA, spoke to Dr. Lolling, and wanted to have new pipes constructed for the water and that he never did receive that, and that as a result of this a large number of the people died because there was no hygiene, no canalization, there was no drinking water.
A That seems to be absolutely correct, that I personally spoke with the doctors all the time, and I heard again and again that the installations which existed at the time were not sufficient, but I also pointed out during my testimony that all materials during the the war were rather hard to get, and I believe that the civilian administration, in view of such tasks, failed much more than the SS.
Q Now then, a few more questions concerning Auschwitz, Witness. You testified today that the extermination, burning of the Jews in the camp was only known to a very small group of human beings, is that correct?
A Yes, that is my opinion.
Q Do you have any idea about the fact whether the people of the locality of Auschwitz knew anything about those crimes?
A I did not stay in the locality of Auschwitz myself for a very long period of time, but I would like to assume that those people who were outside of the extermination camp couldn't know of it.
Q Did you know that part of the burning was done in open burning places?
A No, I didn't, because there were so many crematoria there that I could not understand the necessity for that.
Q The necessity for that was that the crematoria were not sufficient, and according to Hoess's testimony it was even said that the air-raid precaution service made complaints there, namely that the camp would be a nice target for planes due to the flame that was burning all the time there. Do you know about it?
A No, I didn't know about that. I never saw any such flames in Auschwitz.
Q Did you know that the locality of Auschwitz was constantly enveloped in a cloud which stank and which resulted from those burnings?
A I was in Auschwitz at several times. I smelled all sorts of stinking odors from the industries, but I never did smell that special smell which emanates from burning bodies.
Q Did you try to speak about this question with people, with groups of the population there?
A No, I didn't speak about it with any of the people.
Q I would like to talk now about a few questions in connection with the defendants of this trial. How long have you known the defendant Pohl, Witness?
A I only met him a short while after I started this SS Judge of the Reserve. That means in the spring of 1941, I first met him. In my official capacity I saw him at several cases where trials occurred.
Q Do you know of any proceedings in connection with Pohl where murder was involved?
A I know all the concentration camp trials.
Q Do you know Loritz, the commander of Sachsenhausen, Witness?
A Unfortunately I do not know Herr Loritz, but I had quite an urge to meet him, because according to my opinion he seems to have been one of the greatest murderers in the concentration camps.
Q Did you have any insight of files which had anything to do with Loritz and his actions in a camp?
A Yes.
Q. Will you describe this to this Tribunal, please, Witness?
A Towards the end of my investigation I ran across one of the files of the WVHA, and that was in Schmidt-Klevenow's possession. The file was dated 1942. The file began with a letter addressed to the Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler. In that letter atrocious conditions in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg near Berlin were described, and the guilt of the commander, Oberfuehrer Loritz was stressed there. From the file I realized that Himmler personally read that letter. In a personal letter he sent it to Pohl, and he personally gave Pohl the instructions to carry out a severe investigation and to change those conditions immediately.
Herr Pohl and Herr Schmidt-Klevenow thereupon did not do anything else but simply they investigated who had written the letter in order to have this man punished for what was commonly known as slander and in order to try him, and that is what he answer of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl was to Himmler. Whereupon Himmler wrote back to Pohl and with the most severe words he scolded him for not changing the conditions, and at the same time he pointed out that according to his opinion Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks was a man who was absolutely unfit in order to keep order in the concentration camps, and the parting literal sentences wore contained, that Gluecks has more the system of a good old uncle, and he instructed Pohl to immediately have that man substituted by someone else. Pohl did nothing of the kind and he simply dealt with the question in a dilatory manner and nothing happened. Loritz still remained pers oma grata and he got promoted.
Q. What was Pohl's attitude in the Koch case, which you know very well?
DR. SEIDL (For the Defendant Oswald Pohl) Your Honor, I shall also set the motion that he testimony by this witness, in connection with the Loritz case, should, be eliminated from the record, as this morning I did not have the possibility to ask any questions in this connection to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: In connection with what case?
DR. SEIDL: In connection with the corruption case.
MR. PONGER: This is murder, not corruption in this case.
THE PRESIDENT: The Loritz case isn't a corruption case.
MR. PONGER: No, it is a murder case, and so is the Koch case.
THE PRESIDENT: Objection overruled.
Q. (By Mr. Ponger) Witness, do you remember the camp at Horzegenbusch?
A. Yes.