HANS BAIER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for defendant Baier):
Q Witness, yesterday we were discussing Document Book 14, Exhibit 384, and after that we briefly looked at Document 1281 in Book 14, which is Exhibit 400. Now, will you please take Document Book 14 and from the document which is called "Unfinished Work" you wanted to tell us the points that you worked on yourself. We discussed Point 16 yesterday, and now please take the next point which is concerned with your competence.
A The next point is No. 17, which is called "Reinhardt Fund". May I say first of all that all questions connected with that loan, arrangements about the money and the actual money which came in and the accounting, happened before my time. All that I was shown was this notice that the contract had still to be arranged.
Q Did you arrange the contract yourself?
A Yes, I did. I suppose that I first of all went to the legal department, and everything else was done from there.
Q Excuse me, witness; did the legal department make the contract?
A No, as I recall it, I was told that it had been drafted by the Reich. With that draft I went to defendant Frank in order to have him sign for the Reich. Frank was no longer with the WVHA at that time, and I remember very well that it was confirmed to me when I asked that this was a Reich loan.
Q Witness, did this contract show the name Reinhardt?
A It did not. This struck me as peculiar, and I asked the defendant Frank whether the term "Reinhardt Fund" should not be contained in the contract, because that is what the notice said which Dr. Hohberg had left behind. Frank thereupon told me point blank that this had nothing to do with it.
Q Did you not then make efforts to find out what Reinhardt stood for?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Let me ask a question.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q What did you say Frank told you?
A I asked Frank whether the term "Reinhardt Fund" should be named in the contract, and Frank answered in the negative. He said the name should not be contained in the contract, that the word had nothing to do with the contract.
Q In other words, he said to leave out the name Reinhardt, that it had nothing to do with the contract?
A Yes.
Q Were the funds coming from the Reinhardt Fund?
A I don't know. I did not know it at the time, and that is why I asked.
Q What did you mean when you said you wrote out the contract for the Reinhardt loan?
A In the notice which was left behind, it said there was a contract between DWB and the Reich to be fixed, and the heading said "Reinhardt Fund". I thereupon reflected what this could be about, and I came across the name of State Secretary Reinhardt, whom I knew very well. He was my superior in the Reich Ministry of Finance.
Q How much was the contract for?
A The contract was for RM 30,000,000.
Q Who executed the contract?
A The contract was fixed between the Reich, represented by the defendant Frank, and the first business manager of DWB, who was represented by Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl.
Q So Pohl and Frank signed the contract for the DWB?
A Yes.
Q Who signed for the Reich, if anyone?
A Defendant Frank signed on behalf of the Reich, which I caused him to do.
Q And you prepared the contract.
A I did not actually formulate it myself, because I would not have been in a position to do so, but I had the contract fixed. I addressed myself to the legal department, and the legal department gave me the contract with the remark that the Reich -- that is to say, the legal department of the Reich -- had drafted the contract.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q Witness, can you remember what the contract said? I mean, what the main points were.
A I still recall the contract. It consisted of about four to six paragraphs, and, as far as I can remember, the arrangements named were, first of all, the fact that the thing was a loan of RM 30,000,000, which the Reich gave to DWB as a credit; two, the interest -- I know that very well, and I believe it was three per cent roughly; I am not quite sure, but it must have been roughly three per cent; three, arrangements were made about repayment which I remember because thereupon I always regarded the contract as a short term one; finally, the general arrangements for giving notice, and so forth. Otherwise I don't remember anything in particular.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: What was the date?
THE WITNESS: The date I am unable to give you. I joined in August. It might have been, perhaps, the end of September. This was not the first thing that I did when I joined.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q Unhappily, the contract has not been submitted here in this trial, if I may make that remark.
Witness, another question about this: Do you know for whom Herr Frank signed, for what ministry?
A I know that Frank signed for the Reich. Whether he was in that case the deputy of the Reich Ministry of Finance, I am not sure.
Q But you can not give us anything there from your own knowledge?
A No.
Q But perhaps you would answer the question now whether you insisted upon having the term "Reinhardt" interpreted to you.
A No, I did not, for two reasons. One, Frank and I at that time were not on very good terms because I had been called away from the school, and the whole conversation between us was held in a brief, military tone. Second, I was not particularly interested in the term after Frank had told me that.
Q Then you told us that Pohl signed for DWB?
A Yes, Pohl signed for DWB.
Q At that time you did not know what the term "Reinhardt Fund" meant. When did you find out?
A The term "Reinhardt Fund" was discussed here in this trial, and it was here when documents were submitted that I came across it, as far as that was possible. I do not know to this day whether the name of Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhardt Heydrich, whom I did not know personally, is connected with this or not, and where the money came from eventually I am unable to say today. As far as I was concerned it was Reich capital.
Q Now, will you please give us more points from Exhibit 384? We have stopped at Point 17. Which is the next point that concerns your own work?
A Then we have Point 18 as the next point, "Statistics".
Q Well, what about that?
AAs one can see the file notes, this is statistical work. For instance, turnover, profits, losses, owned capital, alien capital, the basic funds, the turnover cash, and other elements of capital in the various enterprises. This work was simply continued, so far as we had the time.
Q Witness, was that work particularly part of you duties, and of what department?
A Yes. I asked the reviewing department to deal with that work.
Q Then please continue.
A The next point is Point 21, "Post Exchange". Here it says that the post exchange was to become part of the economic enterprises if and when necessary. This post exchange, I might say, had a considerable amount of profits, to the tune of RM 10,000,000.
Q Witness, will you please tell us briefly what the post exchange is?
A. By post exchange we mean facilities for the troops themselves. The troops, in the post exchange, acquires their special needs such as tooth paste, etc.
Q. For their personal needs, you mean?
A. Yes, their personal needs.
Q. Please continue.
A. Here we had the central agency for all post exchanges for the whole of the Waffen-SS. It went against my liking. Since this was a purely military establishment, and after all was handled by the Army and Navy agencies, the profits should come back to the soldiers themselves, but here now I had to establish a connection with DWB. Therefore, I turned down that scheme from the word go. As I saw it this would have been a doubtful piece of financing which was not connected at all with the armament program of DWB. I kept this note. I did not pass it on. But as this matter was not really part of my duties I reported about it to Defendant Pohl, and I did not appoint anybody to work on it as an expert. Pohl agreed, and that finished that matter. Matters rested there as they were.
Q. What is the next point now from Exhibit 384?
A. Now we come to Point 22, "Vote for the Annual Report".
Q. Is that a typical part of your duties such as Pohl asked you to do?
A. This is a very typical part of my duties and competence. After all my task was to check up on the annual reports, and therefore it was only natural to have the corporations make their demands, and I had to adjust our debts. In order to do that I passed this on to our taxation department under Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Wenner.
Q. Any other points which you worked on yourself?
A. Points 27 to 29. They are the same thing and are about the same topic. These are -- The point here is that the companies had to estimate their capital again. This was a regulation which applied to the protectorate.
A similar regulation was issued in Germany after the inflation to maintain the gold standard. This again is a very typical part of my duties. I sent out auditors to have the work done. The estimation was done, but, of course, the various sums involved, I cannot tell you anything about.
Q. Any other points, Witness?
A. No, nothing else.
Q. We will therefore leave that document. Now you say, you have stated that a large number of these points were not connected with your duties; you dealt with other things which in some cases you didn't even have the time to deal with.
A. All I can imagine is that before my time these things were handled by Dr. Hohberg and now there was nobody left. My duties were much more narrowly confined and as I have described before, and which was in accordance with my orders, I was more interested with the technicalities of taxation and auditing. On the basis of these organizational deficiencies the result was that anybody who happened to be around was given special orders, although it was not really any of his business.
Q. Witness, I shall now keep on the question of organization at that period of time, the organization of Staff W and the W offices. Your position between the offices has been discussed. Witness Dr. Karoli, on the basis of a sketch, stated that Staff W stood beside the office group chief, and he also said, and Pohl also said that on the witness stand, that you had no authority to issue orders. Now, we have discussed the business order. Did you not, according to the business order, have the possibility to find your own position between the W offices and the office chief?
A. Yes, I could do that on the basis of my military position as chief of Staff W, but this should be taken into consideration. The chiefs of the various W offices were also people with a status under commercial law. They were business managers or something like that.
I myself, on the other hand, had no status under commercial law. I was never a business manager in DWB or any of its subsidiary companies. Therefore, if it had become necessary I could have, as an officer or Chief of Staff W, given orders to the officers, but he in his capacity as a business manager, that is to say, as a man with a status under commercial law, would not carry it out because as such he was responsible only to Pohl. Unlike myself who was a civil servant, my soul was that of a civil servant and that was the only way I could work, the various W office chiefs had twin souls, those of a merchant and those of an office chief, but their soul under commercial law was more important. If I can put it that way, the civil service souls of the office chiefs should have obeyed me from point of view of rank, whereas their commercial souls were committed by the prescriptions of commercial law and therefore need not follow my orders. But if, on the other hand, I was concerned with taxing and auditing, which brought me in contact only with their commercial souls, under special order I had not to give any other orders in any other respect, at least it did not happen in actual fact, but I want to emphasize that the business order did not apply and was not enforced virtually, and that as such it did not mean that it confirmed a state of affairs which had existed before. I may also say that we were then living in a period of time after 1945 where the W offices, particularly those located in Berlin outside the WVHA were busy evacuating themselves because of air-raids with the result that they could hardly be contacted.
Q. Witness, please take up Document Book XV. It is Document 509, which is Exhibit 418, which is on Page 58 of the German and Page 50 of the English text. What do you have to say about that document?
A. I should like to draw attention to the second paragraph. From this document it shows that I have spoken the truth. In this letter I am asking the main office chief, chief of Office W-IV, to give an order, which happened on 27 March, 1944, at which time I was not in position, in other words, to give an order to the office chief, and that is how it remained.
Q. Witness, we don't only want to talk about your duties which you were given when you joined the WVHA, but we want to make it abundantly clear what you actually did without any doubt. There are documents which the Prosecution submitted which to say the least would appear not only connected with taxation or auditing matters which you said were your real duty. We shall have to look at some of these documents, and perhaps you could tell me first whether it is correct that such orders not immediately connected with the technicalities of auditing were given you.
A. Yes, that is quite true, and I can make a general statement about that. I was given orders by Pohl without any doubt which were not immediately connected with my real duties, auditing, and I am thinking here, for instance, of the trip to Litzmannstadt on the handling of both compensation for inmates and wages for inmates, I must admit that on one occasion when no expert was available, and for another thing, because Pohl wanted to have somebody very quickly such orders were issued to me. Then we had, of course, the military situation and the fact that I was a soldier.
Q. Witness, let us talk about two things which you have just mentioned yourself: first of all, the trip to Litzmannstadt. Please take Document Book 19. This is Document 519, which is Exhibit 490, on page 44 of the German and page 41 of the English texts.
This is a letter of the Reich Governor of Wartheland, Greiser, to the defendant Pohl. Will you please tell us briefly what this affair is about?
The letter shows that you and Dr. Volk went to Posen and there you discussed the transformation of Litzmannstadt ghetto into a concentration camp.
The preliminary question: Why did you have anything to do with the concentration camp?
A. As a matter of principle, I had nothing to do with concentration camps. In this particular case I was given, at the beginning of February 1944, the order by Pohl to go, together with the head of the legal department of Staff W, Dr. Volk, to Litzmannstadt. I was to inspect the economic enterprises located in the ghetto and make a report about their shape. I should like to say here that these enterprises and the ghetto in Litzmannstadt were subordinated to Greiser, who was the Reich Governor of Wartheland.
Q. Witness, did Pohl give you any explanation before you set out on your trip?
A. Yes. Pohl said to Volk and me, when he gave us the order, that Reichsfuehrer-SS had ordered this change to be made; namely, the ghetto to be changed into a concentration camp. Dr. Volk and I were to report to him, Pohl, whether or not the economic enterprises in this ghetto could be received into the DWB. Dr. Volk was to concentrate on the legal aspects and I on the economic implications.
So Volk and I went to Litzmannstadt and looked at the enterprises which were located in the ghetto.
Q. Were these large enterprises, medium sized, or small enterprises?
A. I should like to say first that many individual enterprises existed there which were geographically separated from each other, and they varied in size:
small workshops, medium, and large enterprises. All of them were finally under the commercial management of a man called Bibow. The commercial management also looked after the administration of the Jewish Ghetto. How the competence was separated between the commercial manager and the administrator of the ghetto, I could not find out in that brief period of time.
In the individual enterprises all types of equipment were produced for the Wehrmacht, particularly clothing. Timber processing works were also there; also, the needs of the ghetto were met through the things which were produced there.
Q. What did you do, witness, in order to find out what the enterprises had as a value, and the question of the possible transfer of these enterprises to the DWB? Were you in the ghetto for a long time?
A. No, I only spent a few hours. After a brief description, I and the commercial manager and two Jewish guides had a discussion. Dr. Volk was present, too. He had taken part in the inspection. Later on, I looked at their books in the commercial department inasmuch as I could do that within a few hours. I found out that the commercial organization had been badly neglected. The conditions under which individual workers worked were good, and the places of work were entirely acceptable.
Q. How many enterprises were there?
A. I think roughly a hundred; it was a small town. I felt, however, that to take over all these enterprises, and particularly the transfer, would be utter nonsense. Volk and I, therefore, who shared my opinion, went to Posen and there I discussed the matter with two experts of the Reich Governor in the presence of Dr. Volk.
I might draw attention here to the file note made by Dr. Volk--
DR. FRITSCH: May it please the Court, this is in Document Book 19, Document Number 519, which is Exhibit 490, on page 62 of the German and page 54 of the English texts.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, did you advocate that the ghetto should be changed into a concentration camp?
A. I don't think you have put your question very well. After all, I had nothing to do with the fact of whether or not it should be changed. I could not advocate anything. I could not advise anybody to do it nor could I refuse. I said before that, as far as I know, Pohl told us that the Reichsfuehrer had ordered that the ghetto should be changed into a concentration camp. I was only concerned with the fact of whether I could report to Pohl that the enterprises should be taken over by the DWB.
From that point of view we had to discuss the problems in Posen.
Q. But according to the file note which you quoted yourself, you discussed points in the case of the ghetto being changed into a concentration camp?
A. Yes, the file note does mention such a point, but only from the point of view that the Reichsfuehrer actually and finally had ordered the ghetto to be changed, and that it should be carried out.
The whole file note really shows that Dr. Volk and I did not think it was a good idea to have the change carried out, as far as we were able to express it at all, because to say a thing like that clearly we were not allowed to do, of course.
Q. Will you tell us about the fears which you had? What were the reasons for the objection you felt?
A. Yes--
THE PRESIDENT: I think his reasons are set out in the document. Do you mean the reasons why he believed that the ghetto industry should not be taken over?
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, Mr. President, but he believed he had other reasons also why he could not advocate these things - not only the reasons which he expressed here officially, but personal and intimate ones. Those are the reasons I want to hear about.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. Witness, you yourself made a note in your own handwriting on that trip, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct?
Q. Why did you make a remark in handwriting? Why did you not dictate it to your secretary?
A. It was not an official remark. I didn't want to involve the secretary here. The official remark was made by Volk - it is available here. I merely made a remark to refresh my memory for the time when I had to report to Pohl.
Q. Did you use that remark when you talked to Pohl?
A. Yes, when we had our discussion I certainly used that remark.
Q. Will you explain that briefly, please?
A. Certainly. I shall have to spend a little time on this.
Pohl told me when we were given our order to go to Litzmannstadt that the enterprises in the ghetto were not particularly profitable. For the question of the transfer, however, this did not matter too much, in view of the present military situation; the decisive point was to increase production. This aim had to be followed and achieved by suitable measures without taking into consideration possible financial risks.
Q. Well, if that is so, you need not have gone at all on your trip?
A. Oh, yes, I would, because I meanwhile found out about the security aspect of it all. After all, the thing was to become a concentration camp and I had my misgivings. Therefore, I addressed myself to Dr. Volk and asked him to give me his opinion. His personal attitude I knew very well. We discussed the point quite openly; I asked him to be frank, and he was. Volk did not hold back. He said above all there were legal offenses committed by the Gau - which is hinted at by the file note if you read between the lines. Now, although we were given not too many details, we felt we had to assume that here we had problems which could not be condoned from a human point of view.
I remember when Volk and I discussed the matter we used the expression: "It would be against all human reason."
The proposal on our way back to Berlin to go to Posen and inspect, which was not part of our order came from Volk. This is how we went there and tried to find out and did find out what the Gauleiter was really up to.
Q. These discussions in Posen or Litzmannstadt are being referred to by your remark in and writing in Volk's report?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, what did you report to Pohl?
A. I remember very well that I said this to Pohl: In all economic measures, and, particularly, in the case of this highly complex organization, one had to take into consideration the human element. Harsh measures were pointless and in the last analysis, production would not result from it.
Q. Pohl listened to that? Were you in a position to speak to him in that way?
A. Yes, the occasion did arise. I know with the utmost certainty that this was how it was reported. I was not alone. Pohl was with me and this improved the situation -
Q. Excuse me, you said "Pohl" was with you.
A. I am sorry, Volk. Volk was with me and I know that Pohl listened to these things once they had been reported. He became entirely accessible. He saw the point, and I believe also that as a result of Volk's and my trip the transfer of the enterprises did not take place. Everything remained as it was before.
Q. This becomes quite clear from the documents, Witness, now we can touch on the other point which you mentioned before. I am now speaking about the wages of inmates and compensation for inmate labor. Will you please give us the difference, first of all, between wages of inmates and compensation paid for inmate labor briefly?
A. Yes, by compensation for inmate labor I mean that sum of money which a manager pays for the labor done by inmates who have been allocated to him, and he pays that to the Reich.
By wages for inmates I mean that sum of money which an inmate receives for such work as he has done, or, at least, he is being credited with it.
Q. Was that the position when you joined? Were both terms firmly formulated?
A. No, not as far as I was concerned. I was a new man. Those terms became clear when I worked on the problems, when I did my work, which becomes clear from the documents. At first, the terms were still somewhat confused, but, whenever there is a mention of payment to the Reich by the enterprises, this means compensation, whereas when an inmate is paid, we have the term, "wages".
Q. Witness, was it usual in Germany, as far as concentration camps were concerned, for the camps to allocate inmates to enterprises as laborers, or was that the case also with any other Reich Department?
A. Yes, it was not a typical act. The criminal prisoners of the Ministry of Justice were also told to do work. They either did their work for the prison administration itself, or, through the administration of the prison, for outside firms.
Q. Witness, at this point I should like to draw your attention to the fact that it has been expressed here repeatedly that criminal prisoners cannot be compared to the inmates of concentration camps, because criminal prisoners had been sent to prison on the basis of a law for a crime which it has been proved they have committed, which was not the case, it is alleged, with concentration camp inmates. Can you say something about that from your own experience?
A. I said about that once before that the arrest and billeting of inmates in a concentration camp I had to regard as lawful for the reason that the arrest and committing to a camp was done on the basis of a legal regulation by law by officers of the Law. I must ask the Tribunal to take into consideration that every individual German could not inform himself about the legality of a law. I myself was not a legal expert and I had to assume that the laws issued by the legislature existed justifiably, which is the reason why I regarded concentration camp inmates as human beings who had been deprived of their freedom for a good reason.
Q. Is that still your opinion today?
A. No. I must confess that since I have seen the documents I have formed the certainty that immoral laws were created and that these laws were even abused, but I could not acquire that knowledge at the time and I may add here that all of us at that time worked to such an extent, for reasons of the deteriorating military situation that therefore, aside from our work, we could not sit down and deliberate quietly on these things. If I think about these things today. I am in the last analysis limited by every type of compulsion. I was driven on myself and I no longer had a will of my own. The military machine ran and ran. It ran at top speed and, if you wanted to jump off, you would be killed. It could no longer be stopped, certainly, not by a man like myself.
Q. Witness, you compared the inmates of concentration camps entirely to those criminal persons at the time, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any experiences in the field of labor allocation of inmates?
A. I cannot give you any details about that. All I can say is that concentration camp inmates, no less than criminal prisoners, were lent to the companies or firms to do some work and a group of firms, for instance, was the DWB, in this respect. As I said before, the firms had to pay compensation to the Reich, which I call compensation for inmate labor.
Q. Now, what were the directives according to which the compensation for inmate labor was drawn up?
A. As I see it, the administration of a concentration camp had to find out, first of all, how much the State had to pay for the inmate billeting, food, clothing, and so forth.
Then, in addition to those expenses, the inmate was put at the disposal of the firm and that additional sun of money should have been paid to the inmate. That is to say, the wages for inmates and the compensation were related to one another. The wages were part of the compensation for inmate labor. The wages were to be given to the inmate by the Reich and the compensation was given to the Reich by the manager.
Q. That is how you regarded matters when you started your work?
A. That is how I regarded it, yes.
Q. Now, how did it come about that you handled this matter at all? Was it part of your duties?
A. I hadn't been there for a long time, but in the auditing in my department, the regular auditing work, the expenses were an important point. As the responsible official chocking on these things, I had to inform myself somehow or other about the question of expenses and in order to become familiar with that field, I, in the beginning of 1944, told the manager of taxation matters, Dr. Wenner, to establish a calculation for liquidation and also analyse the profits.
Q. Witness, please take Document Bonk 15 and look at Document 527, which is Exhibit 408 on page 19 of the English text. On page 11 of the original there is a remark dated 15 January 1944, reference liquid funds of the W enterprises. Have you found the page?
A. Yes, Yes, I have.
Q. Did you give the order to have this remark made?
A. As I can see now, on 15 December 1943 I gave the order to have a list of liquid funds worked out.
Q. This document 527 also bears a remark called Analysis of Profits, how to put the W enterprises on a sound basis. This is the document which precedes the document I just mentioned. It is on page 19 of the German Book. Do you have the Document Book?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. What is this all about. Was this matter to do with wages, compensation?
A. Yes, that is part of the original points. Here we have the analysis of profits which I mentioned. It was my intention, which was only a natural thing to do, I wanted to be informed as to how matters stood in the economic enterprises which I had to audit.
Q. Did you agree to the propositions which are mentioned in these documents, and what were these propositions about?
A. To speak first of the list of liquid funds. That list shows first of all, by contrasting active and passive items on page 1 of the Document, that this concern was, on the whole, not liquid. It not have sufficient funds -- in other words, it did not have any longterm capital.
Q. Just a moment, witness. Where did these credits come from?
A. These credits came from banks, with short notice or long notice, and it included the Reich credit of thirty millions which I mentioned before, and which could also not be regarded as a long-term credit. This resulted in the fact that short term credits were invested in the W enterprises, when you only compars the basic capital of sixty millions with the capital.
Q. Witness, we are still talking about wages and compensation. I don't want to hear too much about the other matters. In analyzing profits, inmate labor was also mentioned. Is that correct?
A. Yes, quite right.
Q. What can you tell us about that?
A. I said, of course I knew that W enterprises employed inmates. In this analysis of profits by Dr. Wenner I came across, for the first time, the fact that a correct handling of inmate labor from the point of view of cost had not been done. That is how I came across that problem. By that fact I then came across compensation for inmates -that is to say, that sum of money which was paid by the enterprises to the Reich for the work done by the inmates. And, therefore, perforce I had to come across the question, "Does the inmate get paid or not?"
Q. Any other factors in this problem?
A. Yes, yes, there were other factors. For instance, I heard for the first time from the analysis of profits that the Reich gives certain facilities without any money -- buildings, for instance, and so forth, particularly SS personnel; but, of course, there were also other factors as well.
Q. I don't want to go into that question too deeply. I realize that when you analyzed profits and drew up a list of liquid funds you were not only concerned with inmates and general problems. But here we are only interested how it was that you had to deal with the question of wages and compensation.
A. Yes, I had to find out that the Reich received money for the work done by inmates, and I also found out that the inmates themselves did not receive any money from the Reich.
Q. Perhaps that is slightly difficult to understand. You are now speaking of the Reich. You had made this list of liquid funds for private companies?
A. Yes, quite so. But, as I explained before, the wages of the inmates had to be paid by the Reich, and I believed, therefore, as I saw it at the time, that I should exercise my influence for the inmate to be paid in cash because the compensation was paid quite clearly by the company.
Q. What did you do when you found that out?
A. I reported to Pohl, and I suggested to him to be allowed to work on the whole problem because it was my opinion that by an orderly handling of this matter the companies themselves would become financially more sound.
Q. Were you here guided by ideas to the advantage of inmates?
A. Yes, I did. Perhaps I will be misunderstood - if I affirm your question - but it really was like that. I did not think it was justified for a man deprived of his freedom to work and not be paid in cash.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will show that the defendants Bobbermin and Kiefer are absent from this session of this Court by leave of the Tribunal.
We will take the usual recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)