Wherever I met deficiencies I fought them energetically. This includes the initial formation and later refusal of the activities of the SS Judge Morgen when I realized that, in spite of the highest authority and the greatest support from highest sources, he did not succeed in introducing rapid and exemplary justice in the extermination of the pest of atrocities in the concentration camps. In his place, the institution of a special court was welcomed by me and thoroughly supported. Success of my efforts, and the fact that after 1942 an improvement was noted in concentration camps, has been confirmed by the evidence in this trial. I had no share whatsoever in the measures adopted by the Gestapo nor did the WVHA. At no time and in no case did I take steps to increase the number of detainees in the interest of labor allocation. Not one single prisoner was brought to a concentration camp by myself or a member of the WVHA. On the other hand, I and my collaborators in the W-Office opened the way to freedom to many a prisoner. Usually this was done against the opposition of the RSHA and in spite of the sabotage of camp commandants. This is a fact which cannot be overlooked even if it is nothing other than the symptom of an attitude. If that mere attitude had been adopted by the responsible men in the RSHA, Gestapo, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps before 1942, then concentration camps would never have become the hateful institutions which the world has condemned them to be, and the German people with it. Every expert on actual conditions in the years 1933 to 1945 will lack an explanation that the administrative center, the WVHA, is to be held responsible for the measures of the Gestapo and the organizers of that system, although the WVHA had only been given those tasks during the last two years of the war - the carrying out of which had been set in motion during ten years of independent activity on the part of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. As chief of the WVHA I was not only the designer, I was also its motor.
I alone led it. It was my place of work, where fate had put me, and which imposed upon me more burdens than honors. Therefore, particularly during the war, I only left this place of work for a few short hours of rest or on official directions. For that reason I used no deputy. The fellow defendants here were my subordinates. They were subject to my orders and had to carry them out. But I never gave one fellow defendant, or any other of my fellow workers, an order which would have meant the carrying out of a crime. My considerable spheres of activities forced me to burden my collaborators with a certain amount of responsibility within their individual spheres. This responsibility was not an independent or a genuine one. It came to an end with me and I adopted it towards the outside, as far as that organization is concerned. And that corresponds to the rules of the leadership principle. This does not mean infallibility. It is a principle that human beings are to be led to the achievement of the ends of the state. In the case of soldiers, complete obedience cannot be separated from this. I used to recognize this principle earlier because I believed that it would lead to a final state and to a final form of state subject to a gradual development, and that it was right and essential. I cannot, therefore, deny today that this was so, and I can, therefore, not construct individual responsibility for the individuals working under me. As far as my own entire responsibility is concerned, not even a Control Council law nor any human judge can make me free - and I do not want it, because I consider this to be a matter of conscience and of loyalty which I owe to these men.
I shall bear this responsibility also for the defendant Dr. Hohberg, as far as I called upon his services beyond the duties which he was bound to carry out due to his contract. My life, beyond one human life, took place in this sphere of a soldier. Orders and obedience, instruction and coercion, were its laws. There have been controversies between them and my thoughts and feelings, and sometimes also with my conscience. My life was never the function of a Party member, although I was a high SS leader and an old National Socialist.
It was devoted only to my country, which stood above the Party, and the freedom and welfare of which was a dream supported by my ideals. The picture of that life, even today, is known - and stands best - for everyone beyond any doubt. There was duty and there was work, for Germany. It was left to the hatred of the enemy to use unhesitated slander and lies against me. Against that I defend myself because even the worst punishment is better than lies about character. As a German in Germany I have worked according to German laws and for Germany. I did not consider these laws to be incorrect under international law. For that reason I cannot recognize my being sentenced on the basis of a law created ad hoc by the victor to whom I am exposed, defenseless, as a vanquished person - but I voluntarily confess to my deeds. Even when examining my conscience most thoroughly I am not conscious of having committed crimes. Every era and its events are more confounding and afflicting at the present than seen from a distance of years and decades, particularly if they are spent in such a fortunate country as yours, the fields of which have never been devastated by the horrible storms of two world wars. The greatest crime of all times has always been treason committed against one's own nation during war. For that reason those clever intellectuals, those political speculators, who have helped the regime into the saddle, first received honors and titles and then let it down - without conscience and character. They are the greatest criminals against Germany, and I will not be one of them. It was my aim to walk through my life on this earth in a decent and straightforward manner, and even today I still believe that everything I did I can justify before my conscience and my God. Whatever I did, I did in the holy will and the pure belief that I was serving my country and help it to victory in its struggle for survival. It is to that country I felt I owed unconditional faith, and I kept that faith toward my Germany. I shall not break that faith of mine to my unfortunate fatherland -- not even in death.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Frank.
DEFENDANT AUGUST FRANK: Your Honors: When I joined the SS in 1932 as a simple SS man, I did so in the hope that the National Socialist movement could save Germany from its political disintegration and lead it toward an era of economic well-being. At that time I had no idea that there would one day be a second world war in Germany and an extermination of the Jewish race. From the first day of my main professional employment, I was specializing in administrative work; and I had considerable influence regarding the creation of the SS troop administration, following the example of army administration. In this special sphere I did my duty, undeterred by political events, right up to the limits of my capabilities.
I considered it my task to work in the first small and young action troop of the later Waffen SS and to create an army administration which followed the best traditions of the German Army. I was interested in clarity and cleanliness and the exclusion of any type of bureaucracy. I was interested in training troop administrative officers who could meet those requirements. This is corroborated by my consequent actions which took me from the SS troops through the quartermaster's office of the Waffen SS to the administration of the German Army administrative offices. My work and all my thoughts were filled by this task to such an extent that politics moved altogether into the background. I regretted it much at the time that the WVHA of the SS, which to my view would have been nothing but the administrative offices of the SS, was in March 1942 connected by Himmler with the system of concentration camps by the use of the person of Pohl.
Matters appertaining to concentration camps, which really lay in a completely different sphere, remained a strange matter for this administrative department. The task of supplying concentration camps with funds brought me into the WVHA after the inclusion of the KL but didn't bring me into any closer contact with concentration camps. The question of supplying these funds, which was a task of Group A, cannot be considered as criminal but rather to the contrary, a restraint regarding the funds necessary for the maintenance of prisoners.
But even this allocation of funds was dispensed with when the war progressed. I never had through this task an insight into the conditions in the camps, however.
When in the autumn of 1942 in my capacity of senior group chief I was given the task of securing and surrendering the personal property taken from to prisoners or left behind by prisoners, which took place within the Action Reinhardt, the conflicts of conscience occasioned thereby caused me to leave my position in the WVHA at the very next opportunity which arose. I did succeed in doing so when I was nominated chief in the administration of the order police. This was not a promotion in rank such as the prosecution claims in its plea. That one year later I became the chief of the army administration was something which I couldn't even guess at the time.
Let me emphasize in this connection that my conflict of conscience was not connected with the fact that human beings were murdered, because that was not something of which I could be aware at the time; but that was due to the fact that measures were adopted by other authorities so that prisoners or their heirs were deprived of property and that I was now concerned with the dealings connected with this unpleasant affair. It is a fortunate circumstance that this collaboration of mine, so far as time and extent are concerned, was so negligible that it represented only a very minor portion of my entire activities in the WVHA and that, as far as I am concerned, it came to an end before Himmler's speech in Posen gave me an insight into the ghastly occurrences which Himmler together with Hitler had brought about and which were the exact opposite of the idealistic world philosophy preached by him to us.
The most convincing proof that I had nothing to do with my criminal events in concentration camps can be found by this High Tribunal in the fact that considering my high rank in the SS and in spite of repeated demands, by films, press and radio, not one of the tens of thousands of former prisoners called upon to do so in the present trial gave evidence against me; but the affidavits submitted by my counsel to this High Tribunal show that in the cases where I had an opportunity to decide whether the mad orders of the leaders should be carried out or opposed, I did the latter.
On one occasion the destruction ordered by Hitler of important goods was prevented by me; thus I saved those essential articles for the German people. Secondly, on my own initiative and without examining the question of authority, I made a quick decision and prevented the march ordered by Himmler of five thousand prisoners from the outside camps of Dachau to the Tyrol. Those five thousand unfortunate human beings, insufficiently clothed and fed, were ready to march across the snowed-in mountain ridge of the Alps. It would have been a death march with absolute certainty.
The question will arise of why I did not leave the SS after the speech at Posen. In that connection, I should like to say this. At the time of the speech of Posen and even later, until the end of the war, I was working in the police and in the army on a matter which did not represent any kind of violation of the laws of humanity and humane conduct of the war. Himmler in his speech at Posen unmistakably and cynically declared that he would exterminate anyone who was unfaithful even in thought. Every one of the Gruppen and Obergruppenfuehrer present knew that this was not just a figure of speech. It could not reasonably be expected of me that I would sacrifice my life and that of my family at a time when I was at a distance from all criminal events and at a time when my resignation would not have changed matters in the least. Both of the two cases which I have mentioned above proved that I was not discouraged nor passive and did not let matters take their course when I was confronted with an immoral and criminal event.
In no single case am I conscious of having committed a crime against humanity or a war crime.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Fanslau.
DEFENDANT HEINZ KARL FANSLAU: May it please your Honors: In July of 1931, at the time of the greatest economic chaos in Germany and of the greatest unemployment, I at the age of 22 joined the NSDAP and the SS. Up to that time I was completely outside any political activity. The NSDAP was the second strongest party in Germany. I, basing my opinion on the propaganda of the time, was convinced that this party would succeed in carrying Germany out of her economic chaos. As an idealist, full of belief, I became a National Socialist. The SS was an official party organization, an official party administration and organization exactly like the Reichsbanner, which was a party organization of the Socialist Party of Germany or the Rotfrontkaempferbund, which was a party organization of the Communist Party of Germany. At no time could I have realized or even suspected that the SS would become a criminal organization. As a matter of fact, in order to show that he had no criminal record, every member had to show an excerpt of his penal record and a police character reference before he was able to join the SS. None of my superiors ever ordered me to commit a punishable deed, nor did I demand that any of my subordinates commit any punishable deeds.
Unfortunately, crimes against humanity and crimes against the rights of humanity occurred. I cannot defend these crimes, nor do I wish to defend them here. However, there is a crime which so far has not been mentioned and which I should like to refer to now. Due to the fact that Himmler abused small groups and individual human beings and persons of the SS for his criminal aims and due to the fact that he gave the SS uniform to these people, he polluted the honor of the entire SS and the 300,000 fallen comrades of ours.
From 1938 on I was a member and an officer of the SS Special Task Group and later of the Waffen SS. In both divisions to which I was assigned to Western and Eastern Front duties, not one single case occurred where members of the division violated the Geneva Convention or the Hague Regulation of Land Warfare. As many of those members who participated in my courses at the administrative school testified, that in my final speeches I repeatedly admonished the young administrative officers to adhere to honor, chivalry, and self-discipline.
Those, indeed, are not motives which one recommends to members of a criminal organization as a guidance in their future life. In my activity as an administrative officer I never was able to see any criminal or punishable activities. Had I had the same activity in the army, the air force, or the navy administration, then I am quite sure that I would not be sitting here today as a defendant before this Tribunal. I have a clean conscience; and I trust in the sense of justice of this High Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Hans Loerner.
DEFENDANT HANS LOERNER: May it please your Honors: Duty and work have been my motto since my youth, for my entire life to come. After my difficult and fatiguing economic struggle, I believed that the National Socialist movement would give new hope to the German people and would help them to become united and to work and to earn their bread. That is the reason why I joined the Party and the SS and at the same time in the administrative service of the SS took over a field which a clean administration of the SS was my aim and task. I did not join in any political activity. Race persecution was far from me, and I never did enrich myself through the National Socialists.
Up to the establishment of the WVHA I had in my position no contact whatsoever with the concentration camps. As I was dealing with the open war budget of the SS in the spring of 1942 in the WVHA, I did not have the right nor the duty to deal with income and expenses in detail as those agencies dealt with them which handled these incomes and expenses. My activity gave me no insight whatsoever into the concentration camps, nor did it permit me to have any knowledge about the cruelties committed in the concentration camps. The letter signed by me and addressed to the Court of Audits concerning the concentration camp of Stutthof dealt only with the budgetary compensating of an amount spent between two Reich Treasuries. No human being could possibly consider this a punishable deed.
I never heard Himmler's speeches of Posen, Cracow, or Metz, nor did I read them. I had at my disposal no means of obtaining information which would have oriented me better than any other German citizen. I never had any way of realizing that human beings were being tortured to death and murdered in the concentration camps nor that they had to work under humiliating circumstances. The assertion of the prosecution also in their final speech that I had to know about the Reinhardt Action is incorrect, as can be seen from the introduction of evidence. Hauptsturmfuehrer Mellmer of Hauptabteilung A/II/3 was never subordinated to me.
I have seriously examined my conscience and I cannot find anything which makes me co-responsible for any guilt of the crimes which were committed.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Vogt.
DEFENDANT JOSEPH VOGT: Mr. President, your Honors: In his written, final plea my defense counsel defined his attitude regarding the counts of the indictment raised against me by the prosecution; and he has dealt with them in factual and legal respects, rebutting them exhaustively. The loyal conduct of this trial so far carried out by this Tribunal gives me the hope that the plea submitted by my defense counsel will find its appreciation by the Tribunal. I myself consider that I am free of any guilt, although the prosecution has tried again and again to charge me with the commission of war crime and crimes against humanity. Even at the end of the submission of evidence, which lasted for months, I can still not recognize under which counts of the indictment I was criminally responsible.
My membership in the WVHA on its own can hardly be considered a crime if you consider my professional activities carried out in that office where I acted as an accountant. The prosecution has tried repeatedly to undermine my credibility before this Tribunal. Even if appearances were against me now and then, I still believe that I always succeeded in completely clearing up these misunderstandings. I wish to declare today at the end of this trial before you, Mr. President, and you, your Honors, that I have spoken the pure truth with regard to my brief inclusion in the affairs of the Action Reinhardt into which I was caught up without being forewarned. With the knowledge which I have gained on the basis of the evidence during this trial, I have become aware of the fact that at that time I was misused by persons who did have knowledge of the criminal action and who used me as a willing tool. Please believe these words of mine and do justice to me.
My joining the Waffen SS took place for purely professional reasons and had nothing to do with the criminal aims of the SS. I beg you to appreciate that me membership in the SS has had to be paid for considerably by now. Let me draw your attention to the fact that I have lived through two years of imprisonment, one year of which was strict solitary confinement with all its physical and mental sufferings. I have lost my existence and my entire savings. The Russian occupational powers have deprived me of all my furniture and clothes; and my wife is forced in her old days to earn her living by working with her hands for strange people. I have nothing left but my honor and my body. You, your Honors, have the right to pass a decision on both. Please make your decision according to law and the legal situation; and if you make your decision on that basis, I believe that your judgment can only be to acquit me of guilt and crimes and punishment.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Georg Loerner.
DEFENDANT GEORG LOERNER: Mr. President, your Honors: All those of us who find ourselves in the dock today have been charged with the most horrible crimes which have been committed during Hitler's regime. As my defense counsel said in his opening speech, the one-sided character of the documents submitted by the prosecution has had to cause the impression that my entire thoughts centered around nothing but concentration camps. This complex was the least of all things I was concerned with during my work.
During the entire time when I was a member of the SS administration, it was my chief task to take care of supplying troops with clothing and food. This task occupied my entire time, particularly during the war. If this task had included the obtaining of clothes for the inmates of concentration camps, then this was the outcome of an essential centralization. I did my utmost to comply with the situation as far as the difficult raw material situation permitted. I never had anything to do with food supplies for prisoners. As far as the economic enter prises were concerned, they did not bring me into contact with concentration camps either because in Group W I was in fact nothing but the much-discussed "dummy."
Finally, as far as the so-called deputizing for Pohl as a main chief of office is concerned, that, I think, has been sufficiently clarified by the evidence. I never had the task of supervising the concentration camps; and the horrible crimes committed in them and in the extermination camps became known to me only after the collapse. I neither heard Himmler's speeches given at Posen, Cracow and Metz nor read them. It is with horror that I turn away from the perpetrators of these crimes; and I am filled with shame to hear that members of the SS not only soiled themselves but the entire organization.
As far as my true actions are concerned, I stand by them, just as I never refused to assume responsibilities which my activities in the WVHA brought to me. I believe that the High Tribunal will examine my case thoroughly and come to the truth and to just results in its findings. But we are here concerned not only with just sentences against us, the individuals; we are concerned also with the creation of a new international law which must form the basis for a lasting peace upon this earth, which humanity is longing for so much and which seems to he so far distant today.
I should like to end by using this opportunity to thank my defense counsel, Dr. Haensel, for his excellent conduct of my defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Tschentscher.
DEFENDANT HANS TSCHENTSCHER: If in this present moment and in this place I look back upon my life, I realize that all the efforts and all the work I have done so far were in vain. I was for National Socialism and for the SS because I believed that the high ideals of them which were always placed before our eyes were real, true, and good. It was thus that I believed; that I served; and that I obeyed. Even when my homeland had lost the war, I did not realize that the National Socialists' ideology was bad and criminal. It was only this trial which gave me full clarity to the effect that this system gave an uncontrollable power of command to a small number of people and that these people preached ideals, indeed, but acted badly and criminally.
It was thus that I also became involved in this trial, and now my life and work as a soldier and administrative official are being examined by this Tribunal. In this very difficult position I am given special strength by realizing that I personally never did anything which was considered to be a crime; and I know very well what can be considered a crime. Here in this Tribunal under oath false testimony was given against me. I believe and hope, however, that, God will not permit that this false testimony will hinder this Tribunal to pass a just sentence in my case. I have nothing further to add.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Scheide.
THE DEFENDANT RUDOLF SCHEIDE: Your Honor, I have obeyed an order which took me from the combat troops to the Economic and Administrative Main Office, the WVHA. It was not my view that my obedience and fulfillment of my duty represented a war crime, or a crime against humanity. I personally have never done any harm to anybody, nor committed a crime against humanity, or a war crime.
I was a member of the SS, and I considered my membership to be a service to my people, and my fatherland. I know today that my faith and my willingness to perform such service were misused. I rely upon a just sentence which will give me a possibility to place me within a democratic state. I think that with some leniency and understanding indefinite good things may be achieved much more so than with hatred and retaliation.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Kiefer.
THE DEFENDANT MAX KIEFER: Mr. President and Your Honors, I have nothing to add to the deliberation of my defense counsel. On the witness stand I have testified to my best knowledge and belief, and have spoken the truth, and there was no need for me to change the testimony of any kind, if I would have been given another opportunity to speak up in rebuttal. My work in Office Group-C was never of a nature such as described by the Prosecution in its final plea. Without going into detail of these charges once more, I would nevertheless like to express clearly that I would have had no reason to deny that I made drawings for a hospital building in a concentration camp, if this had been one of my tasks. If in this point appearances are against me, then I am ready to assume responsibility for whatever could have happened in my department, even if I had never had any knowledge of it. Even today I would without delay and unobjectionally use my professional experience in the creation of institutions for the sick, no matter what social or political group of people are concerned. And the poorer and more suffering one of those groups might be, the more I would consider my professional work, which would be essential for the creation of an institution for the alleviation of human suffering, to be my duty.
During my entire life I have not committed, to reproach myself, any action which could be objected to from a legal or moral point of view. The fact that I was working in Office Group-C does not change these facts. I never came into contact with matters which were stated during the course of this trial here before this Tribunal; therefore, I had no cause to consider myself to be a member of an authority the activity of which was trying to serve criminal ends.
With this knowledge I am looking forward to the finding of this High Tribunal in peace of mind of one who knows that he is free of guilt.
THE PRESIDENT: Before taking the statements of the other defendants the Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Eirenschmalz.
DEFENDANT EIRENSCHMALZ: May it please Your Honors, during my examination I tried to give you a description of my professional, political and SS career in such a way that this Tribunal could understand and draw the necessary deductions. However, I am not quite clear about the fact whether I realized and succeeded in doing this clearly. Due to the construction of technical terms and due to the manifoldness and constant change of the organization it was very difficult to understand my arguments. The difficulties of translation and the construction of technical terms also contributed to this. That is why I would appreciate it if this Tribunal would give a thorough examination of both the final plea of my defense counsel and also my rebuttal documents.
My honorable parents at all times taught me decency, honesty and humanity. This for me was my guidance and my life. These high ideals were also used by me in the education of my children at all times. During my time I always held to the only right and correct way, and I always helped any human being who was in trouble as far as this was within my power.
During the long months of my arrest and during the entire period of my trial I thought about it quite a bit. I thought about whether I had deviated from the right track. After due examination I dare say on the basis of my humanitarian understanding that I do not feel guilty. It is thus that I am looking forward to the verdict, trusting in true justice.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Sommer.
DEFENDANT SOMMER: Your Honors, the Prosecution in its final statement, as well as the indictment and its opening speech attributed a significance to my position and activities in the Department D-II which it does not in any way deserve. The Prosecution has far departed from the correct conception as given to me during the preliminary interrogations.
Whereas the indictment retroactively promoted me Sturmbannfuehrer and Deputy Department Chief, in the final speech it was actually said that I had been the basis of the entire labor allocation program. It was asserted that I had detailed prioners to penal companies, and that I had been the one who had made the selection of prisoners, labor allocations on one side, extermination on the other. The fact is that during my entire activity in Department D-II I did not as much as send one single prisoner anywhere since I simply did not have the power to do so, and it is a further fact that I had nothing whatever to do with the selection of prisoners in concentration camps.
My task in connection with the watch repair shop in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen was limited merely to the supervisional duties. With regard to the assertion of the Prosecution that watches coming from the Reinhardt Action had been repaired by me, I should like to state that watches were repaired before I had supervision of the work shops, and that watches were further repaired at a time when the supervision had already been taken away from me. The assertion of the Prosecution that no SS man could be found today who knew anything and who was talking cannot be applied to me. The Prosecution would never have learned that I ever entered a concentration camp, it would never have heard of my supervision over the watch repair shop, and would have never heard anything of the information of Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks to me in June 1934 if I had not spoken about all this frankly and openly myself. Just as I did not in any way protect myself I would have had no cause to cover one of my fellow defendants by telling untruths. But I cannot, just to please the Prosecution, say something which to my knowledge is not true, or say something which I do not even know.
I cannot be accused that the responsibility applicable to me was put off on dead people by me.
The responsible people for concentration camp prisoners are all alive with one exception of Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks. In particular the department chiefs of D-II are alive.
My defense counsel has submitted to this Tribunal statements made by these men in affidavit form. They have confirmed my representations regarding my activities and responsibilities in Department I-II in their entirety. These men could have had an opportunity to speak here in Nurnberg, as I know well today, if I had passed my responsibility on to them, if this had been the case.
With regard to the assertion of the Prosecution that the defendants here had all been old members of the NSDAP I would like to draw your attention to my affidavit and to my testimony under oath on the witness stand that I have never been a member of the Party. Not one of the crimes that have been charged here has been committed after an order or instruction given by me. I have never been conscious of a dishonest or criminal act, and with the one exception of the liquidation of Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, I have never, during the entire time when I acted in Department D-II, heard of crimes committed in a concentration camp.
If the Prosecution believes that monthly statistics would have shown to me the disappearance of human beings, then this is in contradiction to the actual evidence. The statistics show a monthly increase in the number of prisoners, not a decrease. Apart from this I should like to concur with the statements of my defense counsel, and my defense counsel, Dr. Belzer, I should like to thank for his endless efforts and untiring efforts in my behalf.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Pook.
DEFENDANT POOK: May it please Your Honors, I would only like to add a few words to the arguments of my counsel. I was not a member of the WVHA for many years, but it was only toward the end of 1943 that I was transferred to the WVHA by military order as a dentist. Even during my membership in the WVHA I was absolutely unknown to the Main Office Chief and to most of his collaborators.
I was not an office chief, Amtschef, nor did I have any authority of any kind in the dental field. Neither did I work on economic matters, nor in the administration of concentration camps. I was transferred by military order from the dental medical office of the Operational Main Office, namely Office XIV, to the WVHA. What I did there in my function as a dentist and what I didn't do; what I knew and what I didn't know; what I was responsible for and what I was not responsible for; what the authorities were which I had and which I did not have, that I believe has been put clearly to this Tribunal. First of all it has been clarified that I was a dentist and nothing but a dentist, and one cannot charge me of having been closely connected with the concentration camp system. I would like to repeat one thing explicitly, that I never deviated from the old medical principle to help at all times and never to harm, and also that it is absolutely incorrect and unjust to possibly charge me with cruel treatment of the concentration camp inmates on the dental field or any other point of view and consider me criminal in any way.
As far as removal of dental gold is concerned, I want to stress the fact that various city crematories in Germany, before cremating the bodies, on principle, demand the removal of all precious metals, including metal gold. The removal of dental gold from deceased concentration camp inmates was nothing but an administrative matter due to an order by Himmler dated 1940 and was not a matter of the Dental Health Service.
During the entire period of my transfer to the WVHA, which was rather short, as a dentist I had no possibility whatsoever to interfere in those administrative matters, not did that concern any dentist, because a dentist only had to deal with treating inmates who were still alive.
The Prosecution failed to introduce one single document which con tains my name, and that could bring me into connection with the removal of dental gold from the deceased inmates or with the Reinhardt Action.
I was a member of the Reiter-SS, and it was towards the end of 1940 that I was conscripted into the Waffen-SS by a military conscription order, and personally I never did participate in any criminal deeds nor did I know of any criminal activities for which I could possibly be held responsible because above all no one could possibly charge me with having been in a position to stop certain crimes and having had to stop certain crimes.
In the course of this trial it has been shown that in all my testimonies and in all points and in all details I only told the truth. I feel free of all guilt before God and my conscience, and I beg this Tribunal to acquit me of all guilt and punishment.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Hohberg.
DEFENDANT HOHBERG: Your Honors, permit me to add something to the plea put forward by my defense counsel and draw your attention to some points which appear important to me.