On September 28, 1944, Himmler ordered that the question of the labor allocation of prisoners of war was to be submitted to Pohl. Not since the Roman Caesars brought back their prisoners of war chained to their chariot wheels has such inhuman treatment been accorded captives in battle as is shown by the record in this case. They, too, were simply grist for Germany's mill. By her treatment of these prisoners, Germany made the honorable profession of a soldier a by-word and a slur.
DESTRUCTION OF THE WARSAW GHETTO In the Fall of 1942, Himmler's plans for the complete subjugation of Poland reached a pinnacle.
The Jewish ghetto at Warsaw covered a total area of approximately 320 hectares, or 800 acres. It comprised a large residential area and, in addition, housed a great number of industrial enterprises, principally textile and fur manufacturing plants. The ghetto had a population of nearly 60,000 persons. In October, Himmler ordered that the entire Jewish population of the ghetto was to be gathered together in concentration camps in Warsaw and Lublin, to be used as an immense labor pool for armament purposes. After the round-up was completed, the Jews were to be deported to large concentration camps in the East and Polish labor substituted in the Warsay industries. Himmler added:
"Of course, there, too, the Jews shall someday disappear in accordance with the Fuehrer's wishes."
All private Jewish firms were to be eliminated and no Jew was to be employed in private industry. This order raised a strong protest from the armament firms in Warsaw, in which a large number of Jews were employed, but Himmler was obdurate and insisted on the letter of his order being carried out.
The Jewish residents of the ghetto, however, resisted deportation vigorously, and a pitched battle, lasting over a week, was necessary to uproot them. In February 1943, Himmler directed that after the removal of the concentration camp the ghetto be completely demolished. In his order he stated:
"A master plan for the pulling down of the ghetto has to be submitted to me. It has to be accomplished in any case that the living space, which accommodated 500,000 sub-humans and was never suitable for Germans, will completely disappear, and that the City of Warsaw, with its one million inhabitants, will be reduced in size, having always been a dangerous center of rebellion."
This gigantic task of destruction and deportation was committed to Pohl as Chief of the WVHA. Himmler directed that the "city center of the former ghetto is to be flattened completely and every cellar and every canal is to be filled in. After the work is finished, the area is to be covered up with earth and a large park is to be planted."
By an order dated June 23, 1943, addressed to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the East and to Pohl, Himmler ordered the erection of a concentration camp in the vicinity of Riga, to which the largest possible number of the male Jews were to be transferred. Surplus Jews from the ghetto were to be evacuated to the East, which meant ultimate starvation or extermination. In the summer of 1943, Pohl set to work to carry out Himmler's order. The concentration camp in the Warsaw ghetto was established and Pohl appointed Goecke, a veteran of Mauthausen, as commandant. Pohl reported to Himmler that at first there were only 300 prisoners in the camp but that this number would be increased as speedily as possible. In October, Pohl reported that Amtsgruppe C of the WVHA had been charged with the technical execution of the demolition order and Amtsgruppe D with the placing of the prisoners. Pohl engaged Court No. II, Case No. IV.
4 private contracting firms, who guaranteed to pull down and remove 4500 cubic meters daily. He advised that 1500 prisoners were being used as laborers at the end of October, but that upon securing additional mechanical equipment 2,000 more prisoners would be needed at once. In February 1944, Pohl reported that 3,750,000 cubic meters of buildings had been demolished, and that 2,040 prisoners were being used. By April, 6,750,000 cubic meters had been "pulled down and blasted" and 2,180 prisoners were being used. By June, 10,000,000 cubic meters had been destroyed and the concentration camp had been completed. Thus was accomplished the most complete task of destruction of a modern city since Carthage met its fate many centries ago, and in this nefarious undertaking Pohl stood hand in glove with Himmler and Stroop in accomplishing the task of total destruction. This was not a city taken in battle; it had long before been captured and occupied by the German armed forces. It was the deliberate and intentional destruction of a large modern city and its entire civilian population. It was wholesale murder, pillage, thievery and looting, and Pohl's part in accomplishing this abominable project is recorded in his own handwriting. He cannot free himself from his share in Brigadefuehrer Stroop's shameful boast "The total number of Jews dealt with is 56,065, including Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved."
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS Pohl's connection with the medical experiments, which have already been described, consisted only in supplying the subjects from the inmates of the concentration camps.
It is not claimed that he actually participated in the performance of the experiments or did anything more than make them possible by supplying victims from his inmate pool. Here, again, his own writings convict him. In his own affidavit, dated June 23, 1946 (Exh.
183), Pohl outlines his part in these experiments. He states that he was aware that experiments were being performed from April 1942 until the end of 1944; that Dr. Schilling continually asked for prisoners, but that he does not know the exact number that were sent; that at Himmler's request prisoners were sent to Dachau for the purpose of experimentation; that he accompanied Himmler to Dachau on one occasion and observed a high-altitude experiment; he received reports from Dr. Lolling of the number of prisoners used in experiments, totalling 350 to 400; he knew of Dr. Klauber's experiments in sterilization, he knew that about 40 different experiments were performed. He states (Ex. 184):
"The inmates were simply picked out and assigned for the experiments. Sometimes Himmler specified that inmates condemned to death should be used, but this was not always the case. There was no requirement that the subjects volunteer. We conducted no campaigns in the camp for volunteers; if these doctors were experimenting on volunteers, they need not have gone to Himmler and the concentration camps.
It was for the very reason that they could not get volunteer subjects.....that they went to Himmler and got him to consent to experiments on concentration camp inmates. This was a fact well known to anyone connected with those experiments. ..... In accordance with Himmler's racial policies, non-German nationals were essentially used in preference to German nationals."
Further proof of Pohl's connection with these outrageous experiments would seem unnecessary, but there is plenty in addition. The affidavit of Rudolf Brandt, Himmler's adjutant, states:
"Subjects for experiments were selected by Pohl. Himmler or I used to inform Pohl that a certain number of prisoners should be supplied for a particular experiment. Certain groups were usually specified."
Concerning the warming experiments at Auschwitz and Dachau, Himmler wrote to Dr. Rascher:
"I am sending this letter to Pohl, whom I request to order the execution of your experiments."
Himmler wrote to Dr. Grawitz approving the use of eight Jews of the Polish resistance movement for experiments in epidemic jaundice at Auschwitz and sent a copy to Pohl, with the notation -
"Request that you duly note."
Dr. Sievers wrote to Pohl as follows:
"In compliance with our request of 30 September 1943, you approved the carrying out of experiments for the production of a new type of spotted fever vaccine, and for this purpose transferred 100 suitable prisoners to Natzweiler."
Pohl was particularly interested in the production of schweigroh, a plant to be used in producing wholesale sterilization. Pohl wrote to Himmler in June 1942, stating that experiments with this plant were at a standstill because the plant was obtainable only from North America and the proposed process for growing the plant in German in hot houses would not yield sufficient drug to permit largescale experiments.
Continuing, Pohl stated that he had informed Dr. Koch that he would attempt to obtain permission to build a large hot house for cultivation of the plant. Pohl arranged to put Dr. Lolling, whom he refers to as "Chief of my Office D III," in touch with a Vienna biologist for further study, looking toward the largescale production of schweigroh. Rudolf Brandt sent to Dr. Glauberg Himmler's order to first confer with Pohl and then go to Ravensbruck to pursue the sterilization program on Newesses in that camp. Brandt inquires how long it would take to sterilize a thousand Jewesses by x-ray without their knowing it. Further proof could be accumulated, but it is unnecessary. Pohl's participation in the medical experiments was intimate and direct, and he must share the responsibility for their criminality.
The Tribunal finds that the food experiments in which Pohl was greatly interested did not involve the use of poisons but were simply legitimate experiments in the nutritional values of food. As such, of course, they had no element of criminality.
ACTION REINHARDT This Action, as has been indicated, involved a plan for draining the eastern occupied countries of their last vestige of wealth.
It had the two-fold purpose of reducing the East to abject poverty so that starvation would be the inevitable result to the population and, at the same time, filling the Reich Treasury. It was a program of deliberate wholesale brigandage which was, at the same time, an added aspect of the extermination program.
In the execution of this program, Pohl's WVHA played a major role. His organization was the clearing house for all the booty. All of the stolen property was routed through WVHA, where it was inventoried, appraised and distributed. That pohl knew of the criminal source of this property is evidenced by his letter of February 9, 1944, to Maurer, directing that valuables found in clothing were to be delivered in sealed boxes to Amtsgruppe D, and directing, further, that nothing in the shipment should reveal its origin.
The money which was stolen was secreted in the Reichsbank under the assumed name of Max Heiliger. On July 4, 1944, Pohl, in a communication to the Main Office Chiefs, announced the names of officers responsible for the property seized in several areas, and stated:
"As a matter of principle, it has to be kept in mind that the entire Jewish property is to be incorporated into the Reich property."
Property from the Reinhardt action which had been delivered to the Reich Main Treasury was kept in a separate account, appropriately called "Department Booty."
Moved by the christian spirit of Christmas, Pohl on November 6, 1943, wrote to Himmler, stating that he intended to make gifts of watches and fountain pens to SS units, and asked whether the gifts should be made in Himmler's name. Himmler approved Pohl's generous plan and added that 15,000 ladies' watches should be distributed to Germans coming from Russia for resettlement. Pohl thought it would be a generous gesture to distribute 3,000 clocks which had been repaired to guards at the concentration camps and to Berlin inhabitants who had been bombed. As an after-thought, he suggested to Himmler that 16 extra-fine gold precision wrist watches, valued at 300 Reichsmarks each, which had been repaired, be distributed among commanders of technical units.
Pohl's own statement as to his knowledge of the operation of Action Reinhardt and of his participation in the distribution of the loot is again quite sufficient. In his affidavit of April 2, 1947 (Ex. 535), he states that the Action was instituted in 1941 or 1942 and was in direct charge of SS Gruppenfuehrer Globocnik; that by Himmler's direction he contacted the President of the Reichsbank to arrange for delivery of the valuables; these transactions were to be carried out in extreme secrecy.
Together with Georg Loerner and Frank and others, he visited the Reichsbank and was shown the accumulated valuables in the bank vaults. "It was never doubted", he said, "that this loot was taken from Jews exterminated in the concentration camps. .....As I learned in 1943, gold teeth and crowns of inmates of concentration camps were broken out of their mouths after liquidation. This gold was melted down and delivered to the Reichsbank. ......When I received all the vouchers, setting out the economic assets received, I realized the extent of the operation. I realized that the greatest part of the textile goods listed in these reports had been taken from people who had been violently put to death and that the purpose of the operation had been the extermination of the Jews."
In another affidavit, dated July 15, 1946 (Ex. 536), Pohl further indicates his knowledge of an participation in the ghoulish scramble. The facts stated therein are cumulative and need not be specifically referred to.
The fact that Pohl himself did not actually transport the stolen goods to the Reich or did not himself remove the gold from the teeth of dead inmates, does not exculpate him. This was a broad criminal program, requiring the cooperation of many persons, and Pohl's part was to conserve and account for the loot. Having knowledge of the illegal purposes of the Action and of the crimes which accompanied it, his active participation even in the after-phases of the Action make him participates criminis in the whole affair.
OSTI Eastern Industries, known as "OSTI," was a running mate of Action Reinhardt in the so-called final solution of the Jewish problem in the East.
OSTI was organized March 1, 1943, and was dissolved one year later. The whole history of this project is clearly described in the report of Johann Sebastian Fischer in a final audit, dated June 21, 1944 (Ex. 491). It was impossible to completely strip the eastern territories of all Jewish property.
Some because of its nature could not be removed and some could best be operated by the Reich on the spot. To utilize this unremovable property, OSTI was organized, with a capital of 100,000 Reichsmarks. Of this Pohl held 75,000 and defendant Georg Loerner 25,000. Pohl was Chairman of the Augsichtsrat, or Board of Directors, of which Georg Loerner was also a member. Globocnik and Dr. Max Horn were the active managers. Fischer describes the corporate purposes as follows:
"OSTI had to administer all Jewish property within the territory of the Government-General except cash, jewelry and clothing, and in particular to utilize the manpower of the Jews living in the GovernmentGeneral for tasks benefiting the Reich."
This involved:
(1) Utilization of the working capacity of the Jews by erecting industrial plants in the Government-General in connection with the Jewish labor camps.
(2) Taking over commercial enterprises which had previously been maintained by the SS in the Government-General.
(3) Taking possession of movable property which was formerly Jewish, especially machines and raw materials. The machines were to be installed in plants and the raw materials to be used.
(4) Utilization of machines, tools and merchandise formerly Jewish property which had been transferred to non-Jewish ownership.
A partial list of the industries thus administered included a glass works in Wolomin, a peat-cutting plant near Lublin, an iron foundry, a large textile factory, a plant for the manufacture of brushes, and a stone quarry. Globocnik states that the entire manpower was brought together and kept in closed camps into which the manufacture of essential items for war had been transferred.
".... All together 18 establishments had been built up and still more were to be added. About 52,000 laborers were available."
The project continued as long as the supply of Jewish concentration camp labor was available, but when, due to the exigencies of the war, in the fall of 1943 this labor supply was withdrawn, it was determined to liquidate OSTI, and Dr. Horn was designated as liquidating officer.
As will be observed, OSTI was simply another manifestation of the policy of slave labor and appropriation of private property. Linked with Action Reinhardt, it was the consummation of the Reich plan to leave the occupied eastern countries as vast stretches of scorched earth. In the OSTI phase of this plan, Pohl had even a more direct connection than he had with Action Reinhardt. Here he was the directing head and the chief executive of the project. As an original incorporator he was in it from its inception and he actively participated in every phase of it until its liquidation. This being true, he was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Under a plan which was perhaps devised to give some semblance of legality to this inherently lawless plan, Pohl was designated as a trustee of the properties seized in the East and operated by OSTI. This was a strange species of trusteeship. All of the interests of the trustee were violently opposed to those of the cestius qui trustent. The recognized concept of a trustee is that he stands in the shoes of his beneficiaries and acts for their benefit and in opposition to any encroachment on their rights. Here, however, the trustee was in the service of adverse interests and acted at all times under an impelling motive to serve those interests at the expense of his beneficiaries.
Actually, the trusteeship was a pure fiction. It cannot be believed that it was ever the plan of the Reich to return any of the confiscated property to its former Jewish owners, most of whom had fled and disappeared or been exterminated. The only probative value of this fictitious trusteeship is to furnish another cord to bind Pohl closer to OST's criminal purposes.
In an attempt at partial exculpation, Pohl has submitted in evidence (Pohl Ex. 2) a decree, dated February 28, 1933, signed by Reich President Von Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler, suspending the provisions of the Weimar Constitution, which guaranteed personal freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, the right of assembly, privacy of communication, and immunity from search. The Secret State Police were given almost unlimited power over persons and property, independent of any obligations and free from restraint or review. They became the supreme authority of the land. This tyrannical agency was the partner of WVHA in the administration of the concentration camps. Upon the promulgation of this decree, Germany became a Police State and the liberty and lives of all German citizens were dependent upon the whims of men like Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner. It is to be assumed that if this is the kind of national government the people of Germany preferred, they were entitled to it. If they consented to surrender their human liberties to a police force, that was their privilege, and any outsider who intruded could well be told to mind his own affairs. But when the attempt is made to make the provisions of such a decree extra-territorial in their effect and to apply their totalitarian and autocratic police measures to non-Germans and in non-German territory, they thereby invaded the domain of international law, where reason still rules. The Nazi leaders, drunk with power, could abuse and deceive the German people just as long as the German people submitted, but when they extended their tyranny into foreign lands and attempted to justify it by the provisions of local German law, their arrogance became over-extended and a power superior to Hitler's came into play to stop them.
In recapitulation and upon the findings of fact heretofore made, the Tribunal determines that the defendant Pohl is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as alleged in Counts II and III of the Indictment.
The Tribunal finds that the defendant Pohl was a member of a criminal organization, that is, the SS, under the conditions defined by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and is therefore guilty under Count IV of the Indictment.
AUGUST FRANK This defendant joined the SS as a private on May 1, 1932, and joined the National Socialist Party on January 1, 1933.
In 1933, the concentration camp at Dachau had a number of minor industries manned by inmate labor, most of which were concerned with concentration camp maintenance. From 1933 to 1935, this defendant was engaged in minor administrative duties in these comparatively small enterprises. In 1935, at the request of the defendant Pohl, this defendant became SS Administrative Officer of the Special Duty Troops (SSVT) and of the SS Death Head Units, which were charged with the guarding of the concentration camps. His jurisdiction in this second capacity was somewhat limited because Kaindl was the special liaison officer for the Death Head Units. In February 1940, this defendant became Chief Supply Officer of the Waffen-SS and Death Head Units under Pohl and, when the WVHA was organized in 1942, he became Pohl's Deputy Chief of WVHA and Chief of Amtsgruppe A, the administrative amtsgruppe of WVHA. He served in this capacity until September 1, 1943, when he was permitted to resign to become Administrative Chief of the Order Police, which terminated his connection with the WVHA.
In this case we are concerned with judging his conduct only between September 1, 1939, and September 1, 1943.
Amtsgruppe A, of which Frank was the Chief was the administrative branch of WVHA. It comprised five Aemter, as follows:
Amt A I - Office of Budgets Amt A II - Finance and Payroll Amt A III - Legal Matters Amt A IV - Auditing Office Amt A V - Personnel Only two specifications in Counts II and III of the indictment are involved in the consideration of Frank's case - (1) the administration of concentration camps, and (2) Action Reinhardt.
At the outset it is best to dispel an illusion, which all defendants have tried to create, that the component Aemter Amtsgruppen in the WVHA were dissociated and isolated and operated with almost complete independence of each other. The contention of the defendants has been that each amt occupied a secluded cubicle which was so insulated that it was practically impossible for the members of one amt or amtsgruppe to know what was going on in another. This concept runs counter to the whole idea behind the organization of the WVHA, which was to consolidate and unify all the administrative functions of the SS. Not only the underlying plan of the organization but the nature of its functions make this contention entirely incredible. The administration of the concentration camps was a complex and intricate task, which was made further involved by the operation of the industries under Amtsgruppe W. Correlation and coordination were indispensable. Food, clothing, wages, labor supply, raw materials, financing, auditing, personnel and security - all these were integrated functions, each of which bore an intimate relation to every other. As a comprehensive undertaking, it was a unit.
With a personnel at the peak of about 1700, it was obviously impossible for each person to know exactly what the other was doing, but each person must have known that the entire group was taking some part, great or small, restricted or unlimited, in the main task of administering the fiscal affairs of the SS. For example, the work of Amtsgruppe C in concentration camp construction and maintenance necessarily impinged upon Amtsgruppe A, which provided the money, Amtsgruppe B, which provided the raw material, and Amtsgruppe D, which provided the labor. Again, Amtsgruppe D, which was directly in charge of concentration camps, was dependent upon Amtsgruppe A for money and personnel, upon Amtsgruppe B for food, clothing and billets, and Amtsgruppe C for construction and maintenance needs. As early as November 1941, Pohl suggested that meetings of all the W office chiefs be held periodically "to bring up for discussion all matters of general interest." Accordingly, Maurer issued an invitation to all the chiefs of W offices to attend a meeting on November 17th "in order to discuss questions and matters which concern all amts chiefs and which can serve as suggestions for them." Georg Loerner, Hohberg and Volk were present, among others. Again, in September 1943, Pohl called a meeting of W office chiefs, at which defendants Georg Loerner, Baier, Bobermin, Mummenthey, Klein and Volk were present with others. Pohl announced that the meeting had been called because it had been noticed that following the removal of some of the amts from Berlin "regular cooperation between the staff and the offices is not always assured. .....It is necessary more than ever before to cooperate very closely with the staff."
The isolation for which the defendants contend was in the very nature of things a myth, and every person in the organization must have known that the WVHA was charged with two tremendous and related tasks -the economic administration of the concentration camps and the operation of the W industries with the labor supply which the camps furnished. Had the various defendants been shrouded in the profound ignorance which each claims, Pohl never could have run the WVHA with anything near the outstanding success which he achieved.
The whole organization would simply have fallen apart for lack of cohesion.
What part, then, did the defendant Frank have in this industrial empire - an empire in which the chief problem of industry was adroitly solved by locking its labor supply behind barbed wire and paying it nothing? A man of more limited genius than Pohl could hardly have failed under those circumstances to show a profit.
First of all, Frank must conclusively be convicted of knowledge of and active and direct participation in the slave labor program. It cannot be imagined that he believed that all the inmates of the 20 concentration camps and the 165 labor camps scattered throughout the entire continent of Europe were German nationals, composed of habitual criminals, anti-Nazi and asocial persons, and others whom the Reich for security purposes thought best to imprison. He could not have been ignorant, for example, of Pohl's letter of June 26, 1942, to all amtsgruppen, stating that the head of every branch office which was provided with prisoners or prisoners of war for work was responsible for the prevention of escape, robbery and sabotage. He could not have been ignorant (because he himself dictated it) of Pohl's letter of July 28, 1942, to Himmler, discussing the commanders of many of the concentration camps and their qualifications and making recommendations for reassignments, detachments and promotions. As an incorporating partner with Georg Loerner in the leather and textile enterprise at Dachau, with an investment of 10,000 Reichsmarks which he protests came from some unknown source, Frank must have known that by April 1, 1941, 700 inmates of Ravensbruck were employed. When, in September 1942, Frank wrote to the garrison administrators at Lublin and Auschwitz and directed that the Jewish star be removed from the garments of deceased inmates, he must have been aware that the concentration camps were not populated exclusively by Germans. His testimony as a witness in his own behalf negatives any such ridiculous inference.
It must be concluded, therefore, that Frank knew that the slave labor was being supplied by the concentration camps on a tremendous scale. It must also be conclusively presumed that Frank knew that slavery constituted a crime against humanity.
As to Action Reinhardt, his connection is equally obvious. His counsel protests that "he did not work for the political aims of National Socialism." The answer to this is that he had to work for those aims. Germany was a one-party political state; National Socialism was Germany. The Party and the Reich were so inseparable, their aims and purposes were so interwoven, that it was impossible for anyone to have worked for the one without working for the other. It is futile to claim that the program of extermination of the Jews, or the ravaging of the eastern countries, or the program of enforced slave labor, or the devastation of conquered territory, stemmed from National Socialist policy but not from the Reich. The SS, in which Frank attained the high rank of Obergruppenfuehrer, was a National Socialist agency, and anyone who worked, as Frank did, for eight years in the higher councils of that agency cannot successfully claim that he was separated from its political activities and purposes.
It is his contention that he first became aware of the Jewish extermination program after hearing Himmler's Posen speech of October 4, 1943, a month after he had left the WVHA. It is his contention that, through the long series of acts relat ing to the disposition of the proceeds of Action Reinhardt before that date, he acted in the belief that the hundred million Reichsmarks of Jewish property, the 2,000 carloads of textiles, and the staggering amount of other loot arose from Jewish inmates who had died of natural causes and in the ordinary course of events.
The very magnitude of the inventory would have put a person much less naive than Frank on inquiry, and, of course, Frank's designation of the loot as "Jewish concealed and stolen goods" indicates a resort to secrecy and subterfuge which is entirely in conflict with his profession of innocent ignorance. But even if we were to give Frank's contention full faith and credit (which we do not), we come to the inescapable conclusion that if he was not a confederate in murder he certainly was in larceny. By what process of law or reason did the Reich become entitled to one hundred million Reichsmarks' worth of personal property owned by persons whom they had enslaved and who died, even from natural causes, in their servitude? Robbing the dead, even without the added offense of killing, is and always has been a crime. And when it is organized and planned and carried out on a hundred-millionmark scale, it becomes an aggravated crime, and anyone who takes part in it is a criminal.
It is Frank's contention that he did not know and had no means of knowing of the Jewish extermination program or that the vast amount of property accruing from Action Reinhardt resulted from the violent killing of Jews in concentration camps. He states that he believed that the property came from Jews who had died from natural causes, the number of whom was greatly increased by epidemics, or from stock piles of merchandise seized during the invasion of the eastern countries. Both the amount and the nature of the goods seized make the acceptance of such a contention impossible. In a top secret communication to the chiefs of administration at Lublin and Auschwitz, dated September 26, 1942 (Ex. 472), a year before Frank left the WVHA, he speaks of the utilization of the property "of the evacuated Jews," and, as has been noted, refers to the goods as "originating from thefts, receiving of stolen goods and hearded goods."
He proceeds to specify the manner of distribution of the confiscated property, referring to the various articles by name. These are some of the articles which he claims to have assumed were seized from Jews who died from natural causes in concentration camps: Alarm clocks, fountain pens and mechanical pencils, electric razors, flashlights, feather beds, quilts, umbrellas, walking sticks, thermos jugs, baby carriages, table silver, bed and table linen, and furs. It is difficult to imagine a convey of Jews from the East, packed so tightly into freight cars that many died, carrying with them for their comfort and convenience such items as electric razors, feather beds, umbrellas, thermos jugs and baby carriages. It is equally incredible that they would be able to keep such articles in the concentration camps until they died of natural causes. It is fair to assume that the prisoners who froze to death or who died from exhaustion and exposure were not equipped with feather beds, quilts and woolen blankets. Nor can it be believed that before being herded off to Auschwitz or Lublin they were given an opportunity to gather up their collections of old coins and stamps with which to amuse themselves during their idle time.
The fundamental question now arises as to Frank's criminal responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of murders which were perpetrated in the concentration camps and which were followed by the wholesale confiscation of the property of the dead men. Assuming that Frank ultimately heard of the extermination measures, can it be said as a matter of law that his participation in the distribution of the personal property of the inmates exterminated makes him a participant or an accessory in the actual murders? Any participation of Frank's was post facto participation and was confined entirely to the distribution of property previously seized by others. Unquestionably this makes him a participant in the criminal conversion of the chattels, but not in the murders which preceded the confiscation.
We therefore cannot find from the proof that the defendant Frank is in law guilty of the murders of the Jews in the concentration camps, but we do find that he was guilty of participating and taking a consenting part in the wholesale looting which was described as Action Reinhardt.
Therefore, on two specifications - the slave labor program, heretofore, described, and the looting of property of Jewish civilians from the castern occupied countries - we find the defendant Frank guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Tribunal finds that the defendant Frank was a member of a criminal organization, that is, the SS, under the conditions defined by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and is therefore guilty under Count IV of the Indictment.
HEINZ KARL FANSLAU This defendant joined the National Socialist Party and the AllgemeineSS on July 1, 1931.
On March 1, 1938, he become a member of the SS Special Units, which later came to be known as the Waffen-SS. In this organization he ultimately attained the rank of Brigadefuehrer (Brigadier General). In January 1934 he became an auditor in the SS Central Administration Office at Munich. Between that date and the organization of the WVHA in February 1942, he held various administrative posts in the SS organization, with the exception of the period from December 1, 1940 to September 30, 1941, during which he was Commander of the Supply Battalion of the SS Viking Division at the front.
Within the organization of the WVHA, he was Chief of Amt A V, the Personnel Office, and, upon Frank's resignation in September 1943, Fanslau succeeded him as Chief of Amtsgruppe A, the chief administration office of the WVHA. As chief of Amt A V, Fanslau's personnel work involved replacements, recruiting, discharges, promotions, assignments and transfers. Within this field he dealt indiscriminately with the Waffen-SS personnel and also with that of the concentration camps.
Although he did not have the power to actually appoint camp commanders, he did make recommendations to Himmler or to the Main Personnel Office, through Pohl, for their transfer, appointment or promotion, and he personally signed orders transferring camp commanders (Exs. 716, 720).
Much of the comment in this judgment as to the defendant Frank is equally applicable to the defendant Fanslau. As the officer in charge of personnel, he was as much an integral part of the whole organization and as essential a bog in its operation as any other of Pohl's subordinates. He was in command of one of the essential ingredients of successful functioning. This has no relation to "Group condemnation," which has been so loudly decried. Personnel were just as important and essential in the whole nefarious plan as barbed wire, watch dogs and gas chambers. The successful operation of the concentration camps required the coordination of men and materials, and Fanslau to a substantial degree supplied the men. He was not an obscure menial; he was a person of responsibility and authority in the organization, who was charged with and performed important and essential functions. As Chief of Amtsgruppe A after Frank's resignation he occupied a dominant position right near the top of WVHA. His claim that he was unaware of what was going on in the organization and in the concentration camps which it administered is utterly inconsistent with the importance and indispensability of his position. Whether or not he was aware of the cold-blooded program of extermination of useless concentration camp inmates, he must have been aware that millions of human beings had been herded into concentration camps in violation of all their rights and solely because Germany needed their labor, to work under the most inhumane circumstances.
The Tribunal finds without hesitation that Fanslau knew of the slavery in the concentration camps and took an important part in promoting and administering it. This being true, he is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.