Q.- In this time of your involuntary leisure did you come to think about political questions? Were you a member of any Party at all?
A.- Yes. In 1928 I joined the Bayerische Volkspartei, the Bavarian People's Party. In 1931 I left the Party and on the 1st of November 1931, I joined the National Socialist Party.
Q.- Did you at that time also join the SS?
A.- Yes, I did. Inspite of my efforts, I could not find a jog. Then, in June 1932, a friend of mine, Max Humbs, who had a full-time job with the SS, came to me and offered me a job in the department of the Office I-1. I accepted this offer gladly. At that time, I had heard or seen hardly anything of the SS. During this activity I became acquainted with the ideals and the aims of the SS. I became very enthusiastic about them, and I applied for membership in the SS which was not very easy at that time, as I was limping, and the SS only accepted completely healthy people, but my application was accented, and approximately in November, 1932, I became a voluntary member of the SS.
Q.- At that time were you an enthusiast in military matters, the aims of warfare?
A.- No, I was never a militarist, since I had been into war and sustained a series of wounds and I had enough of it. I was mainly interested in the construction work from nothing.
Q.- Did you have any hobbies?
A.- Before my wound I was an active sportsman. I indulged in quite a number of sports, and I achieved quite good results, too, but through my wound this field did not exist any longer for me. However, I had a great love for nature and plants, and I used all my spare time to climb mountains.
Q.- What was your attitude toward women: were you married?
A.- I married late when I was forty. That was on the last day of peace, the 31st bf August, 1939.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Is there an association between the fact that was the last day of peace and his getting married?
DR. HAENSEL: Yes, indeed. The effects of a marriage are difficult to judge, Your Honor.
BY DR, HAENSEL:
Q.- Well, then let's now leave your curriculum vitae for the time and let us turn to your field of work. Tell the Tribunal briefly what positions you held before 1939.
A.- In May, 1933, I was transferred to the Administration Office of the SS. I was employed first in the FM department, In December, 1939, I received from my chief, Oberfuehrer Schneider, the order to open a clothing department.
Q.- Were you transferred then into the Special Task Troops?
A.- Yes, On the 1st of Aprils, 1936, I was officially transferred to the Special Task Troops as Obersturmfuehrer. I signed the contract in which I pledged myself to serve the Reich until I was 45 years of age.
Q.- Were you an active leader of a Sturm, or what did you do in the Special Task Troops?
A.- As I said, before, I was only active in the Administration.
Q.- What did this task consist of, administration of the Death Head Units?
A.- Yes.
Q.- What else?
A.- Clothing. First of all was clothing for the Special Task Troops which had to be supplied and put at their disposal, and from 1936 an additional task to clothing of the Death Head Units was the clothing of the inmates of the concentration camps.
Q.- Witness, you say that you dealt with clothing in addition to the Death Head Units also for the inmates of the concentration camps. Do we have to understand by that you supplied it to every individual inmate, or how was it?
A.- No. The Inspectorate of the concentration camps sent us its report yearly, or every half year. These supplies were bought and put at the disposal of the concentration camps. The individual camps were responsible for the clothing of the individual inmates.
Q.- We have now arrived at the beginning of 1939. What change did this year bring about in the event of war? What change did it bring about for you?
A.- In May, 1939, I was transferred to Berlin, and I was put in charge of Office I of Budget and Construction.
Q.- Could you tell us in order to clarify this how this Office SS Budget and Construction was organized?
A.- The Office Budget and Construction consisted of two departments : 1 was Budget, and the other, 2, was Construction.
Q.- That is where the strange name is derived from. Was Office I-1 subordinated to you?
A.- Yes, I was its chief.
Q.- And the Main Office, Office I within this Main Office, now did that have a number of departments within itself?
A.- Yes.
Q.- Could you tell us something about the main departments in order first to understand the organization of the office, the SS Main Office Budget and Construction.
A.- Office I consisted originally of four main departments, first I-1 Budget, which dealt with the Reich Budget. At that time the budget in 1939/40 had been finished. Four months later the war started. At the beginning of the war the so-called "Open War Budget" came into force about which we have heard so much here. Budget negotiations did not take place at that time. The preliminary auditing department which was mentioned today by Vogt had the only task to carry out the preliminary audits of this office, as for instance clothing stocks and so on. The preliminary auditing of the Waffen SS was carried out in the admi nistrative office of the Waffen SS at the operational Main Office, and the preliminary audit of concentration camps was carried out in the Administrative Office of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps.
Q.- That was I-1, was it?
A.- The next department was I-2 which only dealt with legal matters and purchases of property. I-3, Clothing had the same task as the main department of the Administrative Office SS. The next department was I-4 Accommodations and Billeting which had to deal with the furnishing of billeting and equipment.
In Spring, 1940, Himmler ordered two new main departments to be established which were made Department I-5, Allocation of Labor, which I shall talk about later, and Main Department I-6, Food.
DR. HAENSEL: May I suggest, Your Honor, of these departments which we have heard about, Food and Clothing we shall have to deal with later, and we shall hear much about the Main Offices. We have only to speak about I-5 which is Allocation of Labor, but I do suggest that tomorrow morning we shall start with new energy, and I should suggest that we now would finish with the general subject, be shall then start tomorrow morning with the subject I-5, Allocation of Labor, or would Your Honors like to proceed now?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, wit the utmost reluctance, we will recess now.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 18 June 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 18 June 1947, 0940-1630, Justice Robert M. Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please. The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II. Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the Court.
GEORG LOERNER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
DR. HAENSEL (ATTORNEY FOR GEORG LOERNER): May I please continue with the direct examination of Georg Loerner?
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q: Last night we stopped in the Year of 1940 when we were discussing the MainOffice, Budget and Building. Herr Loerner, I would like to ask you, how did the Main Department 1/5 fall within your field of tasks? I shall show you a chart which the prosecution have submitted as NO-1711, Exhibit 34, in Document Book II. It's on page II of the English Book and 25 in German; Volume II, page 11.
A: Main Department 1/5 came into the Main Office, Budget and Building, on Himmler's orders. The reasons for this are not known to me, but I assume that Himmler wanted thereby to improve the organization of labor allocation.
Q: From when until when did this Main Department 1/5 exist?
A: With best intentions I am unable to give you the precise date. It happened seven years ago. What I do know is this: When this Main Department was being built up a lot of time was spent because at that time the Waffen-SS was being organized and personnel was short. The Main Department was set up mainly in the months of August to December, 1940. It was lead first of all by one man called Sturmbannfuehrer Leckebusch, who left soon afterwards and was replaced by Hauptsturmfuehrer Burboeck. From the beginning I was opposed to taking over this task.
My reasons were:
1. This task did not fit in with our purely administrative task in Office A in any way at all and I had no conception of these things.
2. At that period of time the Waffen-SS was being organized in a very speedy manner which took up a lot of my time in administrative matters. In a very short period of time we had to look after the clothing of five or six new divisions.
The food supply organization was also newly organized at that period of time and that caused me to take a large number of official trips from Berlin. When I tried to work myself into the administrative field which was alien to me before that time, it claimed much of my time, also. And then from the beginning I disliked the work connected with concentration camps. I told Pohl all these reasons at the time and he agreed that I should make an arrangement with Gluecks to have him be in charge unofficially of labor allocation of inmates and that was done no until such a time as we received Himmler's permission for an official transfer. Gluecks, who was highly indignant at that time that he had not been put in charge, grasped this opportunity with both hands and said he was quite happy to take over the task. Burboeck was given an office in Oranienburg and did his work there with Gluecks. He came to see me every four or six weeks to report to me and his main topic was always his personal worries. The work of building up -I should add here first, the official transfer of Department 1/5 to the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps was effected after Himmler's permission, I believe, in September 1941. The building up of this Main Department was done only in the autumn of 1940, which becomes clear from an affidavit submitted by the prosecution of a man called Grimm.
Q: I would like to ask you, Herr Loerner to look at the chart which the Tribunal has in its hands too and please pay attention to Office 1/5 which is in the right corner at the bottom and tell the court what task this Office 1/5 had, according to the chart.
A: I should say a word here about one way these organizational charts where drawn up. Department Chiefs and Main Department Chiefs at that time had these little organizational squares which they filled with as many tasks as possible in order to thereby demonstrate the importance of their tasks and show how indispensable they were. If today I see on this plan under "Special Tasks" "Breeding of Rabbits" I am inclined to smile a little. The few hundred rabbits which we had at that time were certainly not worthwhile to have a special square on the organizational chart. This breeding of rabbits was based on a Goering order which he had issued from the four year plan that all units of the armed forces on the barracks squares and so forth had to breed rabbits in order to meet the demand for raw materials for the clothing of the Luftwaffe.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Haensel, you called the witness' attention to Office 1/5.
DR. HAENSEL: 1/5. Why do you ask?
THE PRESIDENT: Then you said it was in the lower right corner of the chart.
DR. HAENSEL: Right, right.
INTERPRETER: It is a different chart.
The chart is now in the Tribunal's hands. You spoke about 1/5, and we heard what field of tasks were part of 1/5. You also mentioned Philipp Grimm. Philipp Grimm turns up in Volume 11 page 24 of the German version and on page 11 of the English text. Volume, 11, page 11, NO-2126. From that document which is an affidavit by Philipp Grimm, I put this to you, witness: Philipp Grimm describes how he in 1940 joined the SS Main Office Budget and Building, Department 1/5 and he reported to Georg Loerner in Berlin. He went from Berlin to Flossenbuerg and he says there and I quote:
"Meanwhile I was to work in the Main Office, Budget and Building, Department 1/5. The Chief of that office at that time was Sturmbannfuehrer Leckebusch. As far as I know, the agency Main Office 1/5 at that time was just being organized and it was impossible to look at once into matters. Therefore, I went to Weimar-Buchenwald and took up my duties on i October 1940. In Buchenwald I found nothing at all which had anything to do with labor allocation. There were many reports that there was no plan. Work was done in a haphazard manner and this was confirmed to me all the more when I reported to Standartenfuehrer Koch who was then the commandant and that was a superior who was highly jealous. His welcoming words were: "Don't think that because you came from Berlin you can create a muddle here and you have to observe my orders very strictly and carry them out."
That was Grimm. What was your impression of the labor allocation as it was done by your office at that time?
Q That work at that time practically was nothing at all. At the time I estimate that the figure of inmates amounted to about 25,000 men, a total of 25,000 men in the camps. The majority of those inmates were busy building up the camps and were working in some work shops which belonged to the camps so that a real labor allocation was not in effect at that moment.
Q Have you any conception whether among those roughly 20,000 inmates in concentration camps in 1940 there were any foreigners among them or were they only people who were either Germans or who lived in Germany?
AAt that time it was my opinion and I believe that corresponded to the fact and has been charged meanwhile that at that time there were in the camps only Germans who somehow or other had something on their conscience. They had committed some offense, either in the criminal sense or because they were opposed to the State in the political sense. It was my idea that those inmates in concentration camps had been committed there in the place of a normal judicial procedure. In any case at that time there were no foreign inmates in the concentration camps.
Q Do you still recall when Sauckel became the Chief of labor allocation? When was that?
A Well we heard about this quite often. I think it must have been roughly in March 1942.
Q A year later, in other words?
A Yes.
Q Do you happen to remember that in the IMT Trial the Sauckel complex was an important one?
A I heard about that, yes.
Q I am now referring to the verdict of the IMT, one about the Sauckel question and also Chapter 7, concerning slave labor. The documents shown there proved beyond doubt that the influx of foreign workers started only in 1942, perhaps in 1941, after the Russian campaign -- in any case in that period of time before the opening of the Russian campaign. Grimm has also signed another affidavit which the prosecution submitted and I will now give you an opportunity to comment on this question. In Document Book 16, page 20, of the German text, it is Exhibit 429, NO-1972, Document Book 16, page 20 of the German text. I do not know the English page. This is a report by Grimm.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait until we find the book, please.
DR. HAENSEL: 16.
THE PRESIDENT: What exhibit, please?
DR. HAENSEL: Exhibit 429. It is not signed, but it is by Grimm. The name "Grimm" does not appear on the document.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: We have one.
Q In that document, which is dated 21 May 1941, it says with reference to the above letters concerning concentration camps, Main Department 1/5, Department Buchenwald, requests a report about those inmates who are working on certain sites and thereby cannot be released immediately should a release be under consideration. Do you know that document and what to you wish to say?
A. I know that document. This document merely gives my opinion which I expressed at that time, that inmates, once they had served their term, should be released.
Q. The prosecution has also submitted a document in Volume XI, on page 106, Exhibit 313. It is on page 103 of the English version in Document Book XI, NO-2105, Exhibit 313. Do you have that document, witness?
A. Yes.
Q. As this is a fairly lengthy document. I do not wish to quote from it, but I'd like to hear your comments.
A. I do not know this letter. Certainly I cannot remember having read it at any time. I believe with certainty that I would undoubtedly remember it had I see it before. But it is interesting to note the reference there. Reference is made to an order by the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, which proves that such orders, which actually should have been issued by the Main Office Building and Budget if it had anything to do with labor allocation of inmates, came even then, all of them, from the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. The reason for this was that the commandants of concentration camps at that time recognized only the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps as their superior office and sabotaged any orders issued by us.
Q. Then we can now leave the Complex 15.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Haensel, our document book shows this Exhibit 313 bearing the date 13 December 1943. That is not right?
DR. HAENSEL: No, no, it should be 1940.
THE PRESIDENT: This was before WVHA was established.
DR. HAENSEL: That date is not correct. We are now concerned with the period 1940 and 1941. For the record I should like to correct that document in Book XI on page 11, Exhibit 313, NO-2105. This must be corrected in the English translation so that it shows the date of 13 December 1940.
THE PRESIDENT: That correction has been made.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. Thus we leave the topic 15, and we shall now turn to the WVHA. When did you join that office?
A. When it was established, on the 1st of February, 1942.
Q. What, speaking quite generally, was the main field of task of the WVHA?
A. The WVHA was the highest administrative authority of the Waffen SS and to a lesser degree of the Allgemeine SS.
Q. Did you, as far as the tasks of that office were concerned, have anything to do with the confiscation of Jewish property in any sense of the word?
A. Good Lord, no, in no sense of the word. We did not know a thing about this problem.
Q. Did the office ever control and supervise property which came from Jewish possessions?
A. Yes, once through the order by the Reichsfuehrer, the purely economic side of the Reinhardt Action.
Q. Where otherwise did the money come from which the WVHA administered?
A. The money came from the Reich and to a lesser degree from the Allgemeine SS and the Party.
Q. Were these large sums?
A. Oh, yes. They grew from year to year as the Waffen SS grew, and the sums became very considerable.
Q. Do you still recall the Reinhardt Action which has been mentioned so frequently here? What was the highest sum which we should concern ourselves with here?
A. I did not know that at the time, but from the documents it becomes clear that it amounted to about 150 or 200 million marks.
Q. How high do you think the Jewish property was, such as could be administered in Germany?
A. I did not know that at the time but I heard here that should amount to about seven billions.
Q. That would, be a proportion of about one to seventeen, would it not?
A. Yes.
Q. Among the documents submitted by the prosecution there is a document in Volume XVIII on page 182 of the German text and 157 of the English text, Exhibit 481, NO-275. This is an order by the Chief of the SS WVHA, dated 19 December 1943. Can you give us your brief comments on this, witness?
A. How I read that order was that the SS, as far as it had anything to do with these things at all, was to transfer and hand over these values to the Reich immediately. That was the impression which I gained at the time.
Q. You wish to say, witness, in order to sum up briefly, that the administration of Jewish property was not up to the WVHA?
A. No, it was not.
Q. But you were concerned with textiles, were you not?
A. Yes, that was part of my duties, to evaluate textiles.
Q. Now, how were you worked in within the WVHA? I'm now talking about your position as Chief of Office Group B. How was that in relationship to the WVHA?
A. Before speaking in detail about the duties of Office Group B. I should like to say this. I was Chief of Office Group B from the moment it was established until the collapse. It is a matter of course, but I should like to emphasize again, that I, as chief of that office group, take full responsibility for anything that office group did or did not do. I feel myself fully responsible for anything and everything which the members of that office group did following their orders and their duty and pursuant to my orders.
Q. If we wanted to have a title for B, it would be the much-used term "troop administration". Do you think that is correct?
A. That designation is not really correct. It came from Himmler's fondness for the word "administration", which we always came across within our organization.
A much better designation for Office Group B would have been "supply organization", because the main task of Office Group B was the supply of goods.
Q. Now, what did you supply? Let us talk about the various offices into which you Office Group B was subdivided at the various periods of time.
A. Office Group B consisted of these offices: B I, food; B II, clothing; B III, quarters and accommodation; B IV, war materials and deliveries; B V, transportation. Office B IV was dissolved on 1 January 1944 as its tasks had completely vanished inasmuch as the highest agencies had taken over all supply problems. The remaining tasks were allocated to offices B I and II. Office B V was established only on 1 October 1942.
Q. Now, let us talk about B I. What was B I? What were its tasks?
A. B I had the task of looking after the feeding of the Waffen SS and the regular police units in the Reich. The feeding of units at the front was done by the army organization.
Q. In other words, you mean to put the food at the disposal of the Waffen SS, furnish the Waffen SS with the food. Did you in that function have the title "Highest Food Chief"?
A. No, that title was never used by me, nor did I come across it throughout my service with the Waffen SS. To be justified in having that title, I would have had to have these tasks also: first, to feed all the units at the front; second, to feed all concentration camp inmates; third, to supervise that administration of food. Fourthly, the food inspector would have had to be under me.
Q What offices were under your jurisdiction? B-1 is a ministerial agency, is it not? Now, how did that connect up with the provincial authorities?
A Under B-1 there were, in order to help it carry out its task, the main economy storage camps which were under the district concerned and they had two to four troop warehouses. B-1 was also in charge of two or three training kitchens.
Q When you say warehouses for troops do you mean, for instance, in your letters it is called HWL and TWL. That was the official abbreviation. I would suggest that we better avoid these mathematical and algebraic abbreviations in order to have everything quite clear.
What were the practical tasks which these warehouses had?
A These warehouses had the task to call in the supplies from the firms, store them and deliver to the troops in accordance with the orders from the OKH.
Q That one might call in the army a food supply office?
A Yes.
Q And what any army in the whole world does in the same manner?
A Yes, quite.
Q Would you perhaps give us the figure: how many main warehouses and troop warehouses were there?
A We had six main warehouses and roughly 20 or 25 troop warehouses which, of course, varied from time to time.
Q Were concentration camp inmates working in these warehouses?
A In some of them, yes. In some of them prisoners of war worked from the nearest prisoner of war camp and also civilian workers.
Q Was that work liked by the inmates or not?
A It is quite obvious that sort of work was among the most popular ones. Even prisoners of war liked to work in warehouses. I know that myself from my own experience when I was a prisoner of war, that SS men always liked to work in U.S. Quartermaster stores. They preferred it to any other type of work.
Q As you are unlucky enough to be defended by me
A I always told my subordinate that they should act on this proverb: "You must not tie the ox' mouth which is doing the work."
DR. HAENSEL: That is a quotation of a little proverb.
THE PRESIDENT: This is an English parallel: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you." "Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg."
DR. HAENSEL: Yes, yes. The parallel of the ox comes from the Bible. It is one of Solomon's sayings.
THE PRESIDENT: A proverb of Solomon?
DR. HAENSEL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought for a moment it came from Shakespeare.
(Laughter)
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q We were talking about food and the warehouses. Who was supplied by your warehouses?
AAs I said before, Waffen-SS units, including guard personnel in concentration camps and the regular police who lived in barracks in the home country.
Q Now, the question must be raised: Who was not supplied by them?
A We did not supply from those warehouses the front line units of the Waffen-SS and the inmates of concentration camps.
Q Where did the food come from? How did it reach the warehouses?
A The actual food, some of it came from the army supply offices; other items came from the deliveries made by the OKH.
Q Did you have any PX goods for the Waffen SS?
A Yes. That was also our duty. For that purpose we had a central PX which was officially called Main Warehouse No. 2, Berlin.
Q Now, did people who were not actually justified in being supplied with these things get PX goods from you?
A Yes, only too often. In that respect Taschentscher and I had too many requests to deal with.
Q How many people did you have to supply altogether?
A Roughly 950,000 or a million.
Q Now, let us talk about the question as to what B-1 had to do with the feeding of concentration camps. How could you sum that up?
A I can say briefly that B-1 had nothing to do with the feeding of concentration camp inmates.
Q When concentration camp inmates were being fed they must first of all deliberate on the question who was it who decided how much an inmate was allowed to eat?
A That decision of food rations was effected exclusively by the Reich Ministry of Food.
Q My document book, unfortunately, has not been translated yet, but I would like to take the liberty of reading from it. It is Georg Loerner, Exhibit No. 1, a copy from the transcript of the IMT of 17 April 1946. In the IMT trial Joachim Riecke was heard. He was Secretary of State in the Reich Ministry of Food and therefore the most important man there. Riecke was asked which is on page 2 of my document - "May I put several questions to the witness, Mr. President?
"Question: Witness, could you give me information about the following question? The workers, the inmates of concentration camps, working in the armament industry, did they get the same rations and additional rations for heavy work such as the heavy workers?
"Answer: During the time when I was concerned with these questions, all inmates, that is, also the concentration camp inmates, got the same ration if they were working; therefore, they should have received the same rations.
"Question: The defendant Speer, or the ministry under his direction, were they competent for the establishment of rations in these industries, provided that the industries were supposed to acquire the ration?
"Answer: No, the ministry was not competent. As far as supply was concerned, the nutrition offices were competent. As far as distribution was concerned, the people in charge of the camps or in charge of the industries."
How, concerning the fixing of rations, I would like to refer to the Document submitted by the Prosecution in Volume V, page 123 in the English text and page 135 in the German text and 2132, Exhibit 114. This is a letter by the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture of 7 April 1942, addressed to the governments of the provinces, and so forth, and I would like you, Herr Loerner, to tell us what this letter is about. I have not got it. The important thing is whose responsibility for the ration is.
A That document shows quite clearly that the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture fixed the rations.
Q Would you please give us the dates once again?
A The Document is of 7 April 1942.
Q Was that a permanent regulation or do you recall that as time went on and as food supplies became shorter and shorter the rations were changed?
A Whenever the rations for the civilian population were changed rations for inmates or persons in concentration camps were also changed. These changes were caused whenever supplies became less and less or increased as in 1942 for instance, and the Reich Ministry was, therefore, compelled to change the rations.
Q Can you see from the document whether an especially unfavorable ration had been fixed for concentration camp inmates?
A No, I can not see that from this document.
Q Concentration camp inmates were dealt with under what column?
A I think it speaks first of all rations for prisoners in prisons, rations for inmates in concentration camps and for those who are located in police prisons.
Q When these rations were decided did you have any part in it?
A No, in no sense at all. They never asked for our opinion nor did I ever have an order to that effect; and, furthermore, no consultation about this was particularly necessary because the Reich Food Ministry could only distribute what it had in its hands and that it did itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, did the Reich Food Ministry have separate warehouses from which to supply concentration camps?
THE WITNESS: No, it did not have that.
THE PRESIDENT: Where did the food come from that went to supply the concentration camps?
A. Mr. President, it was my intention to explain that in great detail now how the food reached the camps.
THE PRESIDENT: I will withdraw my question, Dr. Haensel. You go ahead.
DR. HAENSEL: Perhaps I may borrow that question from you if you give me permission to do so.
THE PRESIDENT: I will give it to you. I won't loan it to you.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. May I once more claim something that is not strictly my own merit and refer to the transcript of 23 May of this year when Pohl was asked by the President, which wasn't answered quite fully but we will answer it now, if a camp commandant in Nordhausen wishes to have a thousand pounds of beans whom does he apply to. Please tell us that.
A. It's like this. The administrative leader of the camp cannot decide that he wants to buy a thousand pounds of beans. What actually happened was this: the food rations were fixed by the Reich Food Ministry for a ration period which was a month. The administrative leader of the concentration camp had these rations in front of him. He knew how many inmates he had under him. In order to keep within this amount of beans let us assume that the ration was 500 grams of beans per week per head. The administrative head now calculates the requirements for a monthly period. That is, assuming the camp has 10,000 inmates. He calculates 10,000 inmates and 500 grams in four weeks, which is the rationing period. That amounts, in this case, to 2,000 grams of beans in this case and in case of 10,000 inmates 20,000 kilos of beans for a period of four weeks. That's what he did before for food items. With that calculation he went to the Civilian Food Office which was competent. There his calculation was examined and he was given for the food ration fixed supply vouchers. For instance, to keep up, for example, he was given a supply voucher for 20,000 kilos of beans. With this voucher he then went to his favorite supply firm, food supply firm in other words, with whom the camp had a long term contract, and he talked it over with that man as to what he could give for his vouchers, what the man had in stock, in other words - he, of course, explaining his wishes that he wanted to have 5,000 kilos of beans, 5,000 kilos of peas, 5,000 kilos of any other vegetable.