They aimed at freeing prisoners from their unprofitable seclusion behind bars by giving them productive work to do, and at their incorporation into the general working process the difficulties of which at present appear more than ever in connection with the reconstruction of Europe.
I shall interrupt my final plea here and I shall make certain oral statements with regard to the question of the way the work was carried out by the prisoners and that they had carried out, their work assignments not in violation of humanity by the DEST, and this, therefore, this can not be charged against Mummenthey. The deliberation on this question is contained in this final plea on pages 47 to 54. I believe I can say that I have presented this even with this evidence in an objective manner in my final plea. For this reason, I think that it is important that these deliberations should be judged by this Tribunal accordingly, because they will show as clear as crystal in my final plea. In order to advise the Tribunal I have referred to particular plans and the record pages of the Tribunal, and also to the exhibits of the defendant Mummenthey; it is a reiteration also as to what extent Mummenthey's measures went which he had taken in order to eliminate certain conditions, and in order to better conditions of the inmates. That is, in particular to increase their ability to work, to improve the food, the billeting, the clothing conditions and to obtain tobacco rations, to take care of the question of working hours, and of sending back to the barracks those inmates who were not fit to work but were sick inmates. I have pointed out in particular that the DEST had in no way carried out any punishment of the inmates and now I would like to pass on to page 55 of my written plea.
The question of the treatment of prisoners at the plants of the DEST is closely connected with this. The Prosecution attempted to make the DEST responsible for ill treatment or killings of inmates, which are supposed to have occurred on the plant grounds.
Several Prosecution witnesses, for example, Engler, Kruse and others, spoke of ill treatment and killings. None of these witnesses, however, could relate even a single case of a member of the plant participating in such ecesses.
The witness Bickel testified that members of the plant did not take part in the beating of prisoners. His following remark shows from which side the prisoners had to suffer especially, and what difficulties stood in the way of correcting such conditions: "It is easier to contradict an emperor than a prisoner in charge of the entire column, especially if he comes from the lowest brackets of humanity."
Mummenthey admitted that through conversations with technical managers he knew of individual excesses on the part of the camp guards. Therefore, his order to the technical managers to interfere with any excess regardless of its nature and to report to him in case their intervention failed to be successful. It is known that in such cases Mummenthey contacted the camp commander personally or reported the case to Pohl who caused the situation to be corrected.
Mummenthey was not satisfied with such interventions but made sure from time to time, especially during conferences with the technical managers, that such incidents were not repeated.
Mummenthey also intervened at once against less important misconditions at the plants. It would have been incompatible with Mummenthey's nature, as it is revealed by his statements and the descriptions by witnesses during this trial, not to have intervened with all means at his disposal against ill treatment, or, even worse, killings.
Therefore, his claim that he knew nothing about the incidents at the Mauthausen quarry (NO-3104, Exhibit 621) can be accepted as being true. This description, by the way, contradicts sharply the testimony given by the witness Otto Wever, Document Book No. XVII.
Among the prisoners who died, there were certainly some who worked at the plants. However, by the witness Bickel the cause of death was not the way work was performed at the plants of the DEST. The responsibility lay with conditions in the concentration camps and especially with the arbitrary acts of the Kapos, that is of the prisoner-foremen and the block leaders of the camp personnel. This is the only explanation for some witnesses's claims of "inhuman working conditions". The DEST had no part in this at all.
The actual attitude of the DEST and its members in the question of the treatment of prisoners is revealed beyond doubt by all affidavits and by the testimonies.
At the plants the prisoners were, as a matter of principle, treated like the civilian workers, The technical managers and former prisoners confirm this. The former prisoner Skladal Exhibit 11, even mentioned an incident where through his direct intervention Mummenthey save him from a beating by the camp commander.
Many cases of prisoners being assigned to responsible positions prove the DEST's efforts to employ prisoners according to their former civilian work or other personal abilities. At the witness stand Mummenthey cited several examples of prisoners who worked at the plants of the DEST as construction or business chiefs, as chief of a construction office or chief of bookkeeping, etc., although the employment of prisoners in such positions was forbidden.
Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz were employed at the office in contradiction to an order by Himmler according to which Jews could not be employed at offices. In this case, too, the DEST took no notice of an order which had to be considered as discrimination against certain people.
Summing up it can be considered as having been proved, as far as working conditions at the plants of the DEST are concerned, that the prisoners were not subjected to inhuman or extremely hard conditions on the part of the plants.
Whatever the plants could do for the prisoners in this direction, had to remain imperfect. They could procure additional food and clothing, could establish shops where gloves and shoes were produced and repaired. However, they could not cure the basic ill which pervaded the entire system. What happened to the prisoners after they had left the plants at the end of the workday, what kind of food they received, how they were treated, all this remained concealed from outsiders. The circle of these outsiders who despite geographical proximity could not gain insight into conditions at the camp, was very wide. It included the technical managers and Mummenthey.
From Mummenthey's untiring efforts to improve the living conditions of the prisoners, the Prosecution deducted that Mummenthey must have had detailed knowledge of the conditions in the concentration camps. Difficile est satiram non scribere. Had Mummenthey not tried to improve the living conditions, the Prosecution would be sure to have that fact interpreted as a failure to act, and thus as a violation of the laws of humanity. But since this charge can be established no longer after the examination of evidence, Mummenthey's knowledge of conditions in the concentration camps must strengthen the base of the indictment. The "juste Milieu" of the indictment had to misinterprete the sovereignty of Mummenthey's human feelings and had to substitute another inhuman weakness.
In reality Mummenthey knew nothing about it.
It has been established beyond doubt that Mummenthey cared much about the lot of the prisoners working at the plant than he was allowed to do on the basis of his competency. Wherever possible he tried to gain insight into the conditions under which the prisoners lived and worked. Often the camp commanders, who watched jealously over their competency, reproached him on account of this attitude which they considered as "interference". What he heard was the result of the reports of his business comanagers and technical managers.
The most important points on the agenda of the conferences of the technical managers were always the questions of feeding and clothing of the prisoners and other measures in their favor. Here Mummenthey did not limit himself at all to suggestions which he submitted himself or which he received from his collaborators. On the contrary, he cared about the actual carrying out of the measures that had been discussed, and pressed for their execution. This fact was confirmed by the witnesses, Schwarz, Bickel, and especially the works managers and former prisoners in their numerous affidavits.
To a foreigner who does not know anything about conditions in war time Germany, the amount of relief measures taken by the DEST, that is to say those taken by Mummenthey and the local work managers, may seen poor and negligible. But if one considers the fast that nearly all necessary conveniences, including food and tobacco, were strictly rationed, one can realize how much work and effort was necessary to effect all these improvements in nutrition, clothing, housing, etc., which Mummenthey, in connection with his co-directors and plant managers actually attained. What these measures taken by him were is described in detail in the various affidavits by former prisoners.
To these war-time difficulties will have to be added the equally great resistance which the Camp Commandant's Office frequently put up against the honest efforts made by Mummenthey and the plant managers to better the prisoners' conditions. It was, as Bickel confirms, a continual struggle between the DEST and its works on the one hand and the Camp Commandant's Office on the other hand. Mummenthey himself declared on the witness stand that for years he worked full strength and actually to the point of exhaustion without being able to get at the root of all the evil.
Mummenthey has the right to apply to himself Bismarck's word: "In serviendo consumor. Many of the plant managers did not fare any better. They all agree upon it that Mummenthey always sustained them unconditionally in their local battles against the Camp Commander's Offices?
These conditions must be taken into account if Mummenthey's activities and actual successes to be considered and correctly judged.
According to Witness Schwarz the DEST successfully intervened in the cases of 30 to 40 prisoners who were reloaded. After their release most of these former prisoners were re-employed as civil employees or laborers by the DEST. In a great many more cases Mummenthey's efforts were thwarted by the resistance of RSHA and other authorities. If the DEST had been an "all-round prisoners' outfit" as one would gather from Document NO-1276/428 XVI, which Mummenthey has signed along with others such efforts made by Mummenthey in order to have prisoners released would have been senseless. It was important for the DEST to train a body of efficient specialists so as to be able to use them as free labor. This effort was based on the knowledge, that the work of prisoners, that is to say forced labor always is qualitatively as well as quantatively inferior to free labor.
The statements of Bickel, Schwarz and Mummenthey agree on the fact that the amount of work done by prisoners was generally inferior to that of civilian workers of comparative ability and the DEST took this into account.
The witnesses Schwarz, Bickel and Mummenthey have made detailed statements on the witness stand about the question of professional training of the prisoners in the works of the DEST, as well as other measures, such as the elimination of long and unnecessary roll calls, the support of requests for leave, improvements on working conditions, etc.
Quite a number of affidavits are also concerned with this question.
If one considers Mummenthey's efforts and the measures taken by him, one cannot avoid wondering why a man, whose official activities kept him already more than busy, took an interest in matters which were outside his formal responsibilities and even more beyond his power-sphere. The reasons are the following:
As the plant manager, especially state in their affidavits, Mummenthey took his duties very seriously and he always looked after everything most conscientiously.
Mummenthey gave the following answer to the Prosecutor's question whether the unsatisfactory state of nutrition of the prisoners induced him to start taking relief measures.
"During the war every plant made provisions for additional food for its employees."
And in answer to the further question whether he would have been willing to risk being indicted and convicted although he did not consider the food to be insufficient, Mummenthey said:
"In this respect I share the fate of many German plants and their responsible men, as during the war, they made the same efforts as I did for their civilian employees and also took the same risk."
This proves that Mummenthey did not consider the prisoners as slave laborers but as employees. Anyway -- what slave-owner would be prepared to run such a risk for his slaves?
Bickel stated that Mummenthey was thoroughly friendly inclined towards the prisoners. He has proved this in connection with the report about the plants management conference in Neuengamme. He and two other prisoners overheard the whole of the conference with Mummenthey in the Chair. At this occasion Mummenthey's attitude and speeches proved clearly that he was anxious to get as many privileges as possible for the prisoners. According to Bickel's statement this attitude towards the prisoners was not dictated by business interests only, but was based upon Mummenthey's character.
That Mummenthey took his fight for the prisoners' welfare seriously is proved by the fact emphasized by Bickel that those measures which Mummenthey personally suggested, or those approved by him were also carried into effect.
A number of former prisoners have made voluntary statements to the same effect already at the beginning of the trial.
The Prosecution witness Engler in his affidavit acknowledges the fact that he probably owes his life to Mummenthey, as Mummenthey did not pass on the accusations which had been made against him to the camp commander as would have been Mummenthey's duty to do. The former prisoner Schroth too states that Mummenthey had saved his life. The witness Bickel acknowledges the fact that Mummenthey took great trouble to get him his release and that in this way his life was saved.
May I also refer to the affidavit of Seiler-Vierling, Exhibit No. 66?
It would lead too far to mention all the cases in which Mummenthey proved again and again that purely humane reasons enduced him to stand up for the prisoners.
These facts lead us up to the human qualities of the man Mummenthey which have not been considered in the indictment.
As the evidence proved, Mummenthey came into contact with social problems already in his earliest childhood. Ever since that time an ever increasing social conscience proved of domineering influence on his character. Even in the certificates which he received at the time of his legal training this particularity of his was especially mentioned (Exhibit 10).
Joining the DEST put his social ideals to the test and it remained to be seen whether they would hold bood in practical life. What he found was an economic outfit which employed unfree labor. From a moral point of view this seemed to him justifiable only if some higher aim was to be reached. This aim, for him, was that of changing men who through their leanings towards criminality had put themselves for the time being outside human society, back into useful members of human society by way of a training useful to the interests of the community.
His work with the DEST did not allow him at first to occupy himself with the prisoner problem. During the hearing of the evidence the name Schondorff was mentioned several times. Schondorff differed to a great extent from Mummenthey where his attitude towards social questions and especially questions concerning prisoners was concerned. As already mentioned, allocation of labor was his responsibility. If, in spite of this, Mummenthey helped the prisoners as much as possible, his attitude was motivated by his deep human sympathy for those human beings who had become unfree and his wish to help in leading them back into the human community.
Mummenthey was full of social ideas and ideals, the greater part of which was doomed to be made impossible by wartime conditions and the system under which concentration camps were managed. Neither could his training program be carried out to its full extent. In it the prisoners were supposed to be given the opportunity to learn a trade which could keep them after their release and which would help them to become useful members of the human society. It could have meant, as stone mason Kaiser states in his affidavit, a "great social achievement." Such thoughts cannot live in a human brain which thinks at the same time of ways how to exploit human beings or to exterminate them by making them work too hard; it would not even allow such things to happen.
Mummenthey understood clearly that the dualism camp-commandants office and plant management was at the root of all evil. The commandants office claimed for itself the right to rule supreme over the camp inmates. To bridge the fatal cleft Mummenthey wrote Document NO-1031/ 437, XVI, in which, besides recommending the taking-over of the Roehmhild basalt quarries, he suggested putting the labor camp under the command of the plant manager.
All these efforts show that here was a man who swam against the stream and who did not succumb to the epidemic of "thoughtlessness" and"giving way to dark instincts."
It is, therefore, not accidental that in nearly all affidavits the characteristics of Mummenthey's personality are fully recognized as being a social attitude, humane thoughts and actions, helpfulness and altruism. This quality of Mummenthey was particularly emphasized by witness Schwarz. The witness Bickel, whose "strong will to objectivity" could not keep him from making his attitude quite clear, set Mummenthey aside from the other SS officers. For Bickel Mummenthey is the "white raven" whose attitude towards the prisoners was unique, who did no evil deeds and who had never "beaten up" anybody neither directly nor indirectly, by giving orders to that effect.
The atrocities of which he is accused at present were then unknown to him. In front of the doors of the concentration camp stood the Camp Commandant who refused him entry and, therefore, a clear understanding For him Mummenthey was no more than a little Obersturmbannfuehrer, whose rank did not entitle him to ask for confirmation. Had Mummenthey known what was going on behind the barbed wires, his honest nature would have found a way out, even though he himself would have lost his freedom and his life in the effort. He only knew what his fellow workers and the plant-manager told him. But that was not enough to make him escape his sphere of action by going to the front. He had no such connections as Salpeter.
Mummenthey, therefore, stayed at his post and did as much good as he was able to do. In spite or, perhaps, because of his service degree in spite of his description "Chief of the office" he was and never became anything else but a Co-director of the DEST, taking his orders from the DWB, a victim, but not a criminal neither our of laziness nor on purpose. He believe in the righteousness of men, in the integrity of the institutions of the State and of its leading men. His kind nature could not believe in other people's inhuman attitude.
Mummenthey was free of the conceit of the upstarts which possessed so many of the other SS-leaders who had come into power; irreproachable and modest in his conduct and way of life but always anxious to help wherever possible, tactically and constructively. Spirit and action were perfectly balanced, like power and matter, one only to be created out of the other and creative, in itself - thus Mummenthey's personality appears before us today.
The Prosecution has done everything in its power to bring witnesses against DEST and Mummenthey. Although no less than 14,000 prisoners were working for the DEST, none of them was able to bring up anything immediately incriminating against them.
But one of them, the crown witness, was convicted of perjury.
If is a fundamental idea in the life of all peoples that only the criminal attitude, the criminal action, may be punished. Where has such an attitude been found in Mummenthey's life; where such an activity been proved? Mummenthey need not fear the consequences of his own guilty. His entering will was concentrated on the improvement of the fate of the prisoners. The "Powers of meanness, stupidity and an empty heard" to speak in terms used by a famous German writer who still lives in exile, were stronger than Mummenthey's human endeavor. That is the tragic issue, but not the crime in Mummenthey's life.
I ask that the defendant be acquitted.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal 2 is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Arrangements have been made for Defense Counsel to interview their clients in Room 57 between one-thirty and four o'clock this afternoon.
DR. BERGOLD (Counsel for defendant H. Klein): May it please the Tribunal, when I realized that in this case against Oswald Pohl and the members of the WVHA perhaps I should have to speak the last word that would reach Your Honors before pronouncing the verdict, I did not shrink from it. But my work became more unreal to me. For some learned men had to speak before me, so that my statements really would be nothing more than repetitions, nothing but echoes of words that had died already. But what can be more ghostly than an echo?
It then weighed upon my soul that by such a process this trial would become even more unreal than it is already now. It seems to me that, as time passes, the justice for which we are looking here flees away into the Fata Morgana of the heated air of a fight which is being decided a new, though in the intellectual field, between our nations.
Indeed, it is quite evident, that no longer the acts of the individual defendants are concerned, but that the defendants themselves stand more and more for the idea of a Germany that, on her part reproaches most seriously the victor powers and points to many a crime, without having the power of an authorized charge. But thus your courts would lose the general mandate of humanity which seemed to be definitely at the beginning of the trials.
I say these words from a deep sorrow. For a court that does not touch the perplexed heart of the defendant is anyhow unreal and void. The time will come perhaps when, in the countries of the victors too, the mistake in this kind of looking-for-justice is recognized.
But then judgeship should be given bank into the hands of the German people, though on condition that simultaneously certain crimes that have been committed by subjects of the victor powers during the war or after should be prosecuted by the courts on demand of the German authorities.
This may be considered to be an immense, Utopian claim. I do not speak from any nationalistic feeling. I think it to be the supreme duty of mankind to once demand before the ears of the public, that the severest justice should be meted out before a court of mankind.
The disastrous moral harms of our time cannot be cured by the usual means but only by the unusual, by what the supreme leaders of mankind, such as Jesus, Buddha and Laotse and others would recommend in such a situation. But these would say that before justice there were neither victors nor vanquished foes, and that justice could only be indivisible. Perhaps they would even say that a one-sided justice would cause the worst danger for the souls of men condemned by it; that is, the feeling of being a victim and not a sentenced person. But is justice authorized to endanger the souls?
But as long as the law, according to which Your Honors have to judge exists in its present form, which you did not create, all of us can only overcome the threatening internal danger by absolutely restricting ourselves to the individual case of the individual defendant and putting aside anything and everything that would make the individual defendant only the representative of a greater generality, starting from general knowledge. We must not examine what is valid for many - or at least ought to be valid -- but only what is valid for the individual defendant in question here.
I should not have said all this if I had not myself gained the sure confidence from your former decisions that you were also as deeply stirred as I was by the same motive. This decision of yours by which you cancelled Count 1 of the Indictment, the charge of Conspiracy in the case in question, has shown to me that your wisdom finds also justice only in judging the individual defendant in his individual case and that you try to avoid all generalizing.
If I now turn to the defendant Horst Klein, who is defended by me, then I believe that I am able to state that I have shown proof for my description of the defendant and his activities in the opening speech.
The defendant Horst Klein was chief of Office in the WVHA, Chief of Office in W-8, Special Tasks. I remind the Honorable Court of the testimony made by the defendant in which he described in detail what activities he had to perform. All the societies and homes of which he was in charge had nothing, yes, nothing at all to do with the general, aims and aspirations of the WVHA., This is evident already from the name of the office itself. According to its name, it was supposed to deal with special tasks. These special tasks, however, did not belong to the group of ill-famed Special Measures. They were rather separate tasks, tasks, therefore, which , according to the German sense of the word, did not coincide with the general tasks of the WVHA. The aims of these societies have been described in detail by the defendant.
There was, first of all, the society "Association for the Promotion and Preservation oF German Cultural Monuments" the purpose of which was to take care of monuments of historical value, a task which is carried out in other countries by historians of art. The association has a large amount of such historical art objects under its care. The Wewelsburg was only me of the objects, among many others. The next association is the so- called Externstein institution, which had as its task the came for the remains of an old-Germanic, early-Christian relic. Another association is represented by the King Henry institution which held festivals in the Cathedral of Quedlinburg, and contributed to the maintenance of the Cathedral. The last society which the defendant was in charge of was the society Convalescent Homes for Natural Recovery and Standard of Life, the aim of which was to operate convalescent homes for women and children, and to administer SS hospitals. It is clearly evident that these societies and homes could have been operated just as well outside the WVHA.
They were never interested in economic, but always only in ideal and charitable aims. In no case whatsoever did they have to serve the purpose of financing the Schutzstaffel as such. On the contrary, they were purely subsidized enterprises. Their activity never aimed at financial gains. If the Society for the Promotion and Preservation of German Cultural Monuments would not have had a connection with the Wewelsburg,nobody would have thought of connecting the associations and homes managed by the defendant with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The evidence has not shown that the defendant Horst Klein, or associations managed by him respectively, participated in crimes committed in the countries occupied after the start of the war. Whatever may have happened in these countries with regard to inhumane acts, Horst Klein did not even know anything about them. He did not have any share in crimes and offenses against the health, life or property committed in violation of the laws or customs of war; neither in the murders nor maltreatment of the civilian population of the occupied territories; nor in their deportation for the purpose of forced labor or other purposes; nor in the use of slave labor in the occupied territories themselves; nor in the murders and maltreatment of prisoners of war and persons on the high seas; not in the killing of hostages, the plunder of public and private property in the occupied territories; nor in the intentional plundering of towns and villages or in devastations which were not justified by military necessities. Neither the defendant nor his associations can be made responsible for all these crimes. It has not even been proved that he knew anything at all about such crimes.
It has obviously, and with certainty, been shown that the associations managed by the defendant never had any contact with the territories or their inhabitants affected by the wars of aggression; nor did the office of the defendant have anything to do with the set-up of the concentration camps.
It was not in charge of the management, the operation and administration of the camps, nor did it have anything to do with the construction of new camps. It was not responsible for the feeding, clothing or housing of the inmates, nor for the sanitary equipment or the medical care of the prisoners, nor for the order, organization and discipline of their life, and was not authorized to ask for the death penalty if rules of any kind were violated.
The Office W-8 never worked for the procurement of forced labor and for the allotment of prisoners to working places. This office also was never in charge of the transport of inmates and never did the defendant and his office participate in murders, tortures, and ill-treatments of concentration camp inmates. Even the Prosecution was unable to assert that the defendant and his office participated in any way in the terrible medical, surgical and biological experiments.
Here I would like to add that on page 61 of the English transcript there is a mistake as the word "not" was left out. The answer there should be: "Was not in Wewelsburg at that time." This also becomes evident on page 6137 of the German record. And I continue.
Finally, the defendant never supported plans and executions which aimed at the subjugation and elimination of whole races and nations, be it through murders, castration, sterilization or the so-called euthanasia treatment.
The fact alone that, according to his own statement even regarding the camp Wewelsburg, which he never entered, he did not know who had to stay in this camp, proves clearly the insignificant connection of the defendant Horst Klein with all these war crimes. His statement shows that he was only informed about the fact that in this camp offenders sentenced to security detention and habitual criminals were employed. He was expressly told that political prisoners were not kept there because the danger of escaping was too great in these branch camps.
He also never heard that prisoners of war or foreigners were sent to concentration camps.
Right here I have to point out that the English record of Klein's statement, on page 6151, contains a very serious translation error. There the word "Sicherungsverwahrung" has been translated by the same English term used for "Schutzhaft", namely by "protective custody". However, "Sicherungsverwahrung" should be translated by "security detention." The defendant himself declared in his statement that "Sicherungsverwahrung" (security detention) was inflicted by the public courts on habitual criminals as the highest penalty which could be pronounced in Germany. This corresponds exactly to the German laws. The security detention has always, and only, been inflicted by courts in the regular criminal procedure.
If now the defendant Klein did not know anything about the fact that prisoners of war and foreigners were brought to the concentration camp; if, especially regarding the camp Wewelsburg, he did not know anything about this, how then could any connection be made between him and war crimes? The activities Horst Klein was charged with were peaceful ones. They were not in any way connected with the terrible events of the war. The only thing which Klein connected with the war was the management of the hospitals. But to take care of hospitals is no war crime, and for this activity the defendant did not have to commit crimes.
As therefore the defendant cannot be held responsible regarding all cases just mentioned, the indictment in Count II is entirely unjustified.
If a Count of the Indictment deserves serious consideration, then this can only be Count III of the Indictment, namely, the count of the indictment referring to crimes against humanity; i.e., in connection with the camp Wewelsburg. May I first take the liberty of reminding the Court of the legal questions which it has considered the important ones in the case of Milch; the examination of which is necessary in order to determine the guilt of a defendant.
It has not been denied by the defendant nor by me that crimes have been committed in the Wewelsburg camp. If there had been no crimes in the Wewelsburg camp the defendant could not have been brought into this court. The first legal question to be examined is: whether the defendant Horst Klein participated personally in the crimes committed at Wewelsburg.
The Prosecution has not proved that the defendant has participated in person. The defendant himself has deposed that he never set foot into the camp; nor has any person ever seen him in the camp. The Wewelsburg prisoners who were interrogated: the witnesses Krause, Radkowski and Specht, stated unanimously that they never saw Horst Klein in the camp, that they had not even heard his name, and that they saw him here for the first time. These witnesses had been inmates of the camp during the whole period of its existence.
Your Honors, no one in the world has been better informed about the criminals responsible for the conditions and misdeeds in the camp than the prisoners in the camp themselves. If three witnesses who had been in the Wewelsburg camp during the whole time of its existence unanimously confirm that they never knew the defendant, it may be assumed with certainty that they never knew the defendant, it may be assumed with certainty that the statement of the defendant Horst Klein - that he never entered the camp - is correct. The witness Schwarz gave at first an affidavit that contains a statement to the contrary. But he later withdrew this affidavit without having been influenced by anyone, saying that his statements had only been conclusions and tales from hearsay. Apart from the fact that this in itself makes his deposition quite worthless, it can be said that the witness has proved to be a person of so little conscientiousness and seriousness that no person conscious of his responsibility should be able to base his verdict on his statements.
Thus, it is in no way proved that the defendant has participated in the crimes committed in the Wewelsburg camp, as a principal or as an accessory to the commission of such crimes - that is, that he participated in person.
The next question to be examined would be whether the crimes committed in Wewelsburg were carried out under the direction of Klein or at his orders. Also in this respect the evidence has unmistakably shown that such a charge cannot be made against Klein.
By the statements of the witness Gen. Wolff (Exhibit Horst Klein No. 5) it is proved that in the Main Office Personal Staff Reichsfuehrer SS, there existed at least since 1938 a separate office Wewelsburg; that this office was located at Wewelsburg, that the SS Obergruppenfuehrer and General of the SS, Taubert, was the Office Chief of this office and that one of the departments of this office was the so-called "Bauleitung Wewelsburg" (Construction Bureau Wewelsburg), the chief of which was the architect and SS Standartenfuehrer Bartels.
I should like to point out that Bartels had held, as SS Standartenfuehrer, a higher rank than Horst Klein. Furthermore, Wolff confirmed again as a witness, on page 2126 of the English record, that Bartels was a member of the Personal Staff Reichsfuehrer SS. This Personal Staff was a Main Office of the same level as the WVHA, if not superior to it. Moreover, Wolff explicitly stated that the defendant Klein never had any authority of command over Herr Bartels. The most significant part of Wolff's statements, however, is the one in which he says that the defendant Klein never was a superior of the prisoners' camp or of its commandant Haas. Please do not forget either that Wolff was saying the truth when he stated the construction work for Wewelsburg was ordered exclusively by Himmler on the suggestion of Bartels, and that not even Pohl had any say in fixing the extent, and the execution, of the construction plans. The installation of the prisoners camp had also been ordered by Himmler at Eicke's suggestions.