"From what time to what time were you Pohl's deputy in Amtsgruppe W?
"A. I was his deputy from the time I took office."
You remember that answer?
A. Yes, but I am sure I said something else at the beginning.
Q. Let me read you something:
"You were senior office chief in W?
"A. I was senior office chief.
"Q. That is, you were automatically Pohl's deputy in Office Group W?
"A. Yes.
"Q. This happened automatically in the WVHA as in all SS main offices?
"A. Yes, that is correct. It could be called automatic as such.
"Q. You were senior office chief in Branch W, that made you automatically Pohl's deputy?
"A. Yes.
You remember those questions and answers?
A.- I can only tell you that in any case, I was against admitting such a thing, and that something must have proceeded because I pointed out that Georg Loerner was Deputy and I can recall in connection with this that he asked if I held the highest rank I said yes to that.
THE PRESIDENT: Can't we keep away from the constant questioning about what deputy is. Every time anybody gets to it it leads to a long discussion. It is a loosely used world and I wish we could avoid it.
MR. ROBBINS: Very well, Your Honor. I shall go on to another matter.
Q.- Let me ask you, Witness, if you signed at any time on the part of Pohl, as Chief of the WVHA, I.A. by order of?
A.- I don't recall having done such a thing, because there was no reason to do so. After all, I was a Chief of Staff and if I signed an order had to sign it -- I simply signed it -- not i.A.
Q.- Witness, will you look at Document No. 19, pursuing the question of Osti, just a little further and turn to the first document in the book which is NO-1270. It is Exhibit 61 on the first page. This is the memorandum about the conference as to what should be done with the Jewish manpower and Jewish property in the East. Do you have it?
A.- Yes, I do.
Q.- Did you find this document in the files when you took over Staff W?
A.- I don't recall having seen the document.
Q.- Do you recall having seen the second document, NO-1265, Exhibit 482, which is about the financing of the Osti. That came within jurisdiction didn't it? Did you see this document?
A.- No, I don't believe I did.
Q.- You didn't find this in your files when you took over your job?
A.- When I took over this office, after all I couldn't go through ail the files. It was absolutely impossible.
Q.- Will you turn over to about the 5th document in the book, NO-1269 on page 16 of the German Book, Exhibit 484.
It's about Osti and financing. Do you remember seeing this document?
A.- Yes, I do.
Q.- And this was addressed to Mellmer. Did you have very many conferences with Mellmer?
A.- No, I didn't. I had only been there for a very short while and I didn't know all the connections and what the work was like and I only signed the things that had been drawn up by Dr. Horn.
THE PRESIDENT: You are talking about Exhibit 484?
MR. ROBBINS: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that appear to be signed by this witness?
MR. ROBBINS: Yes, I think so. It's on page 15, the note to Hauptsturmfuehrer Mellmer.
THE PRESIDENT: The document that I have as Exhibit 484 is dated the 17th of August, it is from Horn addressed to the WVHA.
MR. ROBBINS: There are two letters, I see, Your Honor, that make up that exhibit. The second one is Baier's note to Mellmer.
THE PRESIDENT: Still a part of the Exhibit?
MR. ROBBINS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
Q.- You didn't try to inform yourself about this matter by reading the files on Osti, did you. You said you were completely unfamiliar with it.
A.- I had all those things reported to me.
Q.- Did anyone report to you a bout the utilization of clothing from the Ghetto in Warsaw?
A.- No.
Q.- Or about the utilization of foreign currency?
A.- Here they are speaking of foreign currency. They are speaking of Zloty.
Q.- You knew that these came from the East, didn't you? You knew that this was connected with the Reinhardt Fund, did you not?
A.- No, no, that was not known to me. After all, I had only been there for three weeks and I knew nothing about all those things and nothing is mentioned here about the Reinhardt Fund.
Q.- You told us that you discussed the Reinhardt Fund with Frank and Frank told us you asked him about the nature of the fund. You remember that?
A.- Yes, indeed, I do, in connection with the 30,000,000 RM credit.
Q.- What did Frank tell you when you asked him about the source of the Reinhardt Fund?
A.- I didn't have any conversations with Frank about the details. I didn't ask him about the origin. I only asked him if the name Reinhardt Fund was to be entered, and he said it has nothing to do with it.
Q.- I want to ask you if you saw Fischer's report, auditing report, on the liquidation of the Osti, which is -
A.- I don't know if I saw it or not.
Q.- It is on page 65 of your book. It's Document NO-1271, Exhibit 491. Do you have it in front of you?
A.- Yes, I do. I said before, I don't believe I saw it before, because this order quite apparently was issued by Horn directly to Fischer, who was in my Auditing Department.
Q.- This was during your time and you have been telling us for two days that you were just an auditor. Now this is something that comes within your scope of work. You mean to say you were the Chief Auditor here and did not see an important report like this on auditing? Do you expect us to believe that?
A.- Well, this is not an auditing report, which came from the Auditing Department. I read the reports from the Auditing Department, but this report is one that was drawn up by an auditor with whom I had nothing to do officially.
He was the one who drew it up.
Q.- You checked auditing reports from the Osti Industry, didn't you? That was part of your job, apart from this document.
A.- No, I didn't check the auditing reports.
Q.- Witness, I want to ask you if you recall this question and answer from your interrogation on the 14th of October, 1946:
"Question: When did you audit the balance sheets of the Osti for the first time?
"Answer: In 1943, that was the first key day set to draw up a balance sheet since my being in office.
"Was this the first, second, or third annual balance sheet of the Osti?
"Answer: It might have been the third or the fourth."
A.- Well, I assume it was the fourth.
Q.- Well, then, you did check the auditing, the audits and balance sheets of this industry?
A.- I am sorry, Mr. Prosecutor, but the balances are not auditing reports. The balance is nothing but a computation of figures and at that time it had been the fourth, I presume, according to my recollection. It was after the Osti had expired, so to say. That is to say at the time of the liquidation, I did see the liquidation balances. All the values were contained and the debts, in detail. That is correct.
Q.- I would like to show you a document and see if this refreshes your memory as to whether you received reports on liquidations. This is Document NO-1264, and I will mark it as Prosecution Exhibit 598. It is dated the 10th of March, 1944. Did you receive this letter, witness? And this is a report by Horn to you on certain phases of the liquidation of Osti, is it not?
A.- Yes, that is correct. It is a letter dated the 10th of March, 1944, and it deals with the liquidation and liquidation balances.
Q.- But you still say you weren't completely informed about the liquidation of Osti. How is it that you -- how can you explain the fact that you didn't receive Fischer's most important report on this matter. Do you have any explanation for that?
A.- I can only explain this matter by the fact that Herr Dr. Horn had probably passed on the order directly to Fischer, because Dr. Horn himself was an auditor; so was Dr. Fischer; so that actually he wanted to have him there personally.
Q.- Will you look at Paragraph 3 of this letter that I have just handed you. Didn't you tell us that the SS industries had nothing to do with the Litzmannstadt Ghetto? Will you tell us what this connection is that is referred to in Paragraph 3, tools and equipment of the Lublin plant are to be turned over by the Litzmannstadt Ghetto on the evaluations of the balance sheets, etc.
A.- From Paragraph 3 you can only see it was a regular sale of a business enterprise because it is stated there that they are taking over all the valuations of the balance sheet. Probably the purchase conditions or the terms had as yet not been fixed. It was nothing but a regular sale to the Ghetto administration.
Q.- I want to ask you about one other matter on this complex, and that deals with your trip to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. This report is Document NO-519, Exhibit 490, on Page 44 of the German book. You told us that you opposed the conversion of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto into a concentration camp. Now, I ask you this, Witness, didn't you know at the time that the issue that was presented there was this, the following? I think it is perfectly clear from the document: First, whether or not the Ghetto was to be converted into a concentration camp or, on the other hand, that the Jews in the Ghetto were to be taken out, the Ghetto destroyed, and the Jews exterminated. It is perfectly clear that is what happened from the documents. I ask you, didn't you know that was the issue that you were asked to advise upon?
A.- Not at all.
Q.- Will you look at the document, the letter that was sent to you by Greiser from Posen, dated the 14th of February, 1944, on page 59 of the English text, and it is part of this same document. Do you have it?
A.- Yes, I do.
Q.- Do you see the paragraph marked "A"? Greiser says that he has arranged the following with Himmler after you and Volk had reported against turning the Ghetto into a concentration camp.
First the personnel of the Ghetto will be reduced to a minimum and retain only the number of Jews essential to the interests of the armament industry, and third, the reduction will be carried through by the Sonderkommando which already had prior activities in the Gau. The Reichsfuehrer-SS will give orders to withdraw this Sonderkommando from its mission in Galicia and again place them at the disposal of the Gau Wartheland. After removal of all Jews from the Ghetto and following the dissolution of it, the entire grounds of the Ghetto will go to the town of Litzmannstadt. You received this report, didn't you?
A.- This report is dated the 14th of February and is addressed to Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, the defendant, and not to me. That report came in after the trip to Litzmannstadt and our order had been taken care of, and our mission had been completed rather.
Q.- A copy of it was sent to you, wasn't it? You can see that from the document.
A.- As far as I can recall, after the conclusion of all these things all the matters, all the information was given me by Pohl so that we could put it in the files. I don't believe having read that, nor do I believe having taken notice of it. Furthermore, it was something on which I would not have been able to exert any influence oven if I had read it, and I don't believe that it actually occurred and happened.
Q.- I am just asking you, Witness, if you received a copy of this letter? It is addressed to Pohl, copy to Baier, and copy to Volk.
A.- I did receive a copy.
Q.- And what do you think that this referred to "Reduction of the Ghetto will be carried out by the Sonderkommando who will be withdrawn from Galicia."
A.- I don't know that.
Q.- Did you think about it at all?
A.- If I had read it at the time, which I couldn't tell you for sure, then I imagine I thought and I said to myself that in spite of that no change was to occur; in spite of the fact that no change would occur the Reichsfuehrer-SS had given orders to make the camp much smaller and to take the Jews somewhere else.
Q.- Witness, I want to go on through another matter. You haven't told us all that you know about medical experiments, have you, about inmates and about medical experiments being carried out on inmates?
A.- According to my opinion, yes.
Q.- Let me refresh your memory. Do you remember anything about hormone experiments? You haven't told us anything about that?
A.- One named Dr. Vaernet had made hormone experiments with the Deutsche Heilmittel G.m.b.h. That is known to me.
Q.- What else do you know about it?
A.- He was trying to find a technical way of manufacturing it, and in medical matters he was immediately and directly in connection with the Reichsphusician-SS.
Q.- But you didn't have anything to do with the experiments. Didnot you know anything about that, is that right?
A.- I had nothing to do with the medical experiments.
Q.- You didn't know that they were carried out on inmates?
A.- It was only known to me that the Reichsfuehrer had the intention to secure their homosexuality with the results of this hormone experiment. He carried out experiments for months and months in order to make those experiments.
Q.- You didn't know that inmates were used in these experiments?
A.- I can't recall having known that.
Q.- I would like to show you a few documents that I think will help you recall. First I would like to show you Document 2193, which I will mark as Prosecution's Exhibit 599. This is your signature on this note, is it not?
A.- Yes, it is.
Q.- And in this note you report to Pohl that Poppendick - that on the occasion of a conference with Poppendick at the office of Himmler about the research of von Kennel, Vaernet, who were engaged in hormone research, was introduced to you. I would like to show you another docu ment which I think will further refresh your recollection. This is NO-2193, and I will mark it as Prosecution's Exhibit 600. Is this letter of 23 February, 1944, signed by you?
A.- Yes, that is correct/
Q.- And who has signed the letter of the 17th of February, 1945?
A.- That was Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Hoffmann.
Q.- I want to show you another document in this series and ask you to identify it.
A.- This is Document NO-2195 which I will mark Prosecution's Exhibit 601. Have you seen this letter before from Reichs? Do you remember this letter, Witness? It talks about the experiments being carried out on the inmates. You don't recall this?
A.- I don't believe I do. I forgot about it, I believe, but now that I am reading it again, and I see the other documents also, I see it is addressed to me. It indicates -- I couldn't tell you if I actually received it or not.
Q.- Let me show you this handwritten note on the bottom of the document and see if that refreshes your recollection.
A.- Yes, I did receive the letter.
Q.- That is your handwritten comment on it, isn't it saying, "The points mentioned in the above letter were discussed in Prague between Dr. Vaernet and the two managers of the German Medicine Company.
A.- Yes, that is my notation, it is true?
Q.- Do you see the first part of the letter which was sent to you which says that inmates were being experimented upon?
A: Yes, they are speaking of preparations.
Q: You didn't know that these experiments were carried out, and that inmates died from this, did you? That didn't come to your knowLedge, I suppose?
A: No, I didn't know that inmztes died.
Q: You heard Dr. Kogon tell about the results of this experiment, didn't you? Do you recall that?
A: Yes, I heard that.
Q: I should like to go on quickly to another matter and ask you to identify this document which I am handing you, NO-3771, which I will mark as Prosecution Exhibit 602. This is about payment for the use of concentration camp inmates in Holland. Did you receive this letter?
A: This letter came in to Staff W. That is correct. In any case, I didn't have knowledge of this letter.
Q: Did you know about payments for a concentration camp Herzogenbusch?
A: No, that is absolutely new to me, and I don't believe I dealt with it. In any case, I can't recall having done so.
Q: You can't give us any information at all about the subject matter here?
A: Yes, I can.
Q: Please do.
A: This is a letter by which the Augleichskasse (Clearing treasury) is informed that ten percent of the inmates' wages -- or rather compensation, it says "wages" here, -- are transferred to the clearing office. And the amount is 1,188.80 Guilders.
Q: And this was a matter which was handled by your Staff, wasn't it?
A: Yes, that clearing treasury was in the Staff.
Q: I want to show you another document and ask you to identify it. It is NO-3766, which I will mark as Prosecution Exhibit 603. This is about the evacuation of SS industries in Lublin and Lemberg. Can you tell us who signed this letter the 19th of October, 1944?
A: I don't know this.
Q: You know the signature?
A: No, I just said I don't know the signature. It is some Unter-Sturmfuehrer, apparently from Office W-4. It should be a doctor.
Q: Do you know anything about the contents of this letter? Did you have knowledge of its subject matter? You knew they were evacuating these plants in Lublin and Lemberg in October, 1944, didn't you?
A: This became known to me, it can be assumed, particularly with reference to the Russian front which was approaching, and the factories were evacuated slowly. I don't know when it was. I really don't know the correct date but -
Q: Excuse me, were you going to say something?
A: Yes. This letter was probably sent from Office W-4 to the agency in Cracow. It could not possibly have gone through Staff W.
Q: Let me show you another document, and ask you if this tells you any more about it. This is NO-3765 which I will mark as Prosecution Exhibit 604. It is about the same subject matter -
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Mr. Robbins, what is 603?
MR. ROBBINS: I have NO-3766 as 603. Does that check with the Secretary-General? And for 604, 3765.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q: Can you tell us anything about this letter, witness?
A: This is also a letter which is a correspondence between Office W-4 and within Office W-4. This is also shown by the initials -- by the signature, rather. It is signed by Dr. H. But actually Staff W had nothing to do with this matter.
Q: Do you know that prisoners of war were employed in these plants, as the letter says?
A: No, I didn't.
Q: You dealt with personnel problems of the SS industries,didn't you? Wasn't that part of your job?
A: No, it was not.
DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for defendant Baier): May it please Your Honor, for technical reasons I would appreciate it if the last few exhibits be compared again. I am not in a position so far to remember all those exhibit numbers in the correct manner.
I have Document 3765, and it is marked as Exhibit Number 604.
THE PRESIDENT: That is right.
DR. FRITSCH: Then Document 3766 marked as Exhibit 604 also -- which is a mistake, of course.
THE PRESIDENT: Six-zero-three.
DR. FRITSCH: Thank you very much; that is all.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Do you remember making this statement to the interrogator on the 14th of October, '46? "I was in charge of personnel questions, salaries, establishing and examining of calculations, plant accounts, and other problems of business management generally."
A: Yes. When we did auditing work in the Auditing Department we all had to deal with questions which referred to wage scales and salary questions of the employees.
That is part of the auditing.
Q: But it didn't come to your attention that prisoners of war were employed in these plants in Lublin? Just yes or no. You can answer that briefly.
A: No, I can't remember that.
Q: Witness, will you tell us why it was that the defendant Klein left the WVHA in his Office W-8?
A: The defendant Klein left Office W-8 upon Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl's orders. He was released.
Q: Give us the reason please.
A: The reason was an auditing report which was submitted to Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. The Auditing Department wrote that auditing report, and I was in charge of that Auditing Department. That is the way it was. Is that sufficient?
Q: Is that all you can say about it?
A: I could give you a lot more. Do you want me to say some more?
Q: It was not because of any embezzlement or irregularities in his work, was it?
A: When auditing we did find irregularities which, however, for the largest part, were due to his employees, but he was responsible for it, and all those things were compiled in that report and Pohl took note of it.
Q: And that was the reason he was discharged, wasn't it?
A: The moment I heard about it, yes.
Q: It wasn't because he asked for a transfer to the front, was it?
A: That was something that had nothing to do with it.
After all, if a soldier is to go to the front line, then I imagine he will receive the order to go to the front line.
Q: It wasn't because he was opposed to National Socialism, was it?
A: At the time, I knew nothing about it.
Q: You knew, didn't you, that he was a very ardent Party member?
A; I knew Klein too little to be able to estimate that. I couldn't tell you. I had no personal relationship with Klein with the exception of those official ones.
Q: Can you tell us the reason why Hohberg left his position?
A: Mr. Prosecutor, I couldn't tell you that. It would be a hypothetical answer. After all, I arrived months after Dr. Hohberg had left, and I really didn't know the man. During my official activity I only saw him there on two occasions, and then very briefly. By merely studying the files it was not possible to gain an impression of the whole matter. I don't even know him today.
Q: You didn't learn that the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Economics had ordered that another auditor take over the work, as Karoli told us an the stand? Can you confirm or --
A: All those things which Karoli testified to here as a witness were somewhat known to me; not very clearly because, after all, I was not a legal man nor was I a certified auditor, so that I really was not too clear about the entire idea. I couldn't gain a clear impression nor did I gain it.
But that certain things were going on -- in other words, that there were certain rumors in the air I heard from hearsay.
THE PRESIDENT: A good stopping point, Mr. Robbins? We will have a recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes. (A recess was taken).
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Witness, did you learn at any time about any property of any kind that was operated or used in any way -- (interruption) Witness, did you hear or learn at any time about property of any kind that was operated or used in any way by the Amtsgruppe W, or any of the industries affiliated with Amtsgruppe W, which property had been taken without compensation from foreign nationals?
AAll the properties of Office Group W, as far as I know, were appropriated through payments. If before that they were seized, I don't know.
Q Appropriated through what?
AAll the property in Office Group W -- that is to say that it belonged to the various enterprises, had been purchased. Just what happened to the previous owner, I can not tell you.
Q You don't know of any instance where the owner was not compensated, is that what you are testifying?
A Yes, after all, we would have discovered that when we did our auditing work, with the exception of the Reich. In the year 1943 or the year 1944, when I checked the balance sheets I found out that made certain services available gratuitously which later on were paid to the Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: Paid to the Reich?
MR. ROBBINS: I think that is what he said.
WITNESS: Yes, paid to the Reich.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q What about the owners, foreign nationals, were they paid?
A I assume that they were paid. I don't know of any case, at least during the time I worked there, when any property was taken away from a foreigner without receiving compensation for it.
Q You don't think for a moment, do you, that the property that was operated by OSTI which had been taken from the Jews was paid for ... you didn't think that, did you?
A Oh, yes, the OSTI purchased every property, which it administered. And that was listed in the balance sheets.
Q And you believe that the Jews were paid for the property?
A I was not able to look into that matter at the time. I was unable to see that at the time. However, I knew that confiscations took place generally in the East.
Q You told us that the firm Getewent was not under the control of the SS. I would like to show you a document which is NO-4253. I don't have the translation on it here. I would like to ask you if you can tell from this document whether or not that testimony is correct. Is this your signature on the letter?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Doesn't it say that Himmler has authorized Pohl to take over the company?
A Yes, that intention existed. However, this enterprise was never actually taken over until the end of the war.
Q When did that occur?
A That was in January 1944. However, this enterprise was not taken over until the end of the war.
Q When was that? January 1944 it was taken over?
A Yes, it was in January 1944.
Q You told us a while ago that it was not affiliated with the SS, and it was not an SS industry? Let's go onto another matter, witness. Are there any other medical experiments that you learned about?
A I don't know.
Q Did you hear about any experiments with poisonous foods?
A Not within my official sphere.
Q I did not ask you if it was within your field of task. I asked you if you heard about the experiments?
A No.
Q Did you hear about any kind of food experiments?
A I heard of food experiments. I knew that certain canned foods were produced for troops. However, that was strictly a military matter.
Q You did not hear about any experiments on inmates in that connection?
A No, I did not hear anything about it.
Q You did not hear about any other experiment of any kind on concentration camp inmates?
A No.
MR. ROBBINS: I should like to mark the document that I have just shown the witness, NO-2453, as Exhibit No. 605. I shall have it translated and copied in German.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Witness, when you had the conversation with Pohl in March 1937. prior... Witness, did you say that you had heard about other medical experiments, or that you had not heard about it?
A In 1937?
Q No, at any time, did you hear about any other experiments on concentration camp inmates that you have not told us about?
A I don't know of any other ones.
Q When you had the conversation with Pohl in March 1937. did you arrange for an appointment with Pohl, or, did he ask you to come and see him. You remember that conference that you had?
AAs I have already stated in my testimony before, I had never corresponded or talked to Pohl about these things. After all we were separated from each other, and one day unexpectedly I received a letter from him. However, before that time I did not discuss the matter with him.
Q You remember the conference you had in March 1937 with Pohl that you told us about. You know what conference I am talking about, don't you?
A In 1937?
Q Well, before you joined the SS?
A In March 1937? Yes. Yes, it is possible that I went to see Pohl at the time. However, I can not recall it at the moment. In March 1937?
Q Well, at the time you discussed your joining the SS, being transferred to the SS?
A No. However, I heard about that before. I heard about it all in the Fall of 1936 in writing.
Q What was the letter that you received in 1936?
A It was a handwritten letter in which Pohl informed me that he needed a man to be in charge of the SS Administrative School, which he intended to establish. Since he considered me a good teacher, he wanted to have me transferred from the Navy to the SS-Verfuegungstrupue. He asked if I agreed with that transfer.