As far as the Danes and the Norwegians were concerned it worked out fine. They also helped out people who did not receive parcels because the greatest mass did not receive any. As far as the French were concerned, it happened that all cigarettes were taken away by the SS because everyone who had been sent on the transport and then received some sort of a Red Cross parcel and was no longer in Buchenwald, or some other camp and did not receive the the parcel, that was the moment when the parcels were taken away by the report clerk. For instance, I remember in the last days of the camp when the SS leaders removed all the empty Red Cross boxes before the time the Allies would arrive so that they wouldn't find these boxes in their rooms. Within two months 23,000 Red Cross parcels were stolen by the SS alone. The Red Cross demanded some sort of an explanation and there was quite a scandal. One of the SS-Scharfuehrers was turned in by some citizen of Weimar. However, all the things were kept down and the French received parcels during transport and the report clerk which I mentioned before, did not distribute them to the French themselves, but the report clerk distributed them to his own friends or to the Capos or to the Germans, or whoever was near to him who ever he liked. The French who were in the camp worked under the most horrible conditions. 10 men would receive one parcel or three men received one parcel. In the first years, 1941 to 1943 up to 1944 there was a strong order of the SS that the relatives from the outside world could only send so much or as much as an inmate could eat in one day. However, that Court No. II - Case No. 4 was the reason they didn't confiscate everything for themselves, because the parcel came in and then, of course, certain complications arose and later on these parcels proved to be quite some help to the camp, but it was some help by our relatives and not a help through the SS.
At that time the WVHA in Berlin expressed interest that the death rate was going down, was sinking instead of rising and the food situation amongst the inmates would be better because they needed the power. In other other words, when parcels came in and when you received a parcel, it wasn't seimply kind of humanitarian reasons that they allowed the receipt of such a parcel. It was just calculation. Nothing else. All the last years we were allowed leather shoes, because they didn't want to give us any in the camp because they said they hadn't any. Some parcels with Cigars were complete because they wanted some propaganda when they recruited personnel abroad. The reason was therefore, that they didn't want them to know these facts.
THE PRESIDENT: The court is in recess until 1:30.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 22 April 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal II is again in session.
EUGENE KOGON (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION(Continued) BY MR. McHANEY:
Q Witness, going back once again to the subject of work in the concentration camps, can you tell me whether the name or the initials "DAW" are familiar to you?
A Yes, DAW is the abbreviation of the German equipment works, "Deutsche Ausruestungswerke", the German equipment works, an enterprise which from 1942 was conducted by the WVHA, Department W, and was under its administration. The German equipment works had workshops in quite a number of concentration camps. That is, in Buchenwald there was a special location inside the camp; and this was called the DAW location. There were a number of barracks; and they had all sorts of workshops in these barracks. They had wood workers, wood carvers, locksmiths, stone cutters, and other workers. The German equipment works worked for the SS, for the leadership of the SS, and for their personal requirements, and they worked as well inside the camp and for the SS leadership, the leaders of the rest of the organizations who were not inside the camp. They produced all sorts of utility and luxury articles. There were also in the DAW at least a couple hundred and most of the time more than five hundred inmates of all categories. They were specialists who were used for work for the SS.
Q What can you tell us about the sanitary conditions in Buchenwald?
A In the concentration camp of Buchenwald as well as in most of the other concentration camps there was a block which was the hospital for the inmates. In the beginning there were only two barracks; but later on as the requirements increased, it was extended. In the inmate hospital block there was a camp doctor who was an SS officer; and as far as the inmates were concerned there were socalled male nurses. Especially during the first years these nurses had not been selected according to special medical knowledge.
In every concentration camp the hospital was the place for the illegal work of the inmates. Very often from there the decisions concerning life and death were made. Via the hospital if one were ill one could be saved. Also, if one were not ill and were threatened by the SS, one could be saved by the inmate hospital. On the other hand, there was quite a lot of killing of all sorts by the SS through the facilities of the inmate hospital. They called it the "Reviers" to these hospitals. In these Reviers they gave the poisonous inoculations, killing inmates by these inoculations. Therefore, it was very important that this place by manned by reliable political prisoners. Thus, actually during the first years there was a shortage of specialized personnel in the hospital.
MR. MC HANEY: Witness, I believe that the Tribunal wishes to make an announcement.
THE PRESIDENT: Before we get too far away from the subject, will the interpreter explain the word "Reviers." He said there were "Reviers" in the hospital.
THE INTERPRETER: The word "Revier" means, so far as this is concerned, a sick barrack. It is only a sick barrack that was called a "Revier", and the witness explained that these inmates of the hospital also called it the "Revier." It is only another word for inmate hospital.
THE PRESIDENT: Possibly a wing of the hospital, a particular wing, or a separate building?
THE INTERPRETER: By the witness, this hospital was only a barrack, and the whole hospital was called a "revier" which means the sick block, that is, a block of the barracks.
THE PRESIDENT: Sickbay.
THE INTERPRETER: Sickbay, yes.
THE WITNESS: As time went on efforts of the inmates succeeded in bringing inmate doctors into these inmate hospitals, and thereafter the conditions improved partly, that is, for a certain kind of prisoners who were treated there. Furthermore, in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, and under the supervision of the inmates of the hospital, there was a pathological department, with a section through to the crematorium, and certain bodies, especially of those of the inmates who died from infection of disease, or had been executed, were cut and there were preparations made in this department, after which they were sent for expedition purposes to Berlin, or to a department which required these separations. There, there was a reception department, and as time went on it became absolutely necessary to establish a special inspection camp in the camp, and this was put under the supervision of inmates of the hospital. The general condition in the camp prevented this where the inmates had to decide on such conditions, and the inmates of the hospital very often could not deal with all the sick, as on the one hand the inmates hospital was entirely too small, and they had but little means at their disposal to deal with the bulk of the inmates who were sick, and, on the other hand the quality of the camp doctors was quite different from one camp to another.
There were camp doctors who were barbarians, and who practically did not care a "boo" for the life of an inmate, and who only aimed at killing, and there were camp doctors who were different, and who were not entirely interested in the fate of the inmate, and who left everything in the hands of the inmates, and then there was another category of camp doctors who had a sort of bad conscious concerning these general conditions, to say the least, and to do what they could in order to meet the many complaints, and there were a very few camp doctors who actually interfered for the benefit of the inmates, and collaborated with them in order to improve what then could be improved, and, finally, there were then a few camp doctors at Buchenwald, and I remember two, first of all, who absolutely refuse to continue to work under those conditions, and to continue to be camp doctors. These doctors then reported on the front at times during the year, and they were also assigned to the front. They had decided to report conditions to the chief doctor of the concentration camp in the department, D-III WVHA, Dr. Lolling; they reported the conditions in Buchenwald, and they were told under those conditions they could go to the front. I know from one of these doctors who survived the war, nothing at all happened to him. He was not even hindered in his normal career, or with anything. His name was Dr. Hofer, and the second doctor, the name of whom I can only recall in a general manner, he was another doctor of the SS. Those cases prove that a camp doctor did not incur any special risk if they refused to perform, and if they acted in a manner according to the circumstances. In a general way the sanitary conditions were then only a small part of the inmates conditions. If they were seriously ill and could really be healed, or could really be cured, thereafter, that part of the prisoners who could not stand it through the hospital went to perish there, or to be killed.
The conditions in a special camp, for instance, in the small camps in Buchenwald, so far as the sanitary conditions and hygiene were concerned, they were not improved at all, and that there these conditions were the main reason for the death of many concentration camp inmates.
Q Was it pleasant for an inmate who felt he was in need of medical treatment to go to these reviers, or to the hospital?
A In order to answer that question, I have to divide the inmates into three parts. That balance of the inmates who did not know altogether what was going on in the camp, and who could not see through all the camp situation, he would dare go into the hospital, if he was ill, and it is possible that he was beatened instead of being cured, and that also they often -- very often he was mistreated and sometimes even killed. There was a second group of inmates who knew about the general situation in camp, and who had sufficient connections in order to, if they were really ill, be treated in the hospital, but in general this group of inmates avoided any contact with the sickbay, and, then there was a third group, a smaller group which practically had the machinery of the camp in their hands, and they were treated very well in the sickbay. They could get a lot of things through the sickbay. This for them was a sort of recreation holiday in bed for say two weeks, in order to avoid any large part of any work, but that was only a very small group. In general, it was avoided to get in contact with the sickbay.
Q What about the general hygiene conditions, for example, was was there plenty of water available for washing and for taking a bath, or were the toilet facilities adequate; were the conditions of the barracks where you slept such as you were able to get a full nights rest with adequate fresh air?
A There has to be a distinction made between the construction camp, that is, a camp which is only being constructed, made up and developed, and such camp as existed already for a long time at the beginning of the war, an old camp, that is, as mainly in Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau.
There the conditions had improved as time went on in such a manner that I believe that every living barrack had at least one toilet, an open toilet, not a latrine, but there was at least one lavatory, but where the bulk of the prisoners went, there was water to wash. At Buchenwald the shortage of water was incredible. Water pipes had been constructed there late, and the dimensions were wrong, and the number of prisoners had increased so tremendously that it was better when during the first time, they had only small pipes, and where the prisoners could drink water to moist their lips a little bit. Later on they really had lavatories but at the same time when in the barracks of the large camps, they were improved, where the small camps still had no possibility of washing facilities. There was only a small latrine which was built even by the inmates themselves. The SS did not take any interest in the small camps at that time, and then a lot of people simply perished in the camps, but the superior camps were constructed as new camps, and they had facilities for washing, but beyond that the sanitary and hygiene conditions were very bad; not only far below average but even below what could be considered the beginning of the fulfillment of the requirements for somehow a sufficient hygiene. The sleeping accommodations were also different from one camp to another. In the main camp of Buchenwald there were four wings of the living barracks, there were the right and the left of that part on the first and second floors, and on the third floor, that is, for the stone building, but that the wooden barracks had only two wings, whereas the stone barracks had four wings. That in these barracks towards 1941 -- '40 and '41, they had about four hundred to fourhundred fifty inmates in these barracks; while in 1944 to '45 they had up to eight hundred inmates in those barracks. There they had a part only that was above the other on the third floor which consisted of sleeping accommodations, where they had at first two and then they had three and four, and sometimes as much as five people sleeping.
But on top of all of that, many, however, had to work out at times during the night, or had to go away during different times in the early morning, since they worked in the special work shops, and there was a radio wire reception in the barracks for the block commanders who were not on duty in the inmate barracks. These shop leaders were responsible for the block, and sometimes were not on duty during the night, and they had the pleasure of letting the radio work and let the loud speaker on when the camp inmates were in there who had the whole night for sleep; but for some of the people it was quite a bit of music while for the others at the last hours the possibility of having some recreation, especially the old people, was denied them, and they could not sleep. Sometimes it was late hours, sometimes one, sometimes two o'clock during the night this went on. There also was the lack of air; in that situation there was no air condition, and that was terrible.
During the winter in the stone barracks we very often had ice in the corners, and as we had only two blankets -- and sometimes only one blanket -- during the winter on the straw mats, one can well imagine the condition we were in when we had to get up. In the emergency barracks of the small camps, as I said before, we had up to 1900 and even 2000 in a sort of stable, and they couldn't even move. The conditions there were unimaginable. One can hardly describe them.
In some of the camps of the Restricted Area D in the Harzgebirge the conditions were similar. There the prisoners had very often to sleep in the tunnels, and for weeks they could sleep only three of four hours a night. They could not wash, and for six or eight weeks they could not even change their clothes.
All that played a large part in the enormous increase of the death rate.
Q Now, what information can you give us about the death rate in Buchenwald or in concentration camps generally?
A Yes, from my own knowledge and the knowledge of my very intimate comrades who were in a position where they were normally informed or where they could get at least sufficient information. Besides that, I had two sources, which at the end of my time in the concentration camp I could get together. One of the sources was the constant reports of the inmate hospital of Buchenwald concerning the monthly figure of deaths, and the figures for every three months, for every six months, and for every year, which had to go via the camp doctor to the WVHA, Department D-III; and also by the commander of the camp to Department D of the WVHA. The second source consisted of a letter which in the late autumn of 1942 was addressed by Department D-III of the WVHA in Berlin to Buchenwald to the camp doctor.
This letter had a key word, and this key word that it had was that in its distribution it was sent to 16 larger concentration camps, amongst them Buchenwald. The letter had statistics attached, of which after the camp was finished -- that is, in the first days of the liberation -- I got a copy.
The statistics concerned the time from June until November 1942, and they included all the in-coming prisoners in the 16 camps during these months; that is, June, July, August, September, October and November, 1942, six months, and also the prisoners who left the camp.
The in-coming prisoners included the new prisoners and the prisoners being transferred by transport, and the prisoners who left the camp included those who were released, the death cases, and those transferred to other camps by transport, and also the executions.
The total figure of the prisoners who during these six months had been listed there in those statistics amounted to about 109,000 new-in-coming prisoners and about 29,000 transferred prisoners, which would make a total of about 137,000 or 138,000 inmates in six months for 16 concentration camps. The prisoners who left the camp, as far as I remember, amounted to about 4,700 released, about 27,000 to 28,000 transferred. That is the figure about the transports into camp. That was a transfer and a constant change of about 28,000 to 30,000 people.
Furthermore, more than 70,000 died, and there were almost 10,000 -about 9,700 or 9,300 executions. It amounted to about 33,000 out of about 130,000 in 16 camps who had died in the course of six months.
Now, the SS, WVHA, in the attached letter wrote to the camp doctors that the Reichsfuehrer SS had ordered that the working power of the inmates should be better utilized, exploited much better for the armament, and that it was therefore not possible that the camp doctors be especially hard on the prisoners. A camp doctor should not distinguish himself by being especially hard on his prisoners but, rather, by checking on the food situation and by seeing that the inmates received sufficient food to be able to improve the general working conditions and to maintain the working power of the prisoners, and that the death rate had to decrease.
In the course of the following years, from the end of 1942 onwards until the end of 1945, I have seen for Buchenwald and the exterior camps -- Buchenwald had more than 100 exterior camps -- I found out that the death rate had not decreased but had increased.
As far as I have been able to check the figures of Buchenwald, as far as I can remember them from my experiences of that time and from the statistics at the end of the camp, the situation was about the following:
In 1937, at the end of the year, there were about 3,000 inmates in the camp. I could not find the death rate quite correctly. At that time they did not even have these statistics.
In 1938 -- and I always speak of the end of the year -- they had about 7,500 inmates, and the death rate was about 800. That was, about 10 per cent.
In 1939 there were about 11,000 inmates, about 11,000 to 12,000, also toward the end of the year. During the year the figure may have been higher, but not considerably higher. The death rate at that time was approximately 1500 to 1700.
In 1940 the number of inmates was about 13,000, and the death rate increased to about 2,000 per year.
In the following year, 1941, the number of inmates had decreased to about 8,000 to 9,000 at the end of the year, and the death rate also decreased to about 1,500, but from that moment on the death rate increased quickly. The number of prisoners increased, but the death rate increased without any proportion to the increase in the number of the inmates.
In 1943 we had more than 3,000 death cases in Buchenwald, and in 1944 about 5,000 to 6,000, and during the first three and a half months of the year 1945 alone we had over 13,000 dead. The number of prisoners in the camp had in the meantime increased in 1944 to 37,000 inmates. That is only male inmates. The women in the exterior camps were not counted. In 1945 the number of inmates increased to over 80,000, and to that figure about 24,000 to 26,000 women had to be added.
In the camp already, and all the more afterwards, we made calculations on the strength of these statistics that the death rate varied between 0.5 and 5 per cent per month. Therefore, the differences in one month to another were not considerable. The yearly average varied between 10 and 30 per cent. If one takes the figures which I quoted a short while ago from the letter of the WVHA and the figures I had from Buchenwald through all these years, and all the figures we had on all the concentration camps, with the exception of the extermination camps, then if we make a very cautious estimate and check it very well, we arrive at the following figure: The average crew of inmates in the camps, in all the camps of the National Socialist regime, were most of the time -- that is, during the years of the war, between 600,000 and 900,000, up to 1,000,000 inmates, and a large part of the inmates were always in fluctuation. They were being transferred from one camp to another constantly. In total, there were at least 8,000,000 people who went through the concentration camps, and this figure is certainly a minimum.
Approximately half a million of these were German, and the rest of them were foreigners.
Of these 8,000,000, approximately seven and a half million perished.
As to the 500,000 Germans, when they say that at least 250,000 to 300,000 have been released as time went on, either they survived the camps or they were drafted into the armed forces or other special units of the military command. On the other hand, at least 200,000 of them have perished.
As far as the foreigners are concerned, at least 7,000,000 have perished. As far as the Germans were concerned, twelve years were involved. As far as the foreigners are concerned, 1938 was the beginning as far as Austria was concerned; 1939 as far as Czechoslovakia was concerned, and so on and so forth.
And there the extermination camps of the East are not taken into consideration. That includes Auschwitz, which certainly had liquidated at least 4,000,000 or 4,500,000, who were gassed, most of them in that camp. Of the incoming transfers, only ten per cent were selected and used for some work, and 90 per cent were gassed. Lublin, Majdanek, Treblinka, and the other extermination camps could show another 1,500,000 dead who were killed in the same manner.
Q. Now, at Buchenwald did they have a place called Detachment 99, Stables?
A. At Buchenwald there was a detail, a command 99. This designation was a key word for an execution detail, and this detail was only for Russian prisoners of war. In 1942, in the summer of 1942, the great liquidation of Russian P.W.'s had begun, and especially in the camps of Buchenwald, Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Very soon we received information from our political comrades at Dachau and Sachsenhausen that the liquidation of Russian prisoners of war had started in these camps, and at the same time it started at our camp. Counting of the bodies that were sent to the crematorium at Buchenwald, we established the fact that at Buchenwald approximately nine to nineand-a-half thousand Russian P.W.'s were liquidated, and besides our Russian comrades from Dachau told us that the figures in these camps were above ten thousand.
Also the liquidation was done in the so-called stables. The stables were out of the barbed wire district, in the nature of a natural district, and this district was a sort of medical station. The prisoners of war were of the opinion that they would have a medical examination there. The murders walked around in white coats, medical coats, and there the prisoners, without knowing anything of what was going to happen to them, they were shot in the neck with a sort of machine they had for that. They were told they had to be measured, and there they received a shot in the neck through a hole in this measure plank, and while that happened the wireless was playing, and the loud speakers had been made to work, and they called numbers and other things, and therefore one couldn't hear the shots. But later on part of them were shot by SS snipers and the bodies were dragged out by an inmate. Two or three or four times a week they always received information by telephone and the inmates arrived. About twenty to one hundred and fifty thousand prisoners were liquidated in that manner.
We had a lecture by two members of the RSHA, and we knew of this lecture. At that time I saw the text of this lecture in the original version in the files of the concentration camp at Buchenwald, and there the method of selection for these prisoners of war from the prisoner-of-war camps was described.
There were all sorts of Communist Party leaders which were mentioned, commisars, Komsomolzen leaders, Komsomolzed troops. That is the political officers of the Red army, and their so-called inferior elements, Turko-Russians, and some of these were removed from these camps as politically unreliable or nationally inferior, and they were sent to Buchenwald or to the other two camps for liquidation.
These P.W.'s were not sent into the camp itself, that is in the main camp, but they were selected from the bulk of the transport in front of the political department and there they were liquidated right away. I myself was once on a transport, and then at Dresden I was locked up in a sort of prison at the main station during the night. There were about sixty-five Russians, Ukrainians and Poles, and there they had seven of these Russian prisoners of war. I talked with them during the whole night, because I understand that much Russian, and it was very tragic to see what kind of expectations these men had for Buchenwald. They absolutely knew nothing of their fate. They were of the opinion that they would be better off at Buchenwald. They asked me about the food and what kind of work they were to do. They were very glad to get to Buchenwald from this very bad stalag they had been in. In front of the political department these seven men were called out right away and they were liquidated in the same manner I described before.
Q. Were the Nacht and Nebel transports familiar to you?
A. The SS and Gestapo had quite peculiar designations for certain actions. For instance, in the west of Europe, from 1942 onward, they collected certain categories of human beings, and these immediate actions, they called them very romantically Meerschaum actions, or Action Spring Wind, and one of these actions was called Night and Fog, Nacht and Nebel. That included especially Dutchmen, Belgians and Frenchmen, and as we saw in the camp later on, such persons had done sabotage or passive resistance or had been denounced for having committed such violations, alleged violations, and these Frenchmen, Belgians and Dutchmen were sent to the concentration camps under very severe conditions.
They could not write letters. There were quite a number of other restrictions. They had a very bad situation there Part of them were used for human experiments. For instance, to be an N. and N. inmate, as they called them, N. and N. meaning Nacht and Nebel, Night and Fog, the inmates didn't even know that name. This name became known only months afterwards. These inmates were sent to Natzweiler, and there they were used for experiments. Part of them worked in the quarry down there under very difficult conditions and many of them perished.
Q. Were the Night and Fog inmates permitted to correspond with their relatives?
A. The Night and Fog prisoners had no right to write. They could not receive any parcels either. They had no contact whatsoever with their home country or with the outer world. Part of them in our camp, in Buchenwald, had been secluded from the other camp inmates.
Q. Were the inmates brought in under Action Meerschaum permitted to correspond?
A. I have no knowledge that the inmates of this action had restrictions as to correspondence with other people.
Q. Now, will you tell us what you know about the outside camps of Buchenwald, and I have particular reference to Dora and S-III Ohrdruf.
A. The number of the outside camps of Buchenwald increased during the war, especially as from 1942, in a tremendous way, until the autumn, that is until October, 1944. All these exterior camps were under the orders, even the camp of the restricted area B, of the SS. That was in the Harzgebirge, and that was under the orders of the camp at Buchenwald. The first camp which had been established outside of the camp of Buchenwald was the camp at NiedersachsWerfen which was known under the name of Dora. In October, 1944, Dora then became a main camp for the fifteen or eighteen smaller concentration camps of the restricted area B. The conditions at Dora were even much worse than in Buchenwald.
I myself know them, not only because some of my comrades, some very few of them came back from this camp of Dora, but rather because Dr. Ding-Schuler was the sanitation officer of the restricted area and became the sanitation officer in 1944, and I knew of the secret plans which were directed to the WVHA and Gruppenfuehrer Kammler and the so-called Jaegerstab in the Armanent Ministry, and I saw these so-called secret plans, and Schuler told me about the sanitary and hygienec conditions and said he was horrified about them. But the survivors of this camp at Dora know that from immediate knowledge.
If one can increase the possibilities of the bad, then I would like to apply that to Ogrdruf. Ohrdruf was even worse. Ohrdruf, which had also the cover name S-III, was about seventy kilometers southwest from Weimar, slightly southwest. There bunkers were constructed and tunnels especially for Adolf Hitler, and about 13,000 inmates from Buchenwald had been sent to Ohrdruf, mainly Russians, Poles and Hungarian Jews, but also a certain number of Frenchmen. At Ohrdruf the death rate was especially high and the living conditions were really terrible. Towards the end of the existence of the camp Ohrdruf was to be dynamited with the inmates in it, but eventually only an evacuation took place, and this evacuation was a real death march during these seventy kilometers to Buchenwald. At Ohrdruf alone fifteen hundred dead were already lying there when the people started the march, and on the whole way from Weimar to Buchenwald on the road which we had built ourselves seventy-six or seventyeight people were lying with shots in their head.
Q. Did you say that S-III and Dora were constructed under the direction of Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler?
A. Yes, All these camps were under the direct supervision of Kammler and were constructed under his supervision. In the Harzgebirge, that is in the restricted area, they served the purpose of the shifting of German industry.
First of all tunnels were constructed and subterranean factories were established and furnished, and then aircraft motors or parts of motors and parts of the socalled V-weapons were constructed there.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q How do you know about the plans to blow up the inmates in the tunnels of S-III and Dora?
A In March 1945--about the tenth or twelfth of March--Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding-Schuler came back from a conference at Ohrdruf where he had been summoned. He told me than an order had been received to drive the 14,000 inmates into the tunnels, lock them in there and blow them up. The camp commanders, and, especially, Hauptsturmfuehrer Oldeburluis, were of the opinion that this would lead to great complications in the surroundings of the camp. That is, as far as the population was concerned. And, furthermore, he did not dare personally to execute this order. Therefore, they proposed to get into contact with the Reichfuehrer SS Himmler, once again. At that time that was a rather difficult thing for the SS because the connections were rather dislocated. And then they actually succeeded when Schuler was already back at Buchenwald about two or three days later. They actually got contact via the director of the police at Weimar, Higher SS and Police Leader whose name was Schmidt--they got contact with Himmler and Himmler issued the directive to kill only such prisoners who were very dangerous, from the political point of view, and select them together with criminal convicts from the bulk of the prisoners; to evacuate the other ones and to liquidate only these selected inmates. That was done on the same principle, which shows it was applied at Buchenwald at least partly. Partly it couldn't be applied any more; it was too late.
Q Do you remember the construction of the railroad from Weimar to Buchenwald?
A Yes, I remember. In 1943, as far as I remember, between the station of Weimar and the camp of Buchenwald, train connections were established by orders of the WVHA. It was constructed by the inmates. The train, if I remember well, had to be ready for action on the twenty-first of June, and there were only four or five months. The Department C of the WVHA had then a special man down there who had to drive the prisoners in an inhuman manner, together with his assistant, Court No. II, Case No. IV.