Q. Oh-
A. For example, from my WVHA, which also had consisted of Office Groups A, B, and C, I could hardly have removed one of them Without changing the entire organization. However, that was not the case with Office Group D.
Q. Oh. Did you decide which labor camps should be converted into concentration camps?
A. What labor camps were to be converted into concentration camps?
Q. Was it your job to determine or docide when a labor camp should become a concentration camp?
A. As far as I can recall, that didn't happen at all. It never happened that a labor camp was converted into a concentration camp. I can't recall any such instance.
Q. What about Cracow-Placzow?
A. Yes, but I believe that this was a concentration camp from the very beginning. This was established by the Higher SS & Police Leader at Cracow, and it is possible that in the beginning he called it a labor camp; but I cannot recall any instances where labor camps were converted into concentration camps. There may have been one or another case as in the case of Cracow-Placzow.
Q. What about Lublin?
A. That was a concentration camp from the very beginning, Your Honor. It was a concentration camp from the very beginning.
A. Weren't some labor camps added to it?
A. Yes; Globocnik, in his area, and beyond that, had established a number of labor camps, and the WVHA, in January, 1944, took over these camps. A number of labor camps belonged to the concentration camp at Lublin.
Q. Do you have Document Book 17?
A. Yes.
Q. Document NO-1036; this is a report from Opperbeck, isn't it?
A. No, it is not from Opperbeck. It is a file note by Baier. Are you referring to the file note of the 19th of January, 1944, Your Honor?
Q. Thirteen January,
A. Thirteen, yes; the 13th.
Q. Is that not signed by Opperbeck?
A. There is no signature below it here. I don't know who signed it.
Q. Let me see the book. May I see your book a minute? Well, the English copy shows that Opperbeck signed it.
A. Yes.
Q. Sturmbannfuehrer?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, I have made some marks on your copy--some check marks; first page.
A. Yes, first page.
Q. Now, do those numbers refer to labor camps which are to be converted into concentration camps?
A. The question is not complete in this form, as far as the translation goes anyway.
Q. Well, start at the first, at the beginning of the document; "By agreement between Hauptamtschef SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl--"
A. Yes.
Q. Etcetera ....
A. Yes.
Q. Does the letter say anything about converting labor camps into concentration camps?
A. Yes.
Q. How many of them?
A. Well, I only know about the camps Lublin and Cracow-Placzow. I can't recall that in Lemberg there was also a concentration camp.
Q. Lemberg is the same as Lwow?
A. I think so.
Q. And Radom? What is that?
A. That wasn't a concentration camp either, at Radom.
Q. No; but this letter states that it is planned to make it a concentration camp, does it not?
A. Yes, but these are Forced-Labor camps or labor camps, as it is stated here. These were labor camps which were subordinated to the locally competent Higher SS-&-Police Leader at Cracow. From these Forced-Labor camps the camps at Cracow-Placzow and at Lublin were later on placed under the supervision of the WVHA as concentration camps.
Q. Now, tell me the difference, if you please, between a ForcedLabor camp and a concentration camp?
A. A concentration camp is a main camp which, by virtue of its special organization, equipment is able to accept inmates, to administer them, and to distribute them to branch camps. However, the labor camps are unable to do that. A labor camp only consists of billets, and of all the facilities which are necessary in order to assign the inmates which have been sent from the concentration camps for work.
Q Is it true that the Forced-Labor camps were under the control of the Gestapo or the Security Police?
A I am not informed about the fact of just what camps the Gestapo and the Security Police had. The designation "Forced Labor Camps" in my field of competence was never used either. We only knew of labor camps and concentration camps.
Q Well, Opporbeck apparently calls them Forced Labor camps....
A Yes, that certainly was the designation which was used by tho police authorities because these camps, without any doubt, were established by police authorities.
Q That is right; and when they were converted into concentration camps they came under your authority?
A Yes.
Q So this was a plan to take five labor camps from the police and place them under your department as concentration camps?
A That was a plan.
Q That was the plan, yes, and it was done in part.
A In part, yes; only at Lublin and Cracow-Placzow.
Q Did you know Hans Frank, the Governor General of Poland?
A I only know him by his appearance and I knew him by virtue of his position. However, I did not make his personal acquaintance. I did not have any personal contact with him.
Q Were the vouchers and the documents involved in Vogt's audit of the Reinhardt Fund destroyed?
A I can't give you an information about that, Your Honor; I don't know. In any case, they were not destroyed at the time. Whether, in the execution of a general order, they were burned or were destroyed at the time of surrender, I don't know.
Q. Do you have Volume XIX?
A. Yes.
Q. Number N0-064. It is a letter of 5 January 1944 from Globocnik to Himmler.
A. The letter of Globocnik to Himmler of the 5th of January, 1944?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, I found it, Your Honor.
Q. Well, the statement in the second half of the letter, it's about four paragraphs from the end with regard to the complete final accounts of Operation Reinhardt. Do you find that?
A. With regard to the final accounting of Reinhardt, are you referring to this, Your Honor.
Q. No, no. Bring the document book. Do you see the paragraph that I have marked? Will you read it, please, to yourself?
A. Yes, that is a recommendation of Globocnik to Himmler. However, at the time on my own initiative I never gave any order that these documents and vouchers were to be destroyed.
Q. No. What does to say in the paper that you just read, the part that I marked?
A. "In the final accounts of the Action Reinhardt the one factor has to be considered that the respective vouchers will have to be destroyed as soon as possible after the vouchers of all the other work in this matter have already been destroyed." That is what Globocnik writes to Himmler. I have this letter.....
Q. And what is the date of that?
A. Tnis letter dates from the 5th of January, 1944.
Q. Now in the same book, will you find Document NO069, Exhibit 488. 069, Exhibit 488?
A. Yes, this is the report about the administration of the execution of the Action Reinhardt.
Q. That's right. Now will you go down to II?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, just ahead of that, just before that, "on the basis of an agreement with the Reich Finance Ministry," go ahead, and read the rest of that paragraph.
A. "By virtur" -- Yes, I read it.
Q. Did you ever see this document before, before you came to court, I mean?
A. Yes, I certainly must have seen it at the time, in January, 1944, I assume.
Q. Yes, I assume so. When you read that all of the documents about the Reinhardt Fund were to be destroyed, in accordance with secrecy regulations?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, then you knew at that time that there was something shameful about the Reinhardt Fund that had to be concealed by destroying the papers?
A. Yes, these were vouchers which were in the possession of Globocnik and consequently they were not with the WVHA.
Q. I know that. This report told you that there was something about the Reinhardt Fund which was wrong and had to be kept hidden and secret, did it not?
A. These files and vouchers which were to be destroyed here, I myself never saw them, and, consequently, I could not imagine just what was contained in those files. What they were destroyed was nothing unusual.
Q. When you got this report, when you saw this report
A. Yes.
Q. And when you read that all the papers about the Reinhardt Fund had to be destroyed for the sake of secrecy, you knew that the Reinhardt Fund was something that was wrong, did you not?
A. Of course, I was able to realize that in the course of the completion of the Action.
Q. Then you knew the Reinhardt Fund was a shameful thing, even without this report?
A. I know that today, yes.
Q. You knew it then, didn't you? You knew it then, didn't you?
A. I have stated already that in the course of the completion, it gradually came to my knowledge.
Q. Well, it wasn't a surprise to you when you came in to this court room then?
A. No, not any more then. However, Your Honor, in the military service and in the state service, it frequently happened that files or written documents which did not contain anything criminal at all had to be destroyed as soon as they had been received. It happened quite often that it was stated that these documents are to be destroyed upon receipt. That was nothing unusual in this case. That happened quite often.
Q. But the Reinhardt Fund didn't concern any military secret did it? It had nothing to do with any military movements?
A. I don't know. To claim that today, that would be ridiculous.
Q. No, it wasn't for the purpose of guarding military information that these papers were to be destroyed.
A. I know it today, that it did not deal with these matters. I don't know the material individually and, of course, I know today just why they had to be destroyed.
Q. I want to refer to your affidavit of the 3d of April, 1947.
I don't know whether you have a copy of it or not. It is Document NO-2736.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have it, Dr. Seidl, in German?
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, unfortunately, I do hot have a copy available.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: In Book XXII, Mr. Robbins.
MR. ROBBINS: I don't have it here either. I can get it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, perhaps, we can do it the hard way.
Q. Paragraph 6, "The camp commanders were nominated by the SS Personnel Office on my recommendation and appointed by me."
A. By my recommendation, through the Personnel Main Office, by Himmler. All the officer personnel was recommended to Himmler through the Chief of the Personnel Main Office. The names were just submitted to Himmler and then he made his decision. That was the Channel used here.
Q. You didn't make the appointment yourself?
A. No, I was not able to do that.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a recess now.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again is session.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has no further question of this witness.
DR. SEIDL: If the Tribunal please, I have only a very few questions to the witness connected with the interrogation of the witness by the Tribunal.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SEIDL:
Q Witness, you testified that the appointment of the camp commandants was up to Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler but that you appointed the administrative officers. Did you refer there to the whole time or only to the period after 3rd March 1942?
AAs far as the commandants were concerned, I referred to the period of time after March 1942, whereas the administrative leaders were always appointed for all administrative agencies of the SS by the personnel office of the WVHA.
DR. SEIDL: May it please the Tribunal, in the boxes which were available in this building an order was found issued by Himmler on 3rd March 1942 and which is connected with the incorporation of concentration camps to the WVHA. The order was dated 3rd March 1942; and the defendant Pohl has issued an executive order connected therewith. I should like to show a copy of this order to the witness and ask him whether he himself signed it. The order will be contained in the document books which I shall submit to the Court later on.
A Yes, this is my signature.
Q The final question: You were asked about the change of labor camps into concentration camps. Did you by labor camps mean such camps which accommodated inmates on the basis of a police order, or were these labor camps administered by the German Labor Front?
A We only experienced one such change, this occurred in the Government General. These labor camps were, of course, not under the German Labor Front. They must have been establishments of the local police administration.
Q DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other question by defense counsel?
BY DR. GAWLIK (for the defendants Bobermin and Volk):
Q Witness, you were asked whether the Osti was a DWB enterprise. I believe your answer was not entirely clear. What were the relations between Osti and DWB? Who owned the capital? Was it DWB?
A I said quite clearly that these were Roich enterprises. That was my answer, wasn't it? I did not say that they were owned by the DWB.
Q The defendant Dr. Bobermin on cross examination was further submitted a suggestion of promotion which stressed the special merits acquired by Dr. Bobermin in armament matters connected with the concentration camps. Is that motivation a correct one? Particularly, did Dr. Bobermin have any special tasks in that respect?
THE PRESIDENT: Now, this isn't a matter that was brought out by the Court's questioning at all.
DR. GAWLIK: May I ask then to make the witness my own witness.
THE PRESIDENT: No, not now; not at all. He was called on behalf of the Tribunal. You had a chance to make him your own witness long ago; and I think you've already covered the matter that you just questioned him about.
DR. GAWLIK: I'm extremely sorry, your Honor. I thought that I could ask a Witness on cross examination and make him my own witness by putting questions to him which are outside the subject-matter discussed in the examination.
THE PRESIDENT: But this witness is not called for your cross examination. He is called by the Tribunal for its questioning; and if the Tribunal hadn't called him, you would have had no opportunity to ask him questions.
DR. GAWLIK: I have no other questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Anyone else now? No. The prosecution? No.
DR. VON STAKELBERG (For the defendant Fanslau): May it please the Court, the witness Dr. Steichele is present. If the Tribunal is agreeable, I should like to call him now.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: While he is coming, please give us the witness' name.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Dr. Karl Steichele.
DR. KARL STEICHELE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Doctor, will you raise your right hand please, and repeat the oath after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q Witness, will you please give the Court your full name and the date of your birth?
A Dr. Karl Steichele. I was born on 8 November 1881 in Truedesheim.
Q Dr. Steichele, it is my intention to interrogate you as an expert. I shall, therefore, have to ask you a few questions about your scientific background. What was your education?
A From the secondary school I went to high school and the university.
Q When did you pass your state examination?
A In 1912.
Q Did you then have another type of expert training?
A Yes, I took what is known as the physicate, which is the real state examination. The first is the approbation.
Q Did you then enjoy your professional training in a clinic?
A Yes, in the University Clinic of Erlangen by Prof. Dr. Spender.
Q Dr. Steichele, will you please make a pause after each question so that the interpreter can follow you? How long did that training take?
A One year. Then another year in practice.
Q What type of training was it?
A Psychiatry and neurology.
Q What were the positions you then took up as a doctor?
A I became an assistant practitioner, then I became a oberarzt medizinalrat, then a deputy chief.
Q In what institutions were you?
AAt Gaversee and Egelfing.
Q How long have you been in the institution at Egelfing?
A Well, since the Gaversee institution was dissolved in 1941, and as a psychiatrist since 1912.
Q Since 1912 as a psychiatrist -- I see. And your present position is medizinalrat, medical counsellor and, you said, deputy chief?
A Well, I'm the doctor in charge.
Q You are the physician in charge of the institution at Egelfing. What is the asylum at Egelfing? What type of an institution is it?
A Patients who have a psychic ailment are treated there.
Q It is a purely psychiatric institution?
A Yes, it is.
Q Dr. Steichele, do you know the files of one Guenther Otto, alias Johann Torsten?
A Yes.
Q Where are they now?
A They are probably here in this court building?
Q Since when?
A Since last Saturday.
Q Saturday? Who came on Saturday in order to fetch them?
A I'm afraid I don't remember the name.
Q A member of what department?
A Of the court here.
Q You mean the prosecution, do you?
A Yes.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: May it please the Court, I shall have to state here that the prosecution, after it had learned that Dr. Steichele became a defense witness, because of the records, without my knowledge brought the records from the Egelfing institution, and, from what I have heard today has presumably handed them over the psychiatrist in the prison here. For the testimony of Dr. Steichele it would probably have been of great importance if he had had his records with him. I must, therefore, launch a protest against the prosecution for getting hold of defense material without my knowledge. I would further like to move that as far as Dr. Steichele requires them, his records should be placed at his disposal.
MR. ROBBINS: I think Dr. Von Stekelberg's request is perfectly right. I announced the first thing this morning that the prison psychiatrist had requested the files and then we sent a man to Harr/Egelfing and requested them. They were voluntarily turned over to the prison psychiatrist. I think that the files are in the general hospital here at Nurnberg. It would take some time to got them. If Dr. Von Stakelberg wants them, they are certainly available to him.
THE PRESIDENT: These are public records, records of a public institution. They don't belong to the defense any more than they belong to the prosecution, so that when you say the prosecution had no right to go and take defense material, it was prosecution material, too. Can the witness go ahead now?
DR. VON STAKELBERG: Yes, he can testify; and from my questions it will become clear whether or not the records will be necessary. If so, I shall request them.
THE PRESIDENT: If they are necessary, you may have them, of course.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q Witness, would it help you in your testimony if you had your records in front of you?
A Well, I'm quite well informed about the matter.
Q I see. When Guenther Otto, alias Johann Torsten, arrive in Egelfing?
A On the 2nd of August 1945.
Q On whose orders?
A This was arranged by the official physician of Wasserburg, who had examined him in prison.
Q How long was he with you in your institution?
A He was with us in Egelfing until the 9th of September 1946; and he then escaped.
Q Did you search for him?
A Yes, a search was arranged; but the police didn't track him down.
Q What statements did he make about his own life? First of all, what name did he say was his correct name?
A He described himself in Egelfing as Johann Torsten.
Q As John Torsten, you mean?
A Yes, John Torsten. As to his previous history, he said that no hereditary diseases had occurred in his family; that his early childhood had been perfectly normal; that at school he had been a good pupil; that he had not learned a trade because of difficult family conditions; that whenever he took a job he soon left it again; that usually he travelled around. Then he said; that on one occasion he won some money at a lottery, 12,000 marks, he said; and he used this to support his family. But the money was soon spent, and once again he went on the jump. When he was about to be called up, he always knew how to get out of it again. Then in 1940 he alleged that he had taken part in an act of sabotage when an important bridge near Augsburg was blown up. It was remarkable here that that incident was not mentioned by him in his curriculum vitae.
Then he stated that he had at this occasion shot an SS man. He asserted that he had been a member of the resistance movement; and that he had to take an important message from Stuttgart to Munich by car. On the bridge across the Lech an SS man had stopped him. The car was stopped and parked at the side of the road. Meanwhile another car had drawn up, which was dealt with. Then the SS man again went to Otto's car; and he asserts that he shot him through the window pane, hitting him in the head.
On the bridge across the Lech an SS-man had stopped him, his car was stopped, and in the meanwhile another car had drawn up which was dealt with. When the SS-man went to Otto's car, he asserts that he shot him through the windowpane, hit him in the head. Then he said he got hold of the papers of the SS-man and his uniform, because as he stated he looked so extraordinarily like himself, almost like a twin brother. In the uniform and with the papers he then stated he had gone to Dachau, and in the concentration camp there he did duty in the place of the SS-man he shot.
Q. What was the name of the SS-man?
A. That is not known. Then he was sent out on the SS expedition to Russia. There he said he deserted and was sentenced to death; committed to the concentration camp at Dachau. His death sentence had yet to be confirmed by the Reichsfuehrer-SS. That he made a number of attempts, to escape, he said, and, on the 29 April 1945, he had been finally liberated by the Allied troops. These statements he made in a very long winded manner. He produced all sorts of fantastic stories which later proved to be quite untrue. Also in his statement he was rather contradictory. For instance, he stated that since 1942 he had been in the concentration camp, and in the next sentence he told us about an experience he had in 1943, which he alleged occurred near Ausberg when he was at large. When his attention was drawn to the contradiction, he did not seem to care very much, smiled and talked about something else, and said simply, "It is quite correct." He would be sarcastic on occasions, and by that would attempt to show a feeling of superiority towards the Institution. He talked quite low, monotonously; he frequently lost himself in his tales, and then had forgotten what he had told us before. While he was under observation in the Institution, he always showed himself to be extremely self-confident, arrogant, boastful, and his whole conduct was very tricky and negative. He was apprehensive, and not frank.
He also told us things and facts, and the impression he gave us of these things were entirely fictitious and thought out carefully in his own mind first. With the other patients he frequently quarreled. He always wanted to boast, and bragged that nobody could tell him anything. Among the nurses, all of them were of middle aged and experienced nurses, he has been described as follows: He was boastful; he was a liar; he bragged; always discontented; liked to quarrel, and argumentative.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Stakelberg did the witness ever see the patient at any time?
DR. VON STAKELBERG: No, Your Honor.
BY DR. VON STAKELBERG:
Q. The question was whether you yourself saw the witness Otto yourself?
A. No, no, I did not. After all of this, Otto accordingly to contradictory and the statements by the nurses, must be regarded as a psychopathic case. That is to say, his own mental condition, his congenital disposition is abnormal. He deviates from the average type, insofar as that type of a person of the same age and the same sex are concerned. He is extremely unstable; he affects poses; he is extremely self-confident; impulsive up to a point of a child, and not without gifts; has an exaggerated imagination, by which he can imagine himself as to fictitious parts or roles, with the result that he forgets the unreality of these fictitious dreams, and allows his actions to be activated by them. It is my opinion that the statements which he made, and which are proved by facts are to be received with great caution, and he will certainly exaggerate or distort the matter, according to his own idea, and that all statements which can be proved should not be regarded as credible.
Q. Do you want to say something else?
A. No.
Q. If I can arrive at a conclusion from what you said, you want to say that his statements, if they are the sole testimony, are, in your opinion, not to be regarded as evidence?
A. They certainly should not be decisive.
Q. The knowledge of the expert opinion which you have just given is based on what facts, or evidence on which you have made a statement like that?
A. Well, I had the nurses come to see me and on the interviews with the nurses, and from asking them questions, and all the impressions from all of these nurses from the various departments in which Otto was treated.
Q. And those nurses are they well versed and experts on whose opinions a doctor would rely?
A. Yes, certainly, they are old and experienced nurses.
Q. The official records of your Institution, and, in other words, the statements of your nurses are the things on which you based your testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever hear anything about Otto's further intentions?
A. No, I never heard anything about that.
Q. Did you not tell me something once about denouncing somebody, that he got somebody into a penitentiary?
A. Well, I had heard something that after his escape he went to Wasserburg, and there he acted as, so to speak, a professional denouncer, but I cannot tell you anything precisely, I only heard. I only heard that he denounced two persons, a woman and an elderly man, and those two were taken to prison on the basis of his denouncing them.
Q. Did he at any time mention atrocities which he had observed during the Russian campaign?
A. Nothing is mentioned of these in his case history.
Q. Now here he has told us a number of facts down to the minutes details and the very fact that he was in a position to describe these minute details should really -- or quite really mean that they are true; does it really follow?
A. It is quite possible that he imagined all these things in his phantasy, but there is also the possibility that they really happened as well.
Q. You mean his imagination is abnormal?
A. Yes, it is abnormal.
Q. You think that in his imagination he imagined these things happening to the smallest detail, until he finally persuaded himself to believe that they were true?
A. Yes, without the things being actually true. Well, it is always possible that there was some incident which caused all of these.
Q. But as far as the veracity itself is concerned down to the smallest details that does not apply to him. Therefore, you can never even borderline his case where his veracity begins or ends?
A. He is a borderline case between sound and ill mentality.
Q. You just described him as a psychopathical character?
A. Yes, I should call him abnormal. He deviates from the average.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: I have no further questions.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Doctor, in your Institution do you have a Board of Experts who diagnose the patients conditions, as to their mental condition?
A. I have not quite understood you, sir.
Q. (Whereupon his question was repeated in German)
A. Yes. First of all there is the departmental physician who is the first called to deal with the patient. Then the case history is discussed in what we call a conference.
Q. Now in that conference did you make a diagnosis of this man's mental condition, and, if so, what was the diagnosis?