A No, that is an error. Actually, ordinary passes evaporate during normal temperature. This gas would not evaporate until very high temperatures were reached; such very high temperatures would only arise if you added an explosion; in other words, if the explosives detonated --- that is, known as a high temperature and then the gas evaporated: the solid material becomes gas but the effects had nothing to do with the high temperature. knowledge?
A That, I can't tell you. Certainly experiments must have been carried out with it.
Q I am sorry but I didn't get your last answer.
A I can't tell you but I assume experiments must have been carried out with it.
Q Who was in charge of the experimentations with the gasses? armaments defense department of the ordnance section. I can't tell you for certain there. in atomic energy, were they not? had gone to America, we hadn't advanced as far as we wanted to. We suffered setbacks in atom research and actually we were about one to two years from achieving results, the results of splitting the atom.
Q The policy of driving people out who didn't agree with Germany hadn't produced very good dividends, has it? particularly in this sector. experiment which wascarried out near Auschwitz and I would like to ask you if Was heard about it or if you knew about it. The purpose of the experiment was to find a quick and complete way of destroying people without the delay and trouble of shooting and gassing and burning, as it had been carried out, and in this experimentation, as I am advised, a,small village was provisionally erected, with temporary structures and in it approximately twenty thousand Jews were put. By means of this newly invented weapon of destruction, these twenty thousand people were eradicated almost instantaneously, and in such a way that there was no trace left of them; as it developed, the explosive reached temperatures of from four to five hundred degrees centigrade and destroyed them without leaving any trace at all.
Do you know about that experiment?
A No, and I consider that it is utterly improbable. If we had had such a weapon under preparation then that would not have remained unknown to me, but we didn't have such a weapon. It is clear that in chemical warfare experiments, attempts were made on both sides to make research of all weapons which can possibly thought of, because one didn't know which party would start chemical warfare. the purpose of keeping the German people in the war? Beginning with June or July 1944, I went to the Front very often. I visited about forty frontal divisions in their sectors and I had to find out on those occasions that the troops just as much as the Germans, the German nation, were given hooes regarding a new weapon which was due to come, that their should be a miraculous weapon which, without requiring the use of a man and soldier, would then guarantee victory. It was due to this belief that many people in Germany lost their lives, although due to reasons in their own thought they must have realized the war was finished. They believed that within the near future this new weapon would arrive. I wrote about this to Hitler and in various speeches even before Goebbels propaganda leaders, I tried to work against this conviction or belief. Both Hitler and Goebbels told me, however, that this wasn't propagands which they were making but that this was a belief which had arisen from the people. Only in the dock here in Nurnberg, was I told by Fritsche that this propaganda was made systematically through some channels, however, and brought amongst the people and that SS Standartenfuehrer Berg was responsible for it. Many things became clear to me thereupon because this man Berg, as a representative of the Ministry of Propaganda, had quite often participated during meetings, large scale meetings of my Ministry because he was wriing articles about these meetings and there he heard of our weapons of the future and he then used this knowledge and his imagination and fantasy to bring them in amongst the people.
Q. When did it become apparent that the war was lost?
I take it that your attitude was that you felt some responsibility for getting the German people out of it with as little destruction as possible. Is that a fair statement of your position?
A. Yes, but I had that feeling not only with reference to the German nation. I was aware of the fact that one should equally avoid that destruction should take place in the occupied territories. That was as important to me as the other for a very realistic reason. I considered that all this destruction would no longer be limited to us after the war, but to the following German government, and coming German generations.
Q. Where you differed with the people who want to continue the war to the bitter end, was that you wanted to see Germany have a chance to restore her life. Is that not a fact? Whereas, Hitler took the position that if he couldn't survive, he didn't care whether Germany survived or not?
A. That is true, and I would never have had the courage to make this statement before this Tribunal if I hadn't been able to prove it by the means of my documents, because such a statement is so incredible. The letter, however, which I wrote to Hitler on the 29th of March and in which I confirmed this, shows that he said so himself.
Q. Well, if I may comment, it was not a new idea to us that that was his viewpoint. I think it was expressed in most of the other countries that that was his view point. telegram from Goering, suggesting that Goering take over power?
A. On the 23rd of April I flew to Berlin in order to take leave of several of my associates, and, as I want to tell you quite openly, also in order to place myself at Hitler's disposal after everything that had happened. Perhaps this will sound peculiar to you, but the conflicting feelings which I had with reference to what I was trying to do against him and all the actions Which he had committed, still didn't give me a clear basis inside me for my relationship to him, so I flew to see him.
I didn't know whether he would order no to remain in Berlin. It was my impression, however, that it would be my duty not to run away like a coward, but once again to appear on the scene. It was on that day that Goering's telegram arrived, Goering's telegram to Hitler -- the telegram to Ribbentrop, I mean, arrived, and Bormann submitted the telegram to him.
Q. Submitted it to Hitler?
A. Yes, to Hitler.
Q. What did Hitler say upon that occasion?
A. Hitler was most excited about the contents of the telegram, and he expressed himself in a very clear manner about Goering. He said that he knew for some time that Goering had failed, that he was corrupt, that he was a drug addict. I was very shaken by this, because it occurred to me that if the head of the State had had such knowledge for some considerable time, then it was irresponsible on the part of the head of the State that he had loft this ran in office, this man on whom depended the lives of huge numbers of people. It was typical of Hitler's attitude towards the entire problem, however, that he followed his statement us by spying: "But he can, nevertheless, negotiate the capitulation".
Q. Did he s ay why he was willing to let Goering negotiate the capitulation?
A. No. He stated in an off-hand manner: "It doesn't matter anyway who does it". His disregard for the German nation was expressed in the way he said this.
Q. That is, his attitude was that there was nothing left worth having so let Goering work it out. Is that a fair statement of his position ?
A. That was my impression, yes.
Q. Now, this policy of driving German to destruction after the war was lost had come to weigh on you to such a point that you were a party to several plots, were you not, in an attempt to remove the people who were responsible for the destruction, as you saw it, of your country?
A. Yes. But I wait to add -
Q. There were more plots that you have told us about, weren't there?
A. During that time it was awfully easy to start a plot, because you could talk to practically anybody in the street and tell him what the situation was, and then he would say, that is insanity, and if he had any courage he placed himself at your disposal. Unfortunately, I didn't have an organization at my disposal wich I might have commanded and with the help of which I could have done anything. That is why I had to depend on my personal conversations by which I remained in contact with various people. But I do want to say that it wasn't as dangerous as it looks here because, actually, the few unreasonable ones whoremained were perhaps a few dozen. The other eighty million were perfectly reasonable when they knew what this was all about.
Q. Perhaps you had a sense of responsibility for having put the eighty million completely in the hands of the Fuehrer principle. Did that occur to you, or does it now as you look back on it?
A. May 1 have the question repeated, because I didn't understand its sense.
Q. You have eighty million sane and sensible people facing destruction; you have a dozen people driving them on to destruction and they are unable to stop it. I ask you if you have a feeling of responsibility for having established the Fuehrer principle, which Goering has so well described for us, in Germany?
A. I, personally, by becoming minister in February '42, have placed myself at the disposal of this Fuehrer principle, this leader principle.
But in my organization I recognized that this principle of leadership was full of tremendous mistakessand therefore I tried to weaken its effect. The tremendous danger, however, contained in this totalitarian system, only became abundantly clear at the moment when we were approaching the end It was then that one could see what the meaning of the principle was, namely, that every order should be carried out without any criticism. Everything that has happened during this trial, everything you have seen in the way of orders which were carried out without any consideration, did after all turn out to be mistakes; and there was the final result of the order to destroy bridges and carry out the destruction, all the outcome of that totalitarian system. This system -- let me put it like this -- to the end of the system it has become clear what tremendous dangers are contained in any such system, as such, quite apart from Hitlers ' principle. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought about this tremendous catastrophe to this world.
Q Well, now Hitler is dead,--I assume you accept that?-- and we ought to give the devil his due. Isn't it a fact that in the circle around Hitler there was almost no one who would stand up and tell him that the war was lost except yourself?
A That is correct with certain limitations. Amongst the military leaders there were many who, with reference to their own sphere, explained to Hitler very clearly what the situation was. Many Army group commanders, for instance, made it clear to him how castrophic developments were, and about that there were often serious arguments concerning the situation. Men like Guderian and Jodl, for instance, talked about their own sector very clearly quite often in my presence, and Hitler had to know from what they told him what the entire situation was. I have not been able to ascertain, however, that those who are actually responsible were around Hitler to tell him the war was lost; nor did I experience that these responsible people attempted to establish communications among themselves to come to some joint step against Hitler. With a few exceptions, I didn't attempt that on my part either because it would have been useless. Hitler, during that phase, had frightened all these close associates to such an extent that they were without any will of their own. of fighting to the very end. Were you present at a conversation between Goering and General Gallant in which Goering, in substance, forbade Gallant to report the disaster that was overtaking Germany?
A No; in that form, that isn't correct. That was another conference.
Q Well, tell us what there is about General Gallant's conversation with Goering as far as you know it.
A This was at the Fuehrer headquarters in East Prussia outside Goering's train. Gallant had reported to Hitler that the enemy fighter planes had accompanied bombing squadrons as far as Luettich and that it was to be expected, there fore, that the bombing units would, in future, appear much farther from their bases, still accompanied bu fighters. After the discussion on the military situation Goering got held of Gallant before Hitler and, first of all, in an excited manner, told him that this couldn't possibly be true, that this couldn't be the facts, that they couldn't go as far as Luettich, these fighters. He said, in this connection, based on his experience as an old fighter pilot, that he knew that that was certainly so. Thereupon, Gallant replied that, after all, the aircraft, the fighters had been shot down and they were lying on the ground, burning, and Goering wouldn't believe that was true. Gallant was a very outspoken man who told Goering his opinion most clearly and he wouldn't allow Goering's excitement to influence him. Finally, Goering, as Supreme Commander of the Air Force, prohibited Gallant expressly from making any further reports about this matter. It was impossible, he said, that enemy fighters could tenetrate so deeply into Germany, and he was giving the order, therefore, that that was the opinion which he would have to accept as being correct. I continued to discuss the matter after wards with Gallant and, as a matter of fact, Gallant, as the General of the Fighter Command, was relieved of his duty by Goering. At this point, Gallant had been in charge of all fighter units in Germany. He was in Supreme command of the Air Force.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the date of that?
JUSTICE JACKSON: I was going to ask.
THE FITNESS: It must have been towards the end of 1943.
THE PRESIDENT : Justice Jackson, perhaps we had better adjourn now.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.
Q. If it please the Tribunal, I wanted to ask the witness whether it was known in the days when you were struggling for manpower enough to make armaments for Germany, that Goering was using manpower to collect art and transport art for his own purposes. Was that know to you at the time?
A. He needed very few workers for that purpose.
Q. Well, very few were very valuable, were they not?
A. The art objects were valuable, not the workers.
Q. To him?
A. Yes.
Q. Let me ask you about your efforts in producing, and see how much difficulty you were having. Krupp was a big factor in the German armament production, was it not?
A. Yes.
Q. The biggest single unit, wouldn't you say?
A. Yes, but as I said yesterday, he produced few guns and armaments that were big with respect to concerns within armament industries.
Q. But you had pushed, as far as possible, the use of resources and manpower for the production of things that were not useful for the war, is that true?
A. That is true.
Q. And the things which were being built in Krupps were guns not other objects? They were things which were essential to carrying on the economy or conduct of the war? That's true, isn't it?
A. One cannot generalize the last analysis. Every object which is produced at home here, whether it si shoes for the worker, or clothing or coal, is of course products needed to wage war. That has nothing to do with the obsolete term from the Geneva Convention.
Q. Well, at the moment I am not concerned with the question of the application of the Geneva Convention. I want to ask you some questions about your efforts to produce, whether they were armament or not armament, and conditions which your regime was imposing upon labor and adding, as I think, to your problems of production.
I think you can give us some information about this. You were frequently at the Krupp plants, were you not?
A. I was at the Krupp plant 5 or 6 times.
Q. You had rather close information as to the progress of production in the Krupp plant as well as others?
A. Yes, this was mostly after air raids, when I went to survey the damages, and then I got an idea of the production.
Q. Krupp also had several labor camps, did they not?
of war. workers and prisoners of war. camps, and from Krupp's own charts it appears that in 1943 they had 39,245 foreign workers and 11,234 prisoners of war, and that this steadily increased until in September 1944 Krupp had 54,990 foreign workers and 18,902 prisoners of war. knowledge of the industry?
A I don't know the details. I don't know the figures of how many workers Krupp employed, the total, but I believe that the percentage of foreign workers at Krupp was about the same as in other armament concerns.
Q And what would you say that percentage was?
A That varied a great deal. The older industries had a lower percentage of foreign workers than he new industries which had grown up and which did not have any old group of employees. The reason for this was that the young age groups were drafted into the Wehrmacht and therefore the concerns who had older workers kept a greater percentage of the older workers. Therefore, the percentage of foreign workers in the armament industry as an old industry was lower than the percentage of foreign workers in the air armament industry because that was a completely new industry which did not have old workers. Krupp as an example -- were housed in labor camps and under guard, were they not?
A I do not believe that they were under guard, but I cannot say. I don't want to avoid giving information here, but I couldn't worry about those things on my visits. What I was concerned about when I went to a factory was in an entirely different field. In all my activities as Armament Minister I never once visited a labor camp, and can't, therefore, give any information about them.
camp at Krupp's, and then I am going to ask you some questions about it. I am not attempting to say that you was a personally responsible for these conditions. I merely give you the indications as to what the regime was doing and I am going to ask you certain questions as to the effect of this sort of thing on your work of production. the affidavit of Dr. Jaeger who was later brought here as a witness?
Q You don't accept that?
Q You have no personal knowledge of the condition. What is the basis of your information that Dr. Jaeger's statement is exaggerated? Of course, in visits to concerns, the head of the concern came to me with his most important problems. Those important problems were primarily after air raids when, for example, the German workers and foreign workers had no proper shelter any more, and this matter was described to no. cannot have been a permanent condition. That could only have been a condition caused perhaps by air raids, a temporary condition, for a week or two, which was improved later. It is clear that after a sever air raid in a city, all the hygienic installations, the water supply, gas supply, electricity, and so forth, were severely damaged so that temporarily there were very difficult conditions.
Q I remind you that Dr. Jaeger's affidavit relatesto the time of October 1942, and that he was a witness here. Of course, you are familiar with his testimony. would become United States of America Exhibit 893. It is a document signed by the office chief of the Locomotive Construction Works, describing conditions of his labor supply, foreign labor.
I repeat I am not suggesting that this was your responsibility. I am suggesting it is the responsibility of the regime. I should like to read this despite its considerable length. This is dated at the Boiler Making Shop, the 25th of February 1942, addressee to Hupe by way of Winters and Schmidt.
"I received the enclosed letter of the 18th of this month from the German Labor Front, sent to my private address, inviting no to the Office of the German Labor Front" -- giving its address and the date. "I tried to complete the business which I did not know about by telephone. The answer from the German Labor Front was that the matter was very important and demanded by personal appearance. Thereupon I asked Mr. Jungerich of the Department for Social Labor Hatters whether I had to go. He answered, 'You probably don't have to, but it would be better if you wont'. About 9:50 I went round to room 20 at this place and met Herr Prior.
"The following event provided the cause for this conversation, which Herr Prior carried on in a very lively manner, and which lasted about half an hour:
"On the 10th, 23 Russian prisoners of war were assigned to No. 23 Boiler Shop. The people came in the morning without broad and tools. During both breaks the prisoners of war crept up to the German workers and begged for bread, pitifully pointing out their hunger. At the first midday, the works had the opportunity of distributing the food which remained over from the French PW's amongst the Russians. In order to alleviate these conditions, I went to the Weidkamp kitchen on the 17th, on instructions from Herr Theile, and talked to the head of the kitchen, Fraulein Block, about the prevision of the midday meal. Fraulein Blocks promised me the food immediately and also lent me the 22 sets of eating utensils which I asked for.
"At the some time I asked Fraulein Block to give any food left over by the Leo Dutchmen messing there to our Russian PW's at midday until further notice. Fraulein Block promised to do this too, and the following midday she sent down a container of milk soup as an extra. The following midday the ration was short in quantity. Since a few Russians had collapsed already, I telephoned Fraulein Block and asked for an increase in the food as the special ration had ceased iron the second day onwards.
As my telephone conversation was unsuccessful, I again visited Fraulein Block personally. Fraulein Block refused in a very abrupt manner to give upon further special ration.
"Now, regarding the discussion in detail, Herr Prior, two other gentlemen of the DAF and Fraulein Block, head of the Weidkamp Kitchen, were present in the room. Herr Prior commenced and accused me, gesticulating in a very insulting manner, saying that I had taken the part of the Bolsheviks in too apparent a way. He referred to the law paragraphs of the Reich Government which spoke against it. I was unfortunately not clear about the legal position, otherwise I would have left the conference room immediately. I then tried to make it clear to Herr Prior, with special emphasis, that the Russian PW's were assigned to us as workers and not as Bolsheviks; the people were starved and were not in a position to perform the heavy work with us in boiler making which they were supposed to do; sick people are a liability to us and not a help to production. To this remark Herr Prior stated that if one was worth nothing, then another was, that the Bolsheviks were soulless people, and if 100,000 of them die , another 100,000 would replace them. On my remarking that with such a coming and going we would not attain our goal, namely the delivery of locomotives to the Reich railways which were continually cutting down the time limit, Herr Prior said, 'Deliveries are only of secondary importance here.'
"My attempts to get Herr Prior to understand our economic needs were now successful. In closing, I can only say that as a German I know our relations to the Russian prisoners of war exactly, and in the a/m case I dealt only on behalf of my superiors and in the sense of the increase in production which is demanded from us."
It is signed, "Soehling, Office Chief, Locomotive Construction Works."
by Theile:
" I have the following to add to the above letter; After the Russian P.W.'s had been assigned to as on the 16th of this month by Labour Supply, I got into touch with Dr. Lehmann immediately about their food. I learned from him that the prisoners received 300 gr. of bread each between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. I pointed out that it was impossible to lost until 1800 hours on this ration of bread, whereupon Dr. Lehmann said that the Russians must not be allowed to get used to the Western European feeding. I replied that the P.W.'s could not do the work required of them inthe Boiler Construction Shop on that food and that it was not practical for us to have these people in the works any longer under such conditions. At the same time I demanded that if the Russians continued to be employed, they should be given a hot midday meal and that if possible the bread ration should be split so that one half was distributed early in the morning and the second half during our breakfast break. My suggestion has already been carried out by us with the French P.W.'s and has proved to be very practical and good.
"Unfortunately, however, Dr. Lehmann took no notice of my suggestion and on this account I naturally had to take matters into my own hands and therefore told Herr Sohling to get the feeding of the Russian P.W.'s organized on exactly the same lines asFrench P.W.'s so that the Russians could as soon as possible carry out the work they were supposed to do. For the whole thing concerns an increase in production such as is demanded from us by the Minister of Munitions and Armaments and by the D.A.F." of the locomotive construction works was not entirely a necessary position in the interests of production? achieve good production. I said yesterday that every head of a concern and I, as theleader, were interested in having well-fed and satisfied workers, because badly fed, dissatisfied workers make more mistakes.
I should like to comment on this document. The document is dated 25 February 1942.
At that time there were official instructions that the Russian prisoners of war and the Russian foreign workers who came to the Reich were treated worse than the Western workers. I learned of this through complaints from the heads of concerns. In my document bock, from the middle of March 1942--three or four weeks after this document--thereis a Fuehrer protocol in which I called Hitler's attention to the fact that the feeding of Russian workers was absolutely inadequate and that they would have to be given an adequate diet and that, moreover, the Russian workers were being kept behind barbed wire like prisoners of war and that that would have to be stopped also. The protocol shows thatin both cases that I succeeded with Hitler in having conditions improved, and they were changed. Sauckel that he fought against thelack of understanding and did everything so that the foregin workers and prisoners of war would be treated better and receive decent food. I am going to ask you, if you are not responsible and Sauckel is not responsible, who is responsible for these conditions, and you can keep in mind that is the question that we are coming up to here. would be Exhibit USA-394-A--a statement taken by the British-American team in the investigation of this work camp at Krupp's.
Well, D-321. I can use that just as well. We will use Document D-321, which becomes 894.
THE PRESIDENT: 894 was the last number you gave us.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: 398 was 894. 321 will be 895. BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: None of these investigations, I may say, is based upon the statements of the prisoners themselves.
"I, the undersigned, Adam Schmidt, employed as Betriebswart in the Essen-West Railway Station and residing--" He states his residence-
--"make the following statement voluntarily and on oath.
"I have been employed by the Reichs Railway since 1918 and have been at Essen West Station since 1935. In the middle of 1941 the first workers arrived fromPoland, Galicia and Polish Ukraine. They came to Essen in goodswaggons in which potatoes, building materials and also cattle have been transported, were brought to perform work at Krupp.
The tracks were jammed full with people. My personal view was that it was inhuman to transport people in such a matter. The people were squashed closely together and they had no room for free movement. The Krupp overseers laid special value on the speed the slave workers got in and out of the train. It was enraging to every decent German who had to watch this, to see how the people were beaten and kicked and generally maltreated in a brutal manner. In the very beginning as the first transports arrived, we could see how inhumanly these people were treated. Every waggon was so overfilled that it was incredible that such a number could be jammed into one waggon. I could see with my own eyes that sick people who could scarcely walk (they were mostly people with foot trouble, injured and also people with internal trouble) were taken to work. One could see that it was sometimes difficult for them to move themselves. The same can be said for the Eastern workers and P.W.'s who came to Essen in the middle of 1942."
He then describes their clothing and then describes their food. In the interests of time, I will not attempt to read the entire thing.
Do you consider that that, too, is an exaggerated statement? doubtlessly bad, but I know from Sauckel that during the time of his activity, much was done to clothe these workers better, and in Germany many of the Russian workers were put in a considerably better condition than they had been previously in Russia. The Russian workers were quite satisfied in Germany. If they arrived here in rags, that does not mean that that was our fault. We could not use ragged workers with poor shoes in industry, so conditions were improved.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, before you pass from that, what do you say about the conditions of the transports? The question you were asked was whether this was an exaggerated account. You have not answered that except in reference to clothing.
THE WITNESS: Mr. President, I can not give any information about this transport matter. I received no reports about it.
BY MR. JUSTICE JACKSON:
Q Well, I will ask you about Exhibit 398, which becomes 894. I mean Document 398, which becomes Exhibit 894, a statement by Alors Hoefer, living in Essen:
"I worked with Lowenkamp in armour building shop No. 4 since April 1943. Lowenkamp was very brutal to the foreigners. He confiscated food which belonged to the P.W.'s and took it home. Every day he mishandled Eastern workers, Russian P.W.'s, French, Italian, and other foreign civilian persons. He had a steel box built which was so snail that one could hardly stand in it. He locked foreigners in the box, also females, up to 48 hours without giving the people food. They were not released in order to relieve nature. It was forbidden for other people either to give any help to the persons locked in, or release then. Whilst clearing an unofficial camp, he fired on fleeing Russian civilians without hitting any of then.
"One day, whilst distributing food, I saw how he hit a French civilian in the face with a ladle and made his face bleed. Further, he delivered Russian girls without bothering about the children afterwards. There was never any milk for them so the Russians had fro nourish the children with sugar water. When Lowenkamp was arrested he wrote two letters and sent them to me via his wife. He tried to make out that he never hit people." it into the record.
Is it your view that that is exaggerated?
A I consider this affidavit a lie. I should like to say that in the German people such a thing does not exist, and if such individual cases occurred they were punished. It is not possible to drag the German people through the dirt in this way. The heads of concerns were also decent people who worried about their work. If the head of the Krupp concern had heard about that, he would have taken steps immediately.
Q Well, what about the steel boxes? The steel boxes couldn't have been built? Or don't you believe the steel-box story?
A No, I don't believe it; I don't believe it. After the collapse in 1945 a lot of affidavits were drawn up, certainly, which do not correspond to the truth. That is not your fault. However, after a defeat, it is quite possible that people do things like this.
Q Well, I would like to have you examine document 258. I attach importance to this as establishing the SS as being the guards;
"The camp inmates were mostly Jewish women and girls from Hungary and Roumania. The camp inmates were brought to Essen at the beginning of 1944 and were put to work at Krupps. The accommodation and feeding of the camp prisoners was beneath all dignity. At first the prisoners were accommodated in simple wooden huts. These huts were burned down during an air raid and from that time on the prisoners had to sleep in a damp cellar. Their beds were made on the fleer and consisted of a straw-filled sack and two blankers. In most cases it was not possible for the prisoners to wash themselves daily, as there was no water. There was no possibility of having a bath.
"I could often observe from the Krupp factory, during the lunch break, how the prisoners boiled their under-clothing in an old bucket or container over a wood fire, and cleaned themselves.
A slit trench served as an airraid shelter, whilst the SS guards went to the Humboldt shelter, which was bomb-proof.
"Reveille was at 5 a.m. There was no coffee or any food served in the morning. They marched off to the factory at 5.15.a.m. They marched for three quarters of an hour to the factory, poorly clothed and badly shed, some without shoes, and covered with a blanker, by rain or snow. Work began at 6.a.m The lunch break was from 12 to 12.30. Only during the break was it at all possible for the prisoners to cook something for themselves from potato peelings and other garbage.
"The daily working period was one of ten to eleven hours. Although the prisoners were completely undernourished, their work was very heavy physically. The prisoners were often maltreated at their work benches by Nazi overseers and female SS guards. At 5 or 6 in the afternoon they were marched back to the camp. The accompanying guards consisted of female SS who, in spite of protests from the civil population, often maltreated the prisoners on the way back by kicks, blows and scarcely repeatabl words. It often happened that individual women or girls had to be carried back to the camp by their comrades owing to exhaustion. At 6 or 7 p.m. these exhausted people arrived back in camp. Then the real midday meal was distributed. This consisted of cabbage soup. This was followed by the evening meal of water.