But where do they contain objective elements of a crime? The opinions and thoughts they contained were more or less violently rejected by the world around them. Nobody had the imagination to foresee what was really to happen.
Not a word was to be found in the SS manuals or in other places about the Jews to be gasses, about mass killings to be carried out in the concentration camps. If today it is said, one should have read between the lines, well, the question arises, why did the Weimar republic not exhibit a poster above **** barracks, to read:
"Attention" Murder Incorporated No. 1."
No, the individual SS-man was not in a position to realize before the event that Himmler was capable of perpetrating crimes of the sort as have now come to the light.
The truth was disclosed only after the war. Up to that time it leaked out only gradually and remained unknown to most of the people even up to the very end. In this connection even the question is of no relevance, at what date a man joined the SS.
It is also essential not to neglect but to consider the personality of each individual SS-man when trying to judge him, or else testimonials of the kind presented by the witness Ackermann would be disregarded. The witness Ackrmann, who had been arrested by the Gestapo on various occasions beginning from 1933 and who was in a concentration camp, who was kept in concentration Camps continously from 1939 to 1945, declared as a Prosecution witness: I quote:
".....just as it has to be proclaimed in public for once, and I feel boud to do so, that amongst the SS man there were not only dirty swines, but quite a number of decent people and beyond that SS-men who were our best friends."
Quite consistently the witness Kogon surely an unbiased witness, declared:
"The facts with regard to the question, how far the individual SS man had the necessary knowledge and the possibility to interfere have certainly to be examined in each individual case."
The Prosecution has not submitted a single document against the defendant Scheide which shows his name. He has not been mentioned by any witness. No evidence has been submitted which would show his individual guilt.
Whether, under these circumstances, a conviction can be arrived at according to Control Council Law No. 10, if all Scheide can be charged with is membership in the SS, will be decided by this High Tribunal.
DR. SCHMIDT (Attorney for the Defendant No.* ): Mr. President, Your Honors, with the definite permission of my client, I would like to make the following statement: That in the interest of saving time, I shall not read my written final plea. I am making this statement with the hope that the Tribunal will adhere to its statement of yesterday that the court will still consider and take judicial notice of all the things in the final pleas not read by the defense.
As far as the final plea of the prosecution is concerned, I would only like to give an oral statement now:
I agree with the prosecution that the question concerning the veracity of the defendants is probably the most important question in this trial. That is the reason why in the case of my client I have explicitly examined and dealt with the veracity of my client in my final plea. I have reached a conclusion which is in contradiction to the prosecution's contention.
The prosecution in their final plea, with reference to Vogt, used him as a typical example of the non-veracity of the defendants. I am afraid I have to protest such an allegation against my client.
In my final plea, I have stated that my defendant has not said a lie which could be proved. This, in particular, also applies to the rebutal the most important parts of the affidavit of 16 January 1947, which is Prosecution Exhibit No. 8.
The prosecution, surprisingly enough, stated that they waited without success for the introduction of the pre-trial examinations which were in my hands.
The prosecution apparently forgot that the excerpts of these pre-trial records were introduced by me in the session of 15 September 1947 as Defense Exhibit Vogt No. 21, 22, and 23, and also that the Tribunal accepted these exhibits into evidence. If I introduced those records not in their entirety, but duly in excerpts, this was not done because the remaining parts of the record might incriminate my client, but only for technical reasons, in order to save the trouble to the Translating Department of translating irrelevant parts and passages.
The excerpts from those pre-trial records, which I introduced, proved explicitly that the most important and more pressing passages of the affidavit where a culpability for my client can be deducted are based on statements of his own by my client.
I only stated a small example when introducing those records. I could multiply that example and give you many more. Some of those examples are contained in my final plea.
According to my investigations in the affidavits there are not less than 13 very remarkable sentences, which are literally based on formulations by the interrogator. If one considers that the Defendant Volk, according to the medical affidavits, which I have introduced, at the time was in a physical and psychological state of exhaustion, one will understand very clearly just how the probative value of this testimony can be impeached by the defendant. Then it will be understood that the defendant while testifying as a witness in his own behalf told the truth and testimony should be referred to this state of affairs. It was his own right, and it is my duty as defense counsel to make those statements in the interest of the truth.
In this connection, I believe I have the right to make the following statement: The case of the Defendant Vogt is not a typical example for the non-veracity, in other words, for the incorrectness of the defense of the defendants. I am of the opinion that the case of Vogt in particular has shown and proved just how important and valuable it can be to actually check up on things to their very bottom.
THE PRESIDENT: We have yet to hear the arguments of counsel for Kiefer, Klein, Mummenthey, and Tschentscher, and that is all. None of these counsel are here right now.
DR. HOFFMANN: I have spoken with the Defense Counsel of Kiefer, Dr. Maier.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you rather begin -
DR. FROESCHMANN: May it please Your Honor, I just found out that my final plea will be translated by this afternoon at the latest. I would appreciate it if we could get the translation of that final plea before we read it into the record.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you know when this afternoon, at what hour?
DR. FROESCHMANN: I did not understand?
THE PRESIDENT: At what time this afternoon will the translation be ready?
DR. FROESCHMANN: That I couldn't tell you, Your Honor. I will have to inquire.
DR. HOFFMANN: Defendant Kiefer's defense counsel has spoken to me. He can begin in the afternoon session, after the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: After the recess, about quarter of two. Dr. Froeschmann, I suggest that you go down to Defense Information Center before you return to court and find out how soon you can get your copy.
DR. FROESCHMANN: Yes, indeed, Your Honor. Very well, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess at this time until a quarter to two, at which time we will hear Counsel for Defendant Kiefer.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 1345.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing resumed at 1345 hours, 19 Sept.
1947)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR.MAYER (for defendant Kiefer): Your Honor, the Tribunal told me yesterday that I was to read my final plea tomorrow. However, I would like to announce at this time that I do not want to read it, and I ask the Tribunal -- in accordance with this suggestion - to take judicial notice of my speech which I shall submit in writing. If my unofficial translation has been completed at the end of today's session I shall present it.
THE PRESIDENT: That is agreeable, and we will give your written document every consideration.
DR. MAYER: Thank you very much, your Honor.
DR. PRIBILLA(for defendant Tschentscher): Your Honor, my final plea is not an oral speech, but I have written it down in the form of a closing brief. For factual reasons I would prefer it if this closing brief would be studied by the Tribunal, and if it would form the basis for the Tribunal's verdict. However, I would like to take a look at the translation first so that I can correct it. Unfortunately, however, that is not possible anymore because I have heard that the translation has only been completed so far in one copy, in handwriting. However, I assume that the Court will permit me to turn again to the Tribunal if any corrections should be necessary in the translation. I therefore request that I be permitted to submit my official plea to the Tribunal in writing, and that the verdict of the Tribunal be based on my final plea.
THE PRESIDENT: What are you going to do now?
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, I believe that it will be sufficient for me to state on my part, that the translation will be submitted in writing to the Tribunal this afternoon or tomorrow.
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, you will have an opportunity to make any corrections that you wish in the translation, at any time.
DR. FROESCHMANN (for defendant Mummenthey): Your Honor, in accordance with the ruling of the Tribunal I have made inquiries at the Translation Department, and I have been informed that the translation of my final plea will be completed by 1700 hours this afternoon. I therefore ask the Tribunal for instructions on what I am to do now.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it now appears that we should hear from Dr. Froeschmann and Dr. Bergold with translations tomorrow morning. And that will be the last. Should we all go swimming?
DR. PRIBILLA: Your Honor, during the recess I received an inquiry from the Secretary-General about my document books. May I clarify the matter? For Tschentscher the following have been submitted: Document Book I and Document Book III. Book II was not submitted.
THE PRESIDENT: That is understood.
There being no alternative, the Tribunal will be in recess until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on September 20, 1947, at 0900 hours, Justice Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
DR. SEIDL (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT POHL): Your Honors, on next Monday morning the last statements of the defendants are to be heard. If I understood the Tribunal correctly, the Tribunal has set three hours to dispose of all the statements of the defendants. A schedule has been set up to show just approximately how long the last words of the defendants will take. The results are that less than three hours will probably be necessary, less than three hours. Quite a number of the defendants here will only speak for five minutes instead of ten minutes.
Under these circumstances, Your Honors, may I understand that the Tribunal will raise no objection if the Defendant Pohl, due to the fact that he was the Chief of the WVHA, would require a few more minutes than ten minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: That is perfectly agreeable. If some of the defendants want to give some of their time to other defendants, that is quite agreeable. Ein Moment.
Judge Phillips suggests, Dr. Seidl, that Mr. Pohl speak last, and then he will know just how much time he has left.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I believe that this will not be necessary We have a schedule which is rather very accurate and from this it can be seen that we shall need a little more than two hours. The Defendant Pohl will probably only speak for a few more minutes than are granted him.
I am only making this application to the Tribunal, because something had been mentioned about ten minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we'll convene at 9:30 then on Monday morning, and do you understand that we are to use Court Room No. 1, the Court room where the medical case was tried, and we'll convene at 9:30 and hear the statements of the defendants in whatever order that you agree upon.
DR. SEIDL: A bulletin was affixed to the bulletin board of the defense counsel, according to which this final session will take place in Tribunal No. 1.
DR. GAWLIK (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANTS VOLK AND BOBERMIN): May it please your Honors, I made the request of the Secretary General to have the English record changed. As far as the Defendants Bobermin and Volk are concerned, the record contains a certain irregularities and certain mistakes, and I have it all, Your Honors. I would like to give you a copy of my corrections. There are two applications, Your Honors, one is for Dr. Volk and the other for Dr. Bobermin.
Your Honors, there is something else I would like to mention. This afternoon we won't be able to speak to the defendants. However, it is absolutely necessary that we speak to them, in view of their last statements before Monday. I would appreciate it, if the Tribunal could rule on giving us the permission to see the defendants this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: Why can you not see them this afternoon?
DR. GAWLIK: On Saturday there is no possibility to see the defendants in the afternoon, only in the morning. As we are having a session this morning we won't be able to see them. This applies to every Saturday.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. I'll take care of it.
DR. MEYER (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT KIEFER): May it please Your Honors. Since the Translation Department has not translated my final plea as yet, I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would accept a translations which I have had made and I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would read it and take judicial notice of it, as they said yesterday.
THE PRESIDENT: The Translation Department is going to translate your final plea.
DR. MEYER: Yes, but I don't know when it will be ready and the translation will be ready to introduce it in time.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
DR. FROESCHMANN (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT MUMMENTHEY): Your Honors, before I start with my final plea, I would like to make a very short statement. Complying with the President's wish, I have also made up my mind, to read only certain massages from my written final plea. This resolution is based on the fact that the Tribunal is governed by the principle publicity and that have certain objections, if the final pleas are not submitted orally to the Tribunal, the prosecution had the opportunity also to repeat in public in their final plea the charges against all their defendants, including Mummenthey. If Your Honors please, I shall now begin with my final plea.
Mr. President, Your Honors, in the opening speech, the prosecution called the DEST one of the most murderous exploiters of the concentration camp inmates and designated the defendant Mummenthey in his capacity as Business Manager of the DEST as -- and I quote, "a master in the slave labor economy." The course of the trial has made the judgment of the prosecution ridiculous.
Mummenthey today no longer stands in the spotlight of this trial as the conscienceless and unscrupulous champion of a slave labor program, who valued production and gain more highly than human lives. From all sides Mummenthey was shown to be the very image of a man who not only had a warm benificent heart, a strong humame feeling for the prisoners, their needs and wants, but who firmly translated his humane impulses into effective deeds, even at the danger of personal disadvantages.
This judgment coincides with the general impression which everyone participating in the trial in this court room must have gained from hearing about Mummenthey's character.
It is characteristic of this trial, that with the exception of the Defendant Hohberg, all the defendants were members of the SS, which has been declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal. From the beginning of the trial this fact meant a serious charge for all the defendants. Its effect becomes still more intensified by the sentence of Military Tribunal No. I in the doctor's trial, which sentenced all the defendants, insofar as they belonged to the SS, to death or to long terms imprisonment.
The thinking of all of us has not yet attained sufficient distance from the events of those years. The real facts of the case are still far too little unravelled with regard to time and facts and too greatly dominated by seemingly logical combinations. There is therefore the great danger, of subordination from the incarnation of all evil, whatever bore even the mere name of the SS or stood in any sort of relationship whatsoever to it, as represented in the person of Himmler to subordinate everything not only purely legally but also morally, prima vista to the verdict of the Military Tribunal, and to put it onto the index of the world public. Nothing, however, would be more in error than to regard the SS -- as the Witness Bickel emphasized, by virtue of his extensive knowledge of it -- as a structure complete in itself, and thereby to consider the hundreds of thousands who once wore the uniform of the SS as criminals, only because they were members of the SS, who were dishonored by the ruthless activity of a few thousands.
In the final deliberations of my final plea I have developed the idea that according to the Nurnberg verdict the sentencing of an SS member under Count 4 of the indictment can only take place if apart from having personally committed a crime is at least one activity of abetting in a war crime or crime against humanity.
I shall now read a little bit further down on page 3, No. 5.
It is true that the DEST was an SS plant and it is true that SS member Mummenthey stood at its head, equal in rank with his co-business managers. Actually the DEST was an enterprise which was in uniform only under compulsion and which was managed purely according to principles of commercial law and economics.
Without the connection with its holding company and Pohl's power of command, and without Mummenthey's membership in the SS the DEST and thereby Mummenthey also, would hardly have to defend themselves before this forum. It would be judged within the frame work of hundreds of German industries which likewise employed concentration camp prisoners during the war.
Why should not the DEST also, if one thinks of it apart from the omnipotence of the Camp Commandants, have belonged to those economic enterprises which would have been capable of generosity toward their workers? Why could not Mummenthey, too, have been an economic leader who surrounded his workers with that attentive care which was confirmed in the Milch trial by the affidavit of Schinner to the credit of another world renowned German firm? Must Mummenthey really have been a man who unconditionally subscribed to the master race theory and saw in the prisoners not the creator of valuable work, but the object of an asocial policy of exploitation? Did not Bickel describe Mummenthey as the "white raven", whose trend of thought would knowingly contrast with that of the other SS--leaders? Did not the witness Engler expressly exclude Mummenthey from the circle of murders responsible for the concentration camp crimes.
In my final plea I also defined my attitude to the charges raised by the prosecution that the members of Amtsgruppe W were fanatical national socialists and also fanatical business men.
I have refuted this charge describing Mummenthey's career in the SS and I pointed out in particular that he originally was a member of the SS, a mounted SS, this organization, according to the prosecution Witness Sachs, which was joined only by the more clever class of people.
I have, furthermore, stressed the point that Mummenthey was not an SS officer in the common sense of the word but was, according to Bickel's words, an economist who had been put in a uniform.
I shall continue on page 7, number d: Mummenthey's hearing yielded nothing according to which he participated in criminal actions of the SS, or knew about them. This agrees with the testimony of the witness Wolff, according to which Mummenthey could not have arrived at the concept that the SS was a criminal system - even if he had heard of the events in the concentration camps.
The basis of the International Military Tribunal for its establishing the criminal character of the SS was formed in particular by the Prosecution and the extermination of the Jews. The question as to whether Mummenthey, as one of the business managers of DEST, or as a member of the SS, knew of the various phases of the persecution and extermination of the Jews or participated in them, requires, therefore, a special examination. This examination showed that Mummenthey could neither be brought into connection via OSTI or Wolomin or Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Herzogenbusch, with the extermination of the Jews.
I have also dealt in detail in my written final plea with Sanner's affidavit the incorrection was shown by Walter's and Bickel's affidavits.
Finally, I have dealt with the Reinhardt Fund, and I have again repeated the proof that Mummenthey knew nothing about the source from which the loan granted Allach came, and am proving my point by Belter's affidavit and by the testimony of Mummenthey himself while testifying as a witness in his own behalf.
Then I shall pass on to page number 12 of my final plea:
Mummenthey did not have any more extensive opportunities to obtain information than the majority of the German people. He himself testified that the facts on which the International Military Tribunal based it declaration of the SS as a criminal organization were hidden from him.
Even if he had found out about such things he, in his special position, would not have had the opportunity to prevent them or to resign from the SS and the Economic and Administrative Main Office.
The witnesses Wolff and Schmidt-Klevenow confirm this. A request for transfer to the front would, according to Wolff's testimony - because of lack of personal connection - not have had a chance of success either. And, in addition, Pohl confirmed this emphatically.
I shall continue: Under number 2 of my written final plea, I have dealt with the penal responsibility of the defendant Mummenthey within the framework of his business management, and have prove that both according to German law and also according to international law he is only responsible for what happened within his sphere of competency.
I have pointed out that the inmate labor assignment was in the hands of Schondorf -- the man who is now a free man in England while Mummenthey is here before you as a defendant.
I have, finally, pointed out that due to the decentralization of the plants the responsibility for the plants rested with the work manager and that the Main Administration in Berlin only interpolated in order to decide on basic questions.
I shall continue on page 15, number 5: Naturally, all the questions of local allocation of prisoners belonged to the matters to be taken care of by the plant managers independently of the Main Administration, especially the negotiations with the Kommandantur about continued release of those prisoners needed in the plant. Thus it also was their duty to see to it that the allocation of labor would run smoothly and in orderly channels at the plant itself. Pohl's order of 1 May 1942, Document R-129, subordinated the plant managers in all questions of allocation of prisoners exclusively to the Kommandantur as the plant directors. This results in the fact that the subordination of the plant managers to the business management of the DEST had to be limited only to technical questions but, principally, did not include questions of labor allocation of prisoners. Within this subordination relationship Mummenthey alone was not their superior - not even in his fictitious capacity as Amtschief - but they were subordinate to the board of business managers in which each business manager represented his own special field.
Thus, various witnesses, such as Baier, Hohberg, as well as several affidavits, bore witness to the fact and agreed that Mummenthey was a correct and decent business man who conscientiously fulfilled his duties and rather did too much than too little in this respect.
And now to number 7: Thus it can be stated that Mummenthey cannot be held responsible for the labor allocation of prisoners under penal law. If, in spite of it, during this time he tried to improve the working and living conditions of the prisoners, he did something which was outside of his actual competence. No legal standpoint could be maintained if one construes from this voluntary action dictated by humane motives a criminally punishable responsibility.
In number 3 of my written final plea I have dealt with the question of concentration camps and the conscription for labor. I can refrain from again going in to the objective basis of the concentration camps since a number of my colleagues have commented on this subject. I have also dealt with these fundamentals in my final plea, but in doing so I have confined myself much more to the question as to how Mummenthey looked at these things; in particular, how he, believing in the integrity of government agencies, was convinced of the legality of the issuance of a protective custody order and the execution of the detention by the executing agency, namely, the headquarters of the concentration camps, as being justified measures.
I shall continue on page 18, number 2: There was no reason to doubt the legality of the commitment, and the confinement in, con centration camps after Mummenthey's explanation, and numerous other testimonies. Mummenthey knew nothing of abuses by the Gestapo when it transferred persons in to the concentration camps.
If in one or the other case the commitment into a concentration camp did not agree with the feelings of an individual or even of a number of people, this did not mean a recognizance of an absolutely illegal limitation of personal freedom, but only a criticism of the harshness and pitiless way in which the National Socialist regime protected the security of the state from the freedom of the individual by exercising the special right claimed by it.
As far as the compulsory work of the concentration camp inmates is concerned, it seemed very similar to Mummenthey to the other already existing legal provisions governing compulsory labor on the basis of his observations of the economic development of Germany and his special knowledge in the field of labor and penal law.
I do not need to mention further how these regulations in detail at the time before and after the beginning of the war followed one another. They wore described in detail by my colleagues and in my final plea. I have pointed out the fact that in the Justice Administration parallel appearances have arisen for decades, not only in Germany but also in other states. I have emphasized in particular the compulsory work of the pre-trial witnesses and stressed the general conscription for labor which existed in Germany at the time.
Then I continue on page 21, number 5: It had finally become known to Mummenthey that under the pressure of the general shortage of labor, the labor also allocation of concentration camp inmates had been ordered through the "work and service order" of 11 November 1938. The repeated changes of this provision up to its final reformulation in the "Standard Decree for labor allocation and premium setup" brought home to Mummenthey the further development of these governmental measures.
However, neither Mummenthey nor any of the other Economic Office Chiefs had ever heard of Pohl's report of 30 April 1942 to Himmler according to which he wanted to give foremost consideration to the economic aspect of utilization of all labor reserves, including those in the camps and in which he therefore stressed the necessity of changing the concentration camps from their existing political form in to an economic organization.
In any case, Pohl's order of 30 April 1942, which he issued in this connection, showed the military orientation of the labor allocation by the Chief of the Office Group D, Office of Inspection of Concentration Camps - that is, by the highest Reich authority.
Finally, we have to add the personal impressions that Munnenthey had gained in Hamburg and Glasmoor on the housing and working methods of the prisoners. After all this, no doubts of any kind could arise in Mummenthey as to the justification of the use of inmates labor purposes. The fact as such never can be a crime against humanity; for where otherwise, would be the intervention of the Control Council against the forced labor camps in the Russian zone which have been made credible by Mummenthey Exhibit 47.
In paragraph 4, I have dealt with the question as to how far the charges made by the Prosecution against the defendant that in certain plants of the DEST also prisoners of war, foreigners and Jews were employed. By that the DEST is said to have violated the provisions of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare and the Geneva Convention. Certain findings were made here in this trial which, however, were not conclusive. The main important question, however, is not whether such an employment has been carried out. The main question is did Munnenthey know about it? On the basis of the transcript I have dealt with this question in detail and, I agree with the President that the exactness and the objectivity of my statement can be understood much better by studying all these documents rather than by listening to a speed to tiring for the brain in view of the overwhelming material. On the other hand, however, I do believe it important to deal with that question orally, as to how far Munnenthey had the duty to inform himself concerning the employment of prisoners war, foreigners and Jews. Therefore, I shall read that with my oral part of my final plea, which is contained on page 26, number 3:On account of the strict regulations prohibiting also for Mummenthey a conversation with prisoners about their personal conditions, it was therefore not immediately possible for him to gain private information.
Inasmuch as Mummenthey got into personal touch with individual prisoners despite these regulations in the later years of the war, he never even received through hints any closer information about the reason for their arrest or about other personal conditions which could have caused him to suspect the legality of their employment.
Finally, there existed no obligation on the part of Mummenthey to inquire and learn from the prisoners the Kommando leaders or the camp headquarters about the nationality and the reason for imprisonment of the inmates either in routine duties in his position as co-manager or even officially as so-called Chief of Office.
Mummenthey's position as co-manager of the DEST was in no way different from that of any other manager in another enterprise which received from the legal authorities an allocation of prison labor. Here again no manager would get the idea, nor could it be expected of him to inquire into the personal conditions of the prisoners before using them as labor - particularly since they often changed from day to day. This would not only be a disturbance of the plant, but an unauthorized interference with the authority of the legal administration.
The same situation would prevail if one were to demand that Mummenthey check every day before beginning work, the personal conditions of the prisoners. Such an action on the part of the SS-Fuehrer Mummenthey would have been regarded as an even more adamant interference with the authority of the camp commandant, who alone, in accordance with R-129, was in change of labor allocation - then with that of the legal administration.
During the trial Mummenthey always assumed responsibility only in his capacity as co-manager of the DEST within the scope of the provisions of the commercial law.
Mummenthey has never recognized a responsibility as chief of office. His contractual relationship was of a purely private nature and was based on a private contract with the DEST. One would expect too much from Mummenthey's supervisory duties if one deducted therefrom an obligation toward malting such inquiries.
The same applies to an increased degree to any attempt to deduct from Mummenthey's designation as so-called chief of office such an obligation. This would run contrary to whatever has been said by those directly concerned here about the meaning of the title. Unanimously this designation was stated to be a fiction without form or substance born out of Pohl's military bureaucratic way of thought. It lacked not only every real, but also cerebral basis in the civil service law as against the chiefs of office of the Office Groups A to D, and of other Main Offices and agencies.
And even especially if one wants to attach official function to the title of Chief of Office - such an extension of the obligation toward information and inquiry would be contrary to the character of an official position. A civil service position naturally implies the subordination under the authority of higher office. To concede such an obligation toward information and supervision would dissolve all boulders of competence and thus the constitutional setup itself.
In summing up - it may be said that Mummenthey neither participated in, nor had knowledge of, acts which carried in them violations of international conventions and which represented war crimes.
The prosecution raises the charge against Mummenthey that he was a "master of slave labor." It is charged that the DEST, as an economic enterprise of the SS, had demanded from the prisoners the highest possible output of work at the least possible cost to itself, and that it had systematically required the performance of labor which surpassed the working capacity of the prisoners.
It would mean denying Mummenthey his ability of a leading business man if one were to dispute the mercantile view points which influenced his management of the DEST.
It was certainly his ambition to be successful in providing a sufficient amount of building material in fulfillment of the task that had been set for the DEST. That, as a matter of fact, happened to be the obligation which he had incurred by his contract. In this connection I agree with Bickel.
On the basis of my frequent talks with Mummenthey I cannot, however, shares Bickel's view to the effect that Mummenthey's recognized friendliness toward prisoners was based on his mercantile interest. I agree that raw material and labor are the two essential factors of all production plants which guide all plant managers. This fact was recognized by this same Court in the trial of the former Field Marshal General Milch.
Mummenthey, however, apart from this, possessed in advance a special disposition with regard to his work which determined him to consider not only economic, but also ethical and social points of view. It was not the fulfillment of the productive tasks of the DEST which first prevailed upon his to such effect. On the contrary, the pursuance of such policy was a reflection of what was the deepest basis of his whole personality -- outwardly appearing as the result of his education and Professional training. Both elements, the commercial as well as the social interest, were components through the combination of which the idea of education emerged as the final result.
Therefore, it would be absurd to assume that the DEST, as production plant under the management of Mummenthey, had made an effort to make the fulfillment of its tasks illusory through the "extermination of prisoners through labor."
Work results which are unobjectionable with respect to quality as well as to quantity can be achieved only with healthy workers fit to work and enjoying work. At a time when the manpower reserve was dwindling at a continuously increasing rate in consequence of the demands of the Wehrmacht, an economic policy as the one described above would actually have been suicide.
An insinuation connecting such a policy with Mummenthey can originate only with persons who do not want to see the truth, who deliberately mix up economic policy with party politics, economic enterprise with concentration camp.
Perhaps it would have been a wiser line of action on the part of Pohl if he already had more emphatically pointed out the obvious absurdity of such contention, and had more distinctly accentuated the dividing lines separating the Administration and Economy Main Office from the Office Group D in spite of the incorporation of the concentration camp inspection.
It is the merit of the witness Bickel to have disclosed the wound which, like a festering abscess, infected the entire organization of the SS with the taint from which new hundreds of thousands are doomed to suffer. Bickel point out the really guilty criminals in the whole of their brutality. They alone are responsible for the ghastly consequences revealed through the present, and other, trials. Himmler and his obedient satellites in the Reich Security Main Office, in the concentration camp inspection and in the various camp headquarters, -they alone against all well-intentioned remonstrances presented by Mummenthey saw in the prisoner the object of the power politics of frenzied camp commandants.
In this connection it may also be allowed to draw the attention to the legal importance of the document R-129/40, II, 70, the order of 30 April 1942 issued by Pohl with the best of intentions -- I take that for granted without further argumentation -- but which in the course of time would prove to be a Danaean gift.
Pohl issued this order in his capacity as chief of the Economy and Administration Main Office - that means, acting within the sphere from which he as a natural consequence of his ideas never estranged himself?