Although he was not a doctor himself, Pohl had a detailed knowledge of most of the experiments and he took a personal interest in several. In his own affidavit, he admitted knowing of the malaria, high altitude, freezing, blood coagulation, gas, and sterilization experiments. He was also candid enough, before the trial began, to concede that the experimental subjects were not volunteers and that non-German nationals were frequently used. Pohl witnesses some of the high altitude experiments in company with Himmler. Pohl encouraged efforts to develop a cheap and effective method of mass sterilization, the sole purpose of which was to destroy the Jews while temporarily preserving those capable of work.
The Polish Jew Balitzki, who testified before this Tribunal, is one of the few survivors of the horrible X-ray sterilization experiments in Auschwitz. At the same time, Klauberg was performing sterilization experiments in Auschwitz on women. Pohl stated self-righteously that he "declined Klauberg's invitation to see his experiments".
Pohl initiated the food experiments in Mauthausen, which resulted in the death of a substantial number of inmates. He personally approved of the allocation of no less than 400 inmates for the murderous typhus experiments by Haagen in Natzweiler.
Were there no other proof in the record, the evidence on the criminal medical experiments would require the condemnation of Pohl. No sentence, however severe, can atone for these crimes.
MR. FULKERSON: If the Tribunal please, Mr. Higgins will continue the delivery of the prosecution's closing statement.
MR. HIGGINS: We now turn to the defendants in Amtsgruppe W. No group of men in Germany is more directly responsible for the working to death of thousands of concentration camp inmates.
The SS industries originated as concentration camp enterprises in Dachau and Oranienburg and never became anything else. They were in many instances the heart and center of the camp. The DAW Plants grew out of the workshops in the camps and the locations of many camps were chosen because of their proximity to the stone quarries operated by DEST. Time and time again the record here has confirmed the accuracy of the statement contained in the lecture material sent to Fanslau that the purpose of the SS industries was "to get hold of all anti-social elements, which no longer had a right to live within the National Socialist State, and to turn their working strength to the benefit of the whole nation.
This was effected in the concentration camps. The Reich Fuehrer SS, therefore, delegated SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl to set up concentration camp enterprises. In addition, he gave orders to establish companies on a private economy basis for the purpose of employing the prisoners.
"National Socialism maintains this point of view: The State gives orders to the economy. The State does not exist for the benefit of economy, but economy exists for the benefit of the State."
"National Socialism maintains this point of view: The State gives orders to the economy. The State does not exist for the benefit of economy, but economy exists for the benefit of the State."
Another memorandum written by an office chief of the SS industries states that "the tasks were set by the Reichsfuehrer-SS in his capacity as Reichsleiter of the NSDAP.
This applies in particular to the enterprises founded by the authority of the Reichsfuehrer-SS. These receive allocations of concentration camp prisoners as workers in order to be able to master the economic tasks of the Four Year Plan.
"The large-scale use of the labor of concentration camp prisoners by the ReichsfuehrerSS is therefore a measure of the NSDAP, as the "Dynamic element" in the state."
The treatment which the inmates received while they worked in the W-industries indicates that these defendants used human fuel for the National Socialist dynamo.
Under W-I and the defendant Mummenthey were the lethal stone quarries of the SS. The Flossenburg, Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen, and Natzweiler quarries were all taken over by DEST before or at the same time concentration camps were established there. The same is true with respect to the brick works at Neuengamme and Stutthof Concentration Camps.
These devilish enterprises multiplied like toxis mushrooms. By May 1941, DEST had brick works at Oranienburg, Neuengamme, and Berlstedt, granite works at Mauthausen, Flossenburg, Gross-Rosen, and Natzweiler, and a stone processing plant at Oranienburg. Additional plants of DEST were the gravel works at Auschwitz and Treblinka, a granite quarry at Blizyn, a klinker ivories at Linz, near Mauthausen, debris-utilization plants in Essen, Duesseldorf, and Hamburg, the stone quarries of Boneschau near Prague, and the Southern Styrian Granite Works at Marburg. Except for the last two named plants all of these industries used concentration camp labor.
At least fifteen thousand inmates were working at one time in the plants subordinated to Amt W-I, and the turnover was rapid.
DEST also produced armaments with inmate labor during the war.
At Flossenburg, Messerschmitt supplied the raw material and machines and DEST furnished the inmates, work locations, and some of its equipment. Munitions were also produced by DEST at Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, and Gross-Rosen. These armament projects, like the stone quarries and brick plants, were controlled and supervised by the defendant Mummenthey and Amt-I.
The way of a transgressor of the strict regulations led straight to one of the punitive companies of DEST, where life expectancy was particularly short. Twenty to thirty of the two hundred inmates assigned to the punitive detachment perished each day at Mauthausen. The record drones in monotonous repetition of inmates shot, inmates hanged, inmates starved, worked to death, beaten and scourged.
We have already described extensive operations of the WVHA in the eastern occupied territories. One of the most important of these WVHA operations was carried on by the defendant Bobermin, Chief of Amt II. This office played a large and essential part in the exploitation of Poland. It operated the brick works which had been seized from the Jews there. More than 400 such plants were under Bobermin. These plants were taken from Jews and Poles, most of whom, according to Bobermin, had fled. The reason for their fleeing -- those who were fortunate enough to live to flee -- was of course to escape the Sonderkommandos and Einsatzgruppen. A report made by the defendant Volk, which shows intimate knowledge of the operation of the Eastern plants, casually remarks that a large part of the workers had died during the war, had escaped, were prisoners of war, or were sent to the Reich to work.
The whole world knew that thousands of dispossessed Jews and Poles were being methodically wiped out by the SS and SD, but SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Bobermin, ensconced in his office at Posen and devoting his entire time to the management of over four hundred plants whose labor supply came mainly from the Ghettoes, never heard a word of all this until after the war.
The revelation must have been a shock to his whole nervous system.
He had 80 plants in the Litzmannstadt area, and the record tells of the murder of thousands in the Ghetto there, but Bobermin heard nothing. Truly, he must be one of the most disillusioned men in all of Germany.
The International Military Tribunal found that one-third of the population of Poland was killed in the course of the German occupation but Bobermin testified that he did not hear of a single instance in which a Pole was mistreated. In the acquisition of the property of these Jews, Bobermin insists on a distinction between seizure and confiscation. Seizure, he says, means that the property will be returned to the owners some day. A kind of corporate trustee to take over Jewish property was in fact set up. But most of the Jews were killed before the trustee organization East took possession and no one seriously expected Goering and Himmler ever to seek out their collateral heirs.
Here we find another instance of the WVHA organizing, and utilizing the stolen property of murdered people. When Bobermin came into Poland, he was not technically attached to the Einsatzgruppen. But his function was to thresh what they had harvested. The prosecution charges that he either knew of the source of this property, or that he deliberately closed his eyes to what was taking place.
Inmates and guards from the nearby camp were used in the great cement works near Auschwitz, another project of Bobermin's. He visited the plant several times. He knew that when inmates were no longer able to work, they were sent back to Auschwitz but he had no idea, he claims, that they were to be exterminated. We were not able to find an inmate from the survivors of Auschwitz who had worked in Bobermin's cement factory. Considering the legions who went up the chimney at this infamous camp, this is not surprising. But the evidence has shown that the treatment of slave labor was uniform, and that when an inmate who was too weak to work was sent to Auschwitz, he was only furnished, with a one-way ticket.
The defendant Klein was office chief of W-VIII, the office for socalled special tasks which was in charge of the reconstruction of Wewelsburg. The concentration camp Niederhagen was established for the purpose of supplying inmate labor for this project and hundreds of inmates died from over work, starvation and cruelties of the guards and foremen. Klein's periodic situation reports to Pohl are part of the record and show that Klein considered the Wewelsburg enterprises as his most important task and that he was fully informed about every phase of it, including the allocation of inmate labor. The documents show his dissatisfaction with the number of inmates available for the construction, and his attempts to increase the number of inmates in the camp at Wewelsburg. They also show his negotiations to obtain construction material, and together with the defendant Frank, additional funds for the project. He reported to Pohl on the exact number of inmates used and state of the work in progress. These reports were also distributed in Staff W. In five months 1,200 inmates died, out of a total of 1,200 in the Wewelsburg camp. The deceased inmates came from ten different countries. A resident of the near-by village testified that the high death-rate and mistreatment of the inmates was public knowledge, even though the inhabitants tried to notice as little as possible.
The Kranichfeld building project, which used inmate labor, was also under W-VIII and its status was included in Klein's reports. In February 1944 Baier, Chief of Staff W, wrote to Klein that he had discussed allocation of prisoners for Klein's office with Maurer and that for the time additional inmates from Buchenwald could not be supplied for one of Klein's projects.
Klein was also involved in several confiscations of foreign property. Although his office was interested in only part of the Lobkowicz property, Klein investigated the entire estate. His letters state that he had negotiated with the Regional Gestapo Headquarters and with the RSHA in the confiscation proceedings.
He recommended confiscation of the entire property. He wrote to the defendant Hohberg that "The transactions in the Lobkowicz matter are to be carried out by this office." Hohberg a short time later advised Klein that "the confiscation decree is ready to be sent out." The property was seized by the Regional Gestapo Headquarters and fell into the grasping tentacles of the Reich. Klein was also for a time Procurist of the Nordland Publishing Co., under Amt-W-7 which will be mentioned presently.
Klein has produced affidavits to show that he was only in charge of obtaining funds for the enterprises under his office, W-VIII. Even if this ridiculous contention were true, Klein's connection with these daccities and murders would be sufficient to establish his guilt, but the documents show that his activities went further.
The defense, that his position as office chief actually carried with it no power over the enterprises in his office, is a common place now. Mummenthey claims that his title was only a fiction, and Bobermin testified that he received his only because it simplified the seating arrangement at banquets. Amtsgruppe W documents show, however, that Office Chiefs were considered as Pohl's deputies in their sphere of office, and that the Fuehrer principle strictly applied. It is not to be forgotten that this principle works both ways - it not only pushes the supreme authority up, but it holds the immediate subordinate strictly accountable for everything happening within the scope of his authority.
In addition to the economic enterprises which have already been described, Amtsgruppe W had its own printing firm to disseminate the Nazi gospel. Here is how this purpose was described in the lecture material which was prepared in the legal office of Staff W and approved by Fanslau:
"The circle of the economic enterprises of the SS would not be completed, if it did not also have a great publishing office, to introduce the ideological views of the SS to its SS members and further to additional circles of the population.
The Nordland publishing office G.m.b.H. had developed a great deal during the last year, and now belongs to the main publishing firms, and already today occupies the fifth place among the main publishing firms of the Greater German Reich. Besides this Nordland publishing firm, we have the Voelkicchen Kunstverlag, which in the main produces pictures, e.g., photographs of the Fuehrer, the Reichsfuehrer SS and other important personalities from Party and State. In addition, it produces reproductions of oil paintings."
In addition, Nordland produced, it might be added, such booklets as "The Subhuman", in evidence here, which promoted the idea that Jews and Russians are members of a degenerate species unfit to be regarded as human beings.
Integration and coordination of the many extensive tasks of Amts-gruppe W was complete. Hohberg, Chief of Staff W, drafted and Pohl signed a letter which explains this unity:
"The liaison between parent corporation and subsidiaries is so close that as regards economy one cannot speak of independent enterprises but in some way of branch departments of the parent corporation *** To the person not concerned it might appear as if all these enterprises were not connected with one another. However, that is not the case."
Such close harmony between so many enterprises could only be accomplished by men of considerable genius and influence. These men constituted Staff W. Pohl instructed all of the Amt Chiefs of Antsgruppe W "to cooperate very closely with the Staff" and that there should be "regular cooperation".
Staff W was in fact Pohl's right hand in his managerial functions. Pohl's Business Order provided that Office Chiefs were to report to him after consultation with and in the presence of Chief W, and that constant liaison was to be maintained.
Pohl was of course the supreme authority, but he was not able to direct everything by himself, and to that extent Staff W supervised the SS industries from the top level. Thus, in Baier's affidavit, he says that as Chief of Staff W he supervised the directors of the DWB in financial matters and asked questions concerning plant management, and that Hohberg had preceded him in that capacity. This is corroborated by Pohl's pre-trial statement that "he (Baier) was in charge of the holding companies udder me"; and again, on the stand, that "Staff W was the instrument which I used as the sole business manager of the DWB when I supervised the economic enterprises."
The defendants in Staff W tried to disassociate themselves from the Business Order of November 1944 which emphasized their importance by saying that the order came so late that it never was put into effect. But a witness called by the defense as an expert on Staff W testified that "actually this order only confirmed the conditions which already existed in the WVHA". He also told how Baier made efforts to have his authority within Amtsgruppe W increased. When Pohl issued an order which somewhat reduced his power, "Baier was very much bothered *** he was shocked". Baler complained that he would be of no importance in the Amtsgruppe if this order were carried out, and made proposals to Pohl which were adopted and incorporated into the Basic Order of Business. The same witness testified that Hohberg, who had preceded Baier as Chief of Staff W, exercised more influence than Baier did, and that Hohberg was the economic brains of Amtsgruppe W.
Hohberg, realizing the importance of the position of Staff W, claims that he was only an auditor there and never its chief. But the documents prove the contrary. They show that he signed on many occasions as Chief of Staff, and was referred to by others in the Office as the Chief of Staff. The reason he avoided flaunting his title too flagrantly before outsiders was that he was afraid that the Institute of Auditors and the Reich Minister of Economics would object to his taking an official position with the WVHA.
His fears in this respect were finally born out, according to a defense witness, when the Reich Minister of Economics ordered that the DWB was thereafter to be audited by an independent auditor. This completely exploded Hohberg's contention that he left his position because he disapproved of the WVHA's activities, just as one of his own witnesses had punctured his defense that he had joined the WVHA to collect material against the SS, by letting the cat out of the bag that Hohberg was trying to dodge the draft and that he preferred to work for the SS rather than to go to the Wehrmacht.
The defendants Volk and Baier, as well as a witness for Baier, all from Staff W, testified that Hohberg was Chief of Staff and Pohl testified that the designation was correct. Hohberg should not have relied so heavily upon the SS covering up for a non-member. There was some justification for his reliance, however, because when he and Volk were in prison in the British Zone, Hohberg, according to Volk's testimony, became worried about the position he had held and asked Volk to give him an affidavit. Volk obliged and even went to the extreme of saying in it that there was never such an office in existence, nor did it have that name, nor did it perform any functions for the Party or the SS or the Reich. But the ties of blood-brotherhood did not exist for Hohberg, and he was thrown overboard here in Nurnberg. On the stand, Volk testified that the Chief of Staff W was a position just as real as the positions of any other office chief from W-I to W-VIII and that Hohberg held it.
Perhaps the most ridiculous defense asserted here is Hohberg's claim that, while he was working for the SS, he was sabotaging the SS by secretly transferring its industries away from it. This he was doing, he says, by financing them from funds of the Reich, rather than using Party funds. There are three answers. First, he could not have been so stupid as to think that Himmler, Reichsfuehrer-SS, would pay any attention to Hohberg's bookkeeping entries if an issue were ever raised.
Second, it could be of no possible concern to the SS whether the industries were technically owned by the Party or the Reich: they would still be under Himmler and the SS. Himmler was a Reich official as well as a party official and the Waffen-SS was his agency in Reich matters. Third, Hohberg knew that the Reich was just as criminal in its activities as the party. The concentration camps were Reich concentration camps; loot from the Reinhardt Action became Reich profits; and the extermination program was a Reich program. And for the inmates it could make no difference whether they were dying in Reich industries or Party industries. The defendant Volk, the third member in the dock from Amtsgruppe W, also attempts today to reduce his position in Staff W to that of an office boy or messenger. At most, he would, have us believe, he was just the attorney for the industries. Actually he was much more than that. He held positions in so many SS industries that that was given as the reason for his lapse of memory regarding some of them. In addition he was Procurist of DWB, the head of the legal office in Staff W, deputy to the Chief of Staff W, and Pohl's personal legal assistant. In this latter position he claims that he dealt only with Pohl's personal matters, but this is contradicted by his testimony that in many cases it was impossible to determine in which of his capacities he was acting. Even his secretary, he said, could not tell.
It is of course inevitable that by reason of their positions the defendants in Staff W, Hohberg, Baier, and Volk would have intimate contacts with the use of inmate labor in tire SS industries. Even if documents were not available to prove individual instances, that much would have been clear from the Table of Organization. But the documentation fully bears out their continuous participation.
Only a few examples need be recalled - negotiations by Hohberg when the workshops in Dachau Concentration Camp were reorganized and incorporated into the DAW; negotiations establishing the amount the Reich was to receive for the rental of inmates to the SS industries; settlement of claims against the central insurance account under Staff W for business losses caused to SS industries by insufficient supplies of inmates; negotiations by Baier with Maurer and Klein for inmate labor used by Amt W-VIII; negotiations by Baier and Vogt for guards and barracks for inmate laborers to be used on the slate oil project, and the reports sent to Staff W by the German Slate Oil Company, of which Vogt was a partner, on the appalling death rates of the inmates; negotiations by Baier with the Auschwitz Concentration Camp for barracks for inmates to be used by the Gentellent firm; supervision of OSTI; participation by Hohberg, Volk, and Baier in loans from the Reinhardt fund; the part Staff W played in converting Stutthof into a concentration camp; and Baier and Volk's trip to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto to recommend to Pohl whether it should be converted into a concentration camp.
The result of the Litzmannstadt investigation was that the Ghetto was destroyed, and thousands of Jews were killed. Greiser wrote to Pohl, sending a copy to Baier and Volk, that "The Ghetto Litzmannstadt is not to be transferred into a concentration camp, as was emphasized by SS Oberfuehrer Baier and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Volk". He went on to report that the personnel of the Ghetto would therefore be reduced through the action of a Sonderkomnando. Both Baier and Volk claim to know nothing about this matter, although the memorandum was addressed to them. Another memorandum which Dr. Horn of OSTI said he was forwarding to Baier and Volk reported that Eichmann and Kaltenbrunner were interested in the matter, and that before Baier and Volk went to Litzmannstadt, there were five hundred "reductions by death" per month in the Ghetto.
The infamous OSTI was under the supervision of Staff W and Hohberg and Volk were present at the conference at which OSTI's aims were fixed - the utilization of Jewish property and Jewish labor.
We have already referred to the essential part which Amtsgruppe C, the construction department of the WVHA, played in the concentration camp system, the extermination of Jews, and in the demolition of the Warsaw Ghetto. Kiefer was the senior office chief and deputy chief of the whole Amtsgruppe while this latter assignment was being carried out.
During the war, Amtsgruppe C undertook large scale construction of buildings and plants used in the munitions industries. This project became the largest user of concentration camp labor. The office within Amtsgruppe C which was competent for the drafting of construction plans for armament installations was under the defendant Kiefer.
The construction office from its beginning was an integral part of the concentration camp system. It built and maintained the concentration camps, and used inmate labor in all of its building projects The history of the supervision of concentration camp construction by the WVHA goes back to the first concentration camp, at Dachau. In November 1933, building matters for the Dachau camp were taken over by the Vorwaltungsamt-SS from Eicke. Eirenschmalz became chief of the construction office in the Administrative Office in 1935 and a letter written by Pohl to the SS Main Office in 1937 states that Eirenschmalz was responsible for the numerous construction projects carried out by that agency. The blue prints and documents prove that one of the projects for which he was responsible was the construction of the Buchenwald crematorium. In the WVHA both Kiefer and Eirenschmalz were concerned with construction projects in the concentration camps. The table or organization and the blue prints show that Kiefer drew the plans for sick barracks for the inmates and troops in the concentration camp. Blue prints bearing Kiefer's signature for such construction projects in the Auschwitz concentration camp are in evidence. The documents show that Pohl's office retained control over the construction of crematorium and gas chambers to the end. The famous gas chambers and crematorium known as "Barracks X" at Dachau was ordered, checked and approved by the WVHA.
Amt C-I and C-III planned and supervised the construction, and the job of making a preliminary examination of the expenses of such projects.
There is positive proof that Eirenschmalz, Chief of C-VI, made such preliminary examination of the accounts in the building of the gas chamber Auschwitz. Eirenschmalz also checked and approved applications for maintenance work in the concentration camps. These were Eirenschmalz's contribution to the solution of the problem of the interior races - the Jews, Poles and Russians.
Amtsgruppe B of the WVHA was the supply department for the concentration camps. Its chief was the defendant Georg Loerner, its deputy chief was the defendant Tschentscher (who was also in charge of the food office) and the defendant Scheide was the chief of the transportation office. The many diversified functions of Georg Loerner illustrate the complete integration of the various Amtsgruppe of the WVHA. In the first of the SS administrative organizations which preceded the WVHA, the Verwaltungsamt-SS, Georg Loerner was Chief of the Main Department V-3, responsible for clothing the inmates and for supply of clothing for the Death Head units. When this bureau was reorganized, Georg Loerner became the budget chief of the Main Office. One of his sub-offices, I-5, was in charge of labor allocation of inmates. In the WVHA, he was Chief of Amtsgruppe B, responsible for food and clothing for concentration camps, Deputy Chief of Amtsgruppe W and second manager of the holding company of the SS industries, and Deputy Chief of the entire Main Office.
In these various offices Georg Loerner was successively responsible for supply, finance, for labor allocation, and for the SS industries.
THE PRESIDENT: We will suspend, Mr. Higgins, until a quarter to two.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1345 hours.
(Noon recess until 1345 hours, 17 September 1947)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. HIGGINS: If the Tribunal please, I should like to continue the reading of the Prosecution's closing statement.
In the previously mentioned W offices subordinated to Georg Loerner his responsibility for supply, for finance, for labor allocation and for the SS industries was definitely established. When anyone talked to Goerg Loerner, they were talking with an expert in every aspect of the WVHA.
The proof establishes his responsibility and that of his Deputy and Chief of Office B I for inadequate clothing and for insufficient food. The contention that the food office was not responsible for food is not credible. Specific instances are proven by witnesses win which Tschentscher did handle concentration camp food. The repudiated pretrial statement of Pohl and the repudiated affidavits of Frank, Vogt, Fanslau and of Goerg Loerner himself all show that Amtsgruppe B was was the highest authority for concentration camp food and since these statements are corroborated by established fact, they should be accepted as true.
That Tschentscher had large supplies of food on hand while inmates were starving to death is not disputed. The evidence shows that inmates died during the winter months from insufficient clothing. Clothing factories under Loerner used inmate labor. Loerner, and Tschentscher as his deputy, have special responsibility for Action Reinhardt.
Georg Loerner, Frank and Pohl visited the Reichbank and were shown the contents by of the vaults by Emil Puhl. Puhl told them that their things were among the loot there. Loerner prepared a report on the 825 carloads of textiles which came from the concentration Camps Auschwitz and Lublin. Burger of Amtsgruppe D reported to him that clothing was coming from "Aktionen in Auchwitz and other camps." The same report refers to arrivals in concentration camps from the "Hungary Program" (Judenaktion), from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, and to the arrival of 400,000 Poles from Warsaw.
Loerner as Deputy Chief of Amtsgruppe W could have done something about conditions in the SS industries, but he preferred to abdicate his authority to members of Staff W.
The defendant Scheide, Chief of Amt B-V, was in charge of the entire transport system of all the Amtsgruppen of the WVHA. He supplied trucks and other motorized equipment and arms and ammunition to Amtsgruppe D.
But one word now, before we leave the defendants of Amtsgruppe B. There is a mass of evidence concerning the activities of Tschentscher while he was with the SS Viking Division during the Russian campaign in 1941. This will be briefly discussed in a moment, along with the activities of his fellow-officer Fanslau.
If the Tribunal please, Mr. Fulkerson will conclude the presentation of the closing statement.
MR. FULKERSON: Office A-1 through A-5 of Amtsgruppe A were under the supervision of the defendant August Frank, until September , 1943. Sometime after that date, Fanslau, who had been Frank's deputy, became his successor. Each office in Amtsgruppe A played an essential part in the administration of concentration camps. Hans Loerner, as Chief of A-1 was the chief budget officer for them. Here, close coordination between Amtsgruppe A and D was required. D-4 put together the various items of the budget for all concentration camps, according to Pohl "and then passed it on s part of the whole budget of the Waffen SS to Amtsgruppe A which then reviewed the budget for the concentration camp." In May 1942, Hans Loerner and Frank negotiated the budget for 13 concentration camps, including one for women and one for youths. Hana Loerner's report to the Auditing Court concerning Stutthof shows that the Chief of A-1 was required to have extensive knowledge of concentration camp fiscal affairs and negotiations there emphasize the close cooperation of all the WVHA offices in managing them.
Hans Loerner in the Budget Office and later, after April 1944, as chief of A-2 and as Deputy Chief of Amtsgruppe A, is implicated in the Reinhardt Action. It is of course unthinkable that those tremendous sums of moneys were handled without the assistance of Pohl's chief fiscal officers. The secret directive by Pohl , in July 1944 concerning the utilization "of all movable and immovable Jewish belongings" and instructing " that the entire Jewish property is to be incorporated into the Reich property" was sent to Hans Loerner. Pohl admitted on cross-examination that the reason this basic directive was sent to him was because "A-I was the part of the WVHA which dealt with the central regulations of this matter". Over 6,800,000 Rm from the Reinhardt Action was credited to the SS Savings Association, another of Hans Loerner's projects, so that the German Red Cross could be repaid the money which it had lent various SS industries through the Savings Association. This whole transaction is very complicated: one of the wheels within wheels was that Pohl was one of the directors of the German Red Cross.
The second office in Amtsgruppe A, under Hans Loerner after April 1944, was the treasury Office. It was this Amt which physically received the gold and jewelry from the murdered inmates and passed the watches on to Sommer in D-II. Since Mellmer, one of the subordinates of A-II, was not able to join the reunion here, owing to a previous engagement, most of the criminality for this project has been blamed upon him. A-III under Frank himself was the legal office. It's function was to handle the legal details in the purchase of concentration camp sites. A-IV under the defendant Vogt audited the books of the concentration camps and checked the proceeds of the Action Reinhardt.
The defendant Fanslau was in charge of the personnel office of the WVHA which was the fifth office in Amtsgruppe A.
He was Frank's deputy and after Franks' departure he was the senior officer there. In May or June 1944 he was charged with the direction of the entire Amtsgruppe. The proof shows that Office A-5 under Fanslau was the personnel office within the WVHA, and that all appointments of commandants and administrative officers were cleared through it. Frank and Fanslau deny this, but captured documents prove that it is true. The official chart drawn up in the WVHA describes one of the departments under Fanslau as follows:
"Concentration Camps: replacements, releases, promotions, assignments, transfers, training" (attached to Amtsgruppe D).
In addition, actual transfers of concentration camp commanders, signed by Fanslau have been introduced as part of the Prosecution's rebuttal evidence. In this connection , the proof also shows that personnel from the WVHA was transferred to the East and placed at Globocnik's disposal for use in Action Reinhardt and the Osti operations. Fanslau's denials in this respect are contradicted by these official reports.
A few remarks on the participation of Fanslau and Tschentscher in the campaign of frightfulness conducted by the SS Viking Division in Poland and Russia will have to be interpolated parenthetically here. Fanslau, as administrative officer of the Viking Division, was one of its highest ranking officers. Tschentscher was his deputy. They were in command of the Supply Battalion of the Viking Division.
On direct examination, when Fanslau was asked about the mistreatment of Jews, he made the following statement:
"I may say that during my whole time of service at the front with the WaffenSS , and also with the police, I saw nothing which indicated in any sense of the word from a human soldier, or any international point of view anything that would have been illegal.
Individual offenses which happen in all armies of the World after all, so far as I could see at the time, were prosecuted legally whereby justice was done."
We will refer to the testimony of Otto only for the purpose of corroborating the testimony of other witnesses. The testimony of Fanslau, Tschentscher, Sauer, Jollek, Goldstein and Otto all place the Supply Battalion at Tarnopol and Zclozow at the very time when wholesale massacres of the Jewish population were taking place. These massacres are proved by the Einsatzgruppen as well as by the testimony of Sauer, Goldstein, Jollek and Otto. That Jews were rounded up and forced to work in the slaughter houses at Tarnopol by the men of the Supply Battalion is proved by the testimony of Sauer, Goldstein and Otto. That they were killed there was known by Goldstein, who helped to bury them, and by Otto, who heard of it. Sauer saw them mistreated there by members of the Supply Battalion. He positively identified not only the trucks but also the personnel of that unit.
That the Supply Battalion participated in the killing of Jews at Zclozow was seen by Jollek and Otto. Jollek know that the men from the Viking division, particularly the personnel which was engaged in hauling food, were among those carrying out these murders.
Sauer saw a non-commissioned officer of the Supply Battalion kill six Jews with a Tommy gun at another place and witnessed numerous mistreatments of Jews by members of that unit.
One of the most significant points of Sauer's testimony was that after Tschentscher was transferred , he never saw another incident of this kind. In considering Tschentscher's credibility in this matter, it should be remembered that he testified that he left the Supply Battalion in November 1941, whereas his own affidavit, his official transfer and his personal service record all fixed the date of his detachment from the Viking Division as December 31.