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.
The manager told him what he had in store and they came to an agreement that on the basis of his vouchers of 20,000 kilos of string beans what he could supply him and what he could put at the disposal of the administrative leader. The supply was carried out by the firm to the camp and the firm also sent the bill. The camp paid the bill and booked it in its cash book. The food then reached the food storeroom of the concentration camp and it was only then that the administrative leader knew what he had. He drew up his menu for each day and on the basis of that menu the food warehouse supplied daily such food as was available to the kitchen for cooking. That was how things went as far as I can see.
Q. The Pohl question now has been answered. Now, did you have to officially supervise that food supply in accordance with the rations for the various concentration camps?
A. No, that wasn't our task.
Q. You spoke of "our task"; let us be more precise. Let us talk about your task.
A. I always speak of "our" as Chief of Group B.
Q. You speak of yourself or only your people?
A. Yes, only B.
Q. The prosecution has submitted a document in Volume 5 on page 133, Exhibit 143. This is a report by the administration of Concentration Camp Auschwitz of 25 March 1942 and I would like to ask Herr Loerner to give us his comment briefly on that document.
A. This is a letter by the administration of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp addressed to the SS-WVHA Office D-IV Administration, Oranienburg near Berlin. This is written by the expert for food supplies who apparently was not in a position to do things as he should have done.
The whole letter proves only what I have just said, that Office Group B had nothing to do with the supplying of food to concentration camps and that the supervising agency was Office Group D in Oranienburg.
Q. Can you recall any complaints which reached you or might have reached you because in the camps food supplies were not distributed as it should have been done?
A. Such complaints never reached me or B-I.
Q. And you also are of the opinion that it couldn't have reached you at all?
A. If such complaints had reached any agency at all, it would have been Office Group D, which exercised the supervision over the concentration camps.
Q. Who decided the food supply rations for the Waffen-SS which you had to look after?
A. That wasn't our task either. Such rations were decided on by the OKH. Here we see how these things were divided, in the military sector and the civilian sector. The whole of the military sector as all of the supplies consisted of altogether food, and it was up to the OKH, where the civilian sector again in all fields was administered by the Reich ministry concerned and competent. Concentration camp inmates in this case were part of the civilian sector.
Q. Now, how was it in the military sector, that is, with the Waffen-SS, as far as the supervision of the distribution of foods within the unit was concerned, and was that part of your duties?
A. No, that again was not our task. That was a task of the SS Main Operational Office (SS-Fuehrungshauptamt).
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. I would like to ask the witness a question, please. You testified that Office B-I did not furnish the inmates of the concentration camps with food or the front-line troops for the Waffen-SS. That's correct?
A. The Waffen-SS, the front - yes, that's correct.
Q. Well, now, where did the guards of the concentration camps eat their meals?
A. Do you mean, Your Honor, where the food came from?
Q. No. Where did they eat their meals? Did they live at the camp and eat there? The guards?
A. I assume that they had their meals in the barracks where the kitchens were.
Q. Now, you testified that B-I furnished the food for the guards in the concentration camps.
A. Yes.
Q. Well, now, why was it that they were in the camp there - why was it they were not furnished food by the same source that furnished the inmates?
A. That's quite simple, Your Honor. The guard personnel were part of the Waffen-SS and therefore they are part of the military sector. They received their rations as decided on by the OKH for the Waffen-SS and they were supplied by the Troop Administrative Warehouses which were competent in this case.
Q. Although they were right there in the same place as the inmates and ate their food in the camp, their food was furnished from a different source and furnished by your office?
A. Yes, that's quite correct.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. May I ask you in this connection - was the guard personnel in a camp separated from the actual camp where the inmates were?
A. Yes.
Q. Give us a picture of this.
A. The barracks were outside the camp. The guards themselves, as far as I know, never went into the actual protective custody camp. The guards were standing outside the protective custody camps and were billeted in barracks which were outside the concentration camp.
Q. I believe in order to understand this we should very briefly discuss the difference between personnel in the commandant's office and the guards, even including figures.
A. My dear doctor, I am unable to tell you anything about this. I am unable to do so - what the proportion of numbers was between those two types.
Q. Don't think that you have to make a statement of these figures under oath but it's my impression that this Tribunal should be told in one brief sentence that a camp is sub-divided into, first, the actual inmates, two, the guard personnel which is thrown around the inmates and never went into the actual camp and, thirdly, a small number of men which looked after law and order in the camp itself.
A. The actual protective custody camp, as far as I know, was visited only by the personnel working in the commandant's office. The sentries and such were outside the protective custody camp and they were used to guard the working detachments.
Q. Can one never conceive it from an organizational/viewpoint that the guard personnel had their meals outside the camp in completely different rooms from the small number of men who were in the camp itself?
A. Yes, that's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: One question, Dr. Haensel.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Were the guards who were inside the actual camp and who mingled with the inmates - were they military or civilian guards?
A. That was personnel working in the commandant's office and they were military personnel.
Q. Well, the guards who supervised the barracks and the prisoners when they were in the camp itself - were they military or civilian?
A. As far as I know they were military personnel.
Q. Were they SS men?
A. They were SS men. They were also, especially in 1943 and 1944, they were men from the Luftwaffe, Army, and the League of War Veterans, but I cannot give you a very precise picture of this.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. Did you hear anything about self-administrations of the camp?
A. I know nothing about this, really. "Self-administration" of the camp is a term which I came across here in this court.
Q. You, therefore, could not confirm by hearsay or by any other knowledge that the term "guards" in the inside camp was such a very correct one because the guards were outside and the people who were in the camp were administrative officials and not actual guards?
A. Yes, that's quite correct. In the camp there were no guards at all or there were only those men there who looked after the administrative side of the camps, that is to say, personnel in the commandant's office, administrative personnel, but not in the sense as we understand administration but in a larger sense.
Q. In this trial a case was mentioned once that in Dora Nordhausen food had been used allegedly which had come from your stock. Do you recall that case?
A. Yes, I do. I recall that very well.
Q. Can you tell us something about it?
A. That was a special assignment by Pohl at the agency of Taschentscher.
Q. You say a "special assignment". Did you wish to say that apart from that case the feeding of inmates from your stores was not carried out?
A. There were two or three cases where we helped out Office Group D with food.
Q. What was your motive when you helped them out on these occasions? Were you under obligation to do so or what was your reason?
A. The motive was, as we always referred to it, that we would help anywhere where we could help.
Q. How about the extra rations for heavy and very heavy workers - additional food and supplies of tobacco and alcohol? Were you perhaps competent for the camps in these things?
A. No. Here again we had nothing to do with it at all. All of this came from what we called the "civilian sector".
Q. Did you know anything at the time of the extra rations for heavy or very heavy workers?
A. No. For the first time I heard of this Pohl order here in Nuernberg, according to which 90 percent of all heavy workers - all of concentration workers were to be given extra food rations.
Q. The prosecution has submitted a chart of Office Group B. This is in Document Book 2, page 81, Exhibit 43, and it is on page 75 of the English book. Have you got that chart?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. In this plan it says in the second line, "Food Inspectorate of the Waffen-SS, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Schenk", Is that plan correct?
A. I would like to say this about the plan. We have here a list which certainly did not originate with Office Group B, which becomes clear from these points: the first letter headed SS-WUVH is something so unusual that it could never have come from the Office Group B. The WVHA was the usual thing with us that we could hardly write anything else. The Food Inspector of the Waffen-SS, Professor Dr. Schenk, is made part of Office Group B. The Food Inspector of the Waffen-SS was never Office Group B. He may have had his office divided but Office Group B in order to have somewhere a man in the Food Inspectorate but he wasn't under my orders. He was immediately under Pohl and Himmler. They even were entitled to report directly to Himmler, which I wasn't. Otherwise, the document shows in Document Book 8, which is Exhibit 260, that Schenk was immediately under Pohl. Pohl says here in the letter to the Reichsfuehrer, "Schenk is immediately under me and is not tied to any office." Under I, food, the last task mentioned is "foreign exchange" and "transfer of assignments". That task was part of Office B-IV, as long as it existed, but Office B-IV is mentioned on this chart. This chart should be under B-IV. As far as B-IV is concerned, after the name Schenk it says, in brackets, Obersturmbannfuehrer Weckel, the author of this chart, therefore had to know that Schenk had turned over the main warehouse in Vienna but that did not happen until 1 November 1944 at a time that Office A-4 had already been dissolved.
I said already that Office A-IV was dissolved in 1944; wherefore it should not have been part of this chart at all. It also shows that this chart was drawn up, at the earliest, after 1 November 1944. I am therefore compelled to say that this plan is wrong and probably was drawn up after the collapse.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess, please, Dr. Haensel.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q Mr. Loerner, you have just started with the chart of Amtsgruppe B, and did you finish it?
A Yes.
Q We can proceed now. You also spoke of Professor Schenk who had nothing to do with your Amtsgruppe, and I would like to ask you now, did you at any time have anything to do with food experiments on concentration camp inmates, and particularly with poisonous food?
A No, at no time did I have anything to do with that.
Q Did you ever hear anything about such experiments?
A I never did hear anything about experiments concerning food and poisonous food and experiments with poisonous food. I did hear about Mycene-Albumch which was given inmates. However, those were not experiments really, but rather an additional food to the inmates. All those albumen products which were gained in the manufacture of cellulose and also when breeding yeast, that was tried out. The only thing was they had different names depending on the firm which manufactured them. I know the names, Mizin albumen, Biozin, Albumen Frick's yeast, etcetera, et cetera. All these yeast products were also used in the food issued to the German Wehrmacht members and particularly the manufacture of the so-called Wehrmacht coup cans.
Q In conclusion I would like to ask you to please tell us if you ever received a special order concerning the food of the concentration camp inmates? Did you ever have any order of any kind and if you were interpolated in the framework of responsibility?
AAt no time during my entire activity in the WVHA did I receive an order from Pohl or from Himmler that I should deal with the food for the inmates. I never did feel responsible for the food for the inmates, and that is the reason why I never did deal with that, nor did I ever receive any complaints possibly for the simple reason that I had nothing to do with those things.
Q May I remind you, witness, of the fact or particularly of Document NO-2736 which is in the last document book, number 22, page 16. It is an affidavit by Pohl. Pohl states in that affidavit -- first of all, may I ask you, do you have that affidavit?
A No, I don't have it, but I can recall it.
Q Very well then, I shall give it to you, 18 and 19, and will you look at that short passage there please? Just one moment please. Will you wait until the Tribunal has a copy.
THE PRESIDENT: The number of the document is 1923?
DR. HAENSEL: No, the number 2736, your Honor, 2736.
MR. ROBBINS: It is on page 11.
THE WITNESS: It is Exhibit Number 525.
DR. HAENSEL: I assume that it is the third page, paragraphs 18 and 19.
A Pohl states: "As I was very interested in the fact that the inmates be kept alive in order to use them in large numbers as workers, I often had discussions with Loerner in order to make sure that the concentration camp inmates were properly fed and clothed." I would like to add that I never did have any such conferences about the food with Pohl. I did have conferences and that very often about the clothing. However, not about the food. He either gets me mixed up with Schenk or then he is wrong.
Q: Office B-I which we have mentioned here all the time. Did that remain in Amtsgruppe B until the end of the war?
A: B-1? Due to the simplification of the administration procedure in 1945, after long preparations on the 31st of March 1945, the entire food problem of the Waffen-SS was turned over to the OKH, to the high command of the army. All ware-houses were placed under an administrative office of the army. That is how the task of Office B-1 was completed, and after a few weeks it was to be dissolved. This official dissolution did not take place due to the collapse of the German Reich. However, on the 31st of March, 1945, the entire food question and problem had been transferred from the WVHA to the high command of the a army, OKH.
Q: By this transfer of the tasks of B-1 to the OKH, the high command of the army, did anything at all change in the food of the concentration camps?
A: No, nothing at all, because B-1 had nothing to do with it, and therefore nothing had to change when the transfer was carried out to the OKH.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the date in 1945 that the food administration was transferred to the OKH?
THE WITNESS: It was the 31st of March, 1945, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through that the reorganization was 1940. I think that was a mistake in translation.
THE WITNESS: I said 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you said '44, but the translator said 1940. That correction should appear.
Q: (By Dr. Haensel) Thus the food complex which we have been dealing with here all the time is finished, and I shall now speak about the clothing. Would you tell us in a few brief terms how the development of the clothing department in the SS was? That is, your particular field of task?
A: Yes, that was my special task in the SS. As I already stated at the beginning of my interrogation, in December, 1933, I was ordered to set up a clothing department.