The actual compound called "Birkenau," and later on the destruction camp which was constructed later, was yet another two kilometers from the camp at Auschwitz.
The camp installations, that is to say, the provisional installations which were used to start with,were in the woods and could not be seen, not even from a far distance. In addition to that, the whole area had been declared a prohibited area and even members of the SS who did not have a special pass could not enter it. In that manner, and as far as the human mind could judge, no one was in a position to enter that area except authorized persons.
QAnd then the railway transports arrived. During what period did they arrive and how many people, roughly, were on each one of those transports?
ADuring the whole period up until 1944, certain actions had been carried out in various countries, so that a continuous flow of incoming transports cannot be talked about. There were always intervals of four to six weeks. During those four to six weeks, there were two to three trains every day, containing about two thousand persons each.
These trains were first of all shunted to a siding at Birkenau and the locomotive which had been pulling the train was returned.
The guards who had accompanied the transport had to leave the area at once and the detainees, the persons who had been brought in, were taken over by guards belonging to the camp.
They were examined by SS medical officers regarding their ability to work and the men capable of work at once marched to Auschwitz or respectively to the camp at Birkenau and those incapable of work were first of all taken to the newly constructed crematorium.
QDuring an interrogation I had with you the other day you told me that about sixty men had had orders to receive those transports, and that those sixty persons too had been sworn to secrecy within the limits of the secrecy which we discussed before. Do you still maintain that today?
AYes, these sixty men were permanent troops who had to take the men and women who were not capable of work to these special compounds and later on to this crematorium. This special troop, consisting of about ten duputy leaders, as well as doctors and medical personnel, had repeatedly been told both in writing and verbally that they to to keep strictest secrecy regarding all these matters.
QCould any outsider who saw these transports arrive discover definite clues regarding the fact that those incoming transports would be destroyed or was that possibility so small because there in Auschwitz an unusually large number of incoming transports, materials and so on end so forth?
AYes, an observer who did not make notes exclusively for that purpose could not gain any definite impression because to begin with not only transports arrived who were destined to be destroyed but other transports arrived currently containing now detainees who were used in the camp , Furthermore, transports were leaving the camp which contained a sufficiently large number of workers who were exchanged and the trains, the carriages themselves were closed, that is to say, the freight cars had their doors closed so that anyone standing outside could not form an impression regarding the number of people transported.
In addition to that one hundred trucks of materials, rations, and other such things were daily rolled into the camp or left the workshops in the camp, in which war material was being made.
QAnd after the arrival of the transports did the victims have to dispose of everything they had, their clothes; did they have to undress completely; aid they have to surrender their valuables, is that true?
AYes.
QAnd then they immediately went to their death?
AYes.
QI am now asking you, did these people know what was waiting for them?
AThe majority of them did not. Measures had been taken so that they were left in doubt, so that suspicion would not arise that they were going into their death. For instance, all doors and all walls bore inscriptions which pointed out that this was the delousing plant or shower room. This had been done in several languages or was translated to the detainees by other detainees who had come in with earlier transports and who were being used as auxiliary crews during the whole action.
QAnd death by gassing, then happened within three to fifteen minutes you told me the other day, is that correct?
AYes.
QYou also told me that even before the arrived of the final death there was a condition of semi-consciousness or unconsciousness, is that true?
AYes. As I have seen from my own observation or as has been told me by medical officers, according to the temperature in the rooms and according to the number of people present in those rooms, the length of time after which unconsciousness or death arrived was very different. Loss of consciousness took place after a few seconds or minutes.
QDid you ever consider that you who had a family and children, sympathize with the detainees?
AYes.
QAnd why did you still find yourself able to carry out those actions in spite of all the doubts?
AIn spite of all the doubts which I had the only one and decisive argument which always arose, which removed the doubts, was the strict order and the reason given to me by the Reichsfuehrer Himmler.
QI am now asking you, did Himmler inspect the camp and *---* did he convince himself of the carrying out of the order of destruction?
AYes. He visited the camp in 1942 and he watched one processing from beginning to end.
QDoes the some apply to Eichmann?
AEichmann came repeatedly to Auschwitz and he knew the events precisely.
QHas the defendant Kalbrunner ever visited the camp?
ANo.
QDid you ever discuss this very task with Kaltenbrunner?
ANo, never. I only met Obergruppenfuehrer Kaltenbrunner on one single occasion.
QWhen was that?
AThat was one day after his birthday in 1944.
QWhat position did you hold in 1944?
AIn 1944 I was the Chief of Department D-1 in the Administrative and Economic Chief Department in Berlin. My office was the previous Inspectorate of Concentration Camps at Oranienburg.
QAnd what was the subject of that conference which you have just mentioned?
AIt was a report from the camp at Mauthausen on the so-called detainees without a name and their use in armament industry. Obergruppenfuehrer Kaltenbrunner was to make a decision in the matter. For that reason I took the report from a commandant at Mauthausen to him but he did not make a decision but told me he would do so later.
QRegarding the location of Mauthausen, will you please, to clarify it, state in which district Mauthausen is situated? Is that Upper Silesia or is it the Government General?
AMauthausen -
QAuschwitz, I beg your pardon, I made a mistake. I should have said Auschwitz.
AAuschwitz is situated in the former state of Poland. Later, after 1939, it was allocated to the province of Upper Silesia.
QIs it right for me to assume that administration and feeding of concentration camps was exclusively handled by the Administrative and Economic Central Department in Berlin?
A Yes.
QAnd is this a department which is separate from the R.S.H.A.?
AYes, that is correct.
QAnd then beginning, in 1943 end until the end of the war, you were one of the chiefs in the department in the Inspectorate in the Economic and Administrative Central Department?
AYes, that is correctly stated.
QDo you mean by that, that all events connected with concentration camps, say for instance treatment and methods, were particularly well-known to you?
AYes.
QI ask you, therefore, first of all whether you have experienced regarding the treatment of detainees and whether certain specific methods were known to you according to which detainees were to be tortured cruelly? Please divide your statement according to periods, up to 1939 and after 1939.
A Until the outbreak of war in 1939, the situation in the camp, regarding feeding and accommodations and treatment of detainees, was the same as in any other prison or penitentiary in the Reich.
The detainees were treated strongly, yes, but methodical beatings or ill treatments were out of the question. The Reich Fuehrer has given repeated orders that every SS man who would ill treat a detainee would be punished; and quite often SS men who did ill treat detainees were punished. Feeding and accommodations at that time were merely adapted to that of other detainees under legal administration. The accommodations in the camps during those years were still normal because at that time there weren't these mass influxes which occurred during the war and after the outbreak of the war.
When the war started and when mass deliveries of political detainees arrived, and, later on, when detainees arrived from the occupied territories who were members of the resistance movements, the existing buildings and the extensions of the camps could no longer keep up with the number of detainees who arrived. During the first years of the war this could still be overcome by improvising measures; but, later, due to the exigencies of the war, this was no longer possible since there were practically no building materials. And, furthermore, rations were repeatedly and very severely curtailed by the economic administration of the counties. This led to a situation where detainees in the camps were no longer capable of surviving the arising plagues and epidemics.
The main reason why detainees towards the end of the war were in such bad condition, why so many thousands of them were sick and emaciated in the camps and were found in that condition, was that the Reich Fuehrer on every occasion, again and again, stated his aim, which he stated through the Chief of the Economic and Administrative Department Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, who communicated it to the camp commandants and administrative offices during the so-called commandant's meetings. This aim was that every detainee would have to be employed in the armament industry as long as his strength would last. Every commandant was told to make every effort that this would be made possible.
It wasn't that one was trying to have as many dead as possible or to destroy as many people as possible; the Reich Fuehrer was anxious that, if possible, every hand and every man should be used in the armament industry,
QSo that, I take it, there can be no doubt that the longer the war lasted, the greater would be the number of the ill treated and tortured inmates. Didn't you during the time you inspected the concentration camps ever learn through complaints or such things of these matters, or do you consider that the conditions which have been described are mor or less outrageous and excesses?
AThese so-called ill treatments and torturing in concentration camps which were liberated were the stories which were spread amongst the people, which referred to these detainees that were liberated by the occupying armies. Those weren't due to methods; they were excesses on the part of certain leaders who ill treated detainees.
QDo you mean you never took cognizance of these matters?
AIf any such matter was brought to my notice in one way or another, then the perpetrator was, of course, immediately relieved of his post or transferred somewhere else. So that, even if he wasn't punished; if there wasn't enough evidence to punish him, I mean, even then he was transferred elsewhere and away from the detainees.
QTo what do you attribute the particularly bad and unfortunate conditions of which we know, and which were found by the arriving allied troops, and which had been photographed and filmed?
AThe catastrophic situation at the end of the war was caused by the fact that through a destruction of railways and through bombing of the industrial works, it was no longer possible to carry an orderly administration and supplying of these masses of men. I'm speaking of Auschwitz with 140,000 detainees. It was no longer guaranteed, even if improvised measures were introduced by the commandants and even if the commandants tried everything to improve it; it was no longer possible. The number of sick had gone beyond any limits. There were next to no medical supplies; plagues were everywhere.
Detainees who were still capable of work were used everywhere and again and again and, by order of the Reich Fuehrer, even people who were partly sick had to still be used some way in industry where they could still do some work.
So that in this manner, too, every space in the concentration camp which could possibly be used was filled with sick or dying detainees.
QI'm now asking you to look at the map which is mounted behind you. The red dots represent concentration camps. I will first ask you how many concentration camps in their proper sense existed at the end of the war?
AAt the end of the war there were still thirteen concentration camps. All the other camps which are marked here on the map mean socalled labor camps attached to the armament industry which was situated there. The thirteen existing concentration camps which I have mentioned were the connecting point and the central point of some district or other, such as, for instance, the camp at Dachau in Bavaria or the camp of Mauthausen in Austria; and all the labor camps in that same district came under the concentration camps. That camp had to supply these outside camps; that is to say, they had to supply to them workers and they had to exchange the sick inmates and to supply clothing, and the guards were also supplied by the concentration camp in question.
Towards the end of the war, hat is to say, even in 1944, rations had become a matter of the armament industry and, accordingly, detainees were to be fed in accordance with the wartime ration scales.
QYou may sit down. What do you know about so-called medical experiments on living detainees?
AMedical experiments were being carried out in several camps. For instance, in Auschwitz there were experiments with sterilization carried out by Professor Klaubert and Dr. Schumann. Furthermore, experiments were being carried out on twins by SS medical officer Dr. Mengelau.
QDo you know the medical officer Dr. Rascher?
A I knew him in Dachau. He was a medical officer of the air force, and he was carrying out experiments on detainees who had been sentenced to death, experiments concerned with the resistance of the human body in high pressure chambers and its resistance to cold.
QHave you any personal experience where such experiments that were being carried out were known in the camp and among the larger circles of people?
ASuch experiments, just like all other matters, were, of course, called secret Reich matters; but it was certainly not possible to prevent the experiments, which were being carried out in a large camp and which must have been seen by the inmates, from becoming known in some way or other. Just how far the outside world heard about these experiments is unknown to me.
Q You had explained to me that orders for executions were received in the camp at Auschwitz, and you told me that until the outbreak of war such orders were few, but later on they became more numerous.
Is that statement correct?
AYes. Until the beginning of the war executions were hardly being carried out, only in particularly serious cases, of which I remember one in Buchenwald. An SS man had been attacked and beaten to death by detainees, and the detainees were later hanged.
QBut during the war -- and that you will admit -- the number of executions increased, and not inconsiderably.
AThat started with the beginning of the war.
QWas the basis for these execution orders in many cases a legal sentence of German courts?
ANo. In the case of the executions carried on in the camps these were orders from the RSHA.
QWhat was the signature on the orders for an execution when you received it? Is it true that occasionally you received orders for executions which had the signature "Kaltenbrunner", and that this was not the original but that it was a teleprint, which therefore had the signature in typewritten letters?
AYes, it is correct. The originals of execution orders did never come to the camps. The orders either arrived in their original at the Inspectorate of the concentration camps, from where they were transmitted by teleprinter to the camps concerned, or in urgent cases the RSHA sent the orders directly to the camps concerned, and the Inspectorate was then only informed, s o that the signature of course in the camps were alwayson teleprint orders.
QSo as to ascertain the situation regarding the signatures, will you tell the Tribunal whether the majority, the far greater majority, of all execution orders, both in the earlier years and until theend of the war, either had the signature "Himmler" or Mueller's signature?
AOnly a few teleprinted orders came to me which originated fromthe Reichsfuehrer, and fewer from thedefendant Kaltenbrunner. Most of them, or I can even say practically all of them, were signed by Mueller.
Q Is that the Mueller about whom you had reported earlier that you had repeatedly talked to him on such matters?
AGruppenfuehrer Mueller was the chief of Department IV in the RSHA. He was concerned with all matters connected with concentration camps and had to discuss them with the Inspectorate.
QWould you say that you went to see Mueller because you, on the strength of your experience, were of the opinion that this man because of his years of activities was acting independently?
AThat is right. I have discussed all matters in concentration camps, and had to, with Mueller. He was informed in all these matters, and in most cases he would make an immediate decision.
QWell, so as to clarify it once again, did you at any time negotiate these matters with the defendant Kaltenbrunner?
ANo.
QDid you learn that towards the end of the war concentration camps were being evacuated, and, if so, who gave the orders?
AOn that I must say the following. Originally there was an order fromthe Reichsfuehrer, according to which camps, in the event of an approaching enemy or in the event of any air attacks, were to be surrendered to the enemy. Later on, the events at Buchenwald which had been reported to the Fuehrer, or rather -- I am wrong here. At the beginning of 1943 when certain camps came within reach of the enemy this order was withdrawn. The Reichsfuehrer ordered the Higher SS and police leaders, who in an emergency were responsible for the security and safety of the camps, that they should decide whether an evacuation or a surrender was appropriate.
Auschwitz and Grossrosen were evacuated. Buchenwald was also to be evacuated, but then came the order from theReichsfuehrer that no camps were to be evacuated on principle. Only prominent inmates and inmates who were not to fall into Allied hands under any circumstances were first of all taken away to other camps. This applied to the case of Buchenwald. After Buchenwald had been occupied the Fuehrer was told that detainees had armed themselves and were carrying out plunderings in the town of Weimar. This caused the Fuehrer to give a strict order to Himmler that in the future no camps was to be surrendered to the enemy, and that no detainees capable of marching would be left behind in any camp.
This happened shortly after the end of the war, and shortly before Northern and Southern Germany were separated. It applied to the camp at Sashsenhausen. The Gestapo Chief Gruppenfuehrer Mueller called me in the evening and told me thatthe Reichsfuehrer had ordered that the camp at Saschsenhausen was to be evacuated at once. I pointed out to Gruppenfuehrer Mueller what that would mean. Saschsenhausen could no longer fall back on any other camp except perhaps for a few labor camps attached to the armament works, and I said that most of the detainees would have to be put into the woods somewhere. I said that this wouldmean thousands andthousands of deaths and that it would be impossible to r*ed these masses. He promised me that he would once more discuss it with the Reichsfuehrer, and he called me back several hours later and told me that the Reichsfuehrer had refused and was demanding that the kommandants should carry out his order immediately.
From that moment on Ravensbrueck was also to be evacuated in the same manner but could not be evacuated. How far camps in Southern Germany werecleared or not I do not knew, since we as the Inspectorate no longer had any connections with Southern German.
QIt has been stated here in this court room -- and this is my last question -- that the defendant Kaltenbrunner had given the order that Dachau and two auxiliary camps were to be destroyed by bombing-or poison respectively.
I now ask you, did you hear anything about this and, if not, would you consider such an order possible at all?
A.I have never heard anything about his, and I don't know anything either about an order to evacuate any camps in Southern Germany. I have said that before. Apart from that, I consider it quite impossible that a camps could be destroyed by this method.
DR, KAUFMANN: I have no further questions to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT:Do any of the defendants counsel want to ask any questions?
DR. MERKEL:Dr. Merkel, for the Gestapo. BY DR. MERKEL:
Q.Witness, did these State Police, as an authority of the Reich, have anything to do with the destruction of Jews in Auschwitz?
AYes, insofar as I received all my orders from Department IV or Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann respectively, all orders which referred to the carrying out of that action.
Q.Was the administration of camps under the Economic and Central Department ?
A.Yes.
Q.You said already that in that way there was no contact with the RSHA Please, will you emphasize, therefore, that the Gestapo as such had nothing to do with the administration of the camps or the accomodation in them, feeding and treatment of the detainees, and that this was exclusively a matter for the Economic and Administrative: Central Department?
A.Yes, that is the correct way of describing it.
Q.How do you explain it that you had, nevertheless, several discussions with Mueller in which questions relating to concentration camps were mentioned?
A.The RSHA or AMT IV, Executive Department, was responsible for all admissions of detainees and the division amongst than into grades, 1. 2, 3. Furthermore, punishments which were to be carried out by the RSHA, executions accomodation of special detainees, and all the points which arose from that, all these things went through RSHA or the Department IV respectively.
Q.When was the Economic and Administrative Central Department created?
A.It existed since 1933 but under various descriptions. The Inspectorate of concentration camps was created as late as 1941 and subordinated to this Administrative Department, Central Department, which means the SS and not the State Police.
A.Yes.
Q.You mentioned the name of Dr. Rascher earlier. Do you know him personally?
A.Yes.
Q.Do you know that Dr. Rascher before he started work in Dachau was taken over by the SS?
A.No, I had no idea. I only know -- wait a minute. I still saw him in the uniform of an air force medical officer, but I believe he was taken over into the SS later on, but I haven't seen him in that capacity.
Q.I have no further questions. Thank you very much.
DR. BABEL:Dr. Babel, for the SS. BY DR. BABEL:
Q.Witness, at the beginning of your examination you have stated that the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, when he ordered you to come and see him, had told you that the carrying out of this order of the Fuehrer was to be left to the SS, that had been ordered to the SS. What does one have to understand under SS in this general way in which it has been mentioned?
A.According to the explanations of the Reichsfuehrer, this could only be the guarding of concentration camps.
Q.Pleas carry on.
A.The carrying out of this task under consideration of the existing orders could only concern men guarding concentration camps, and that meant Waffen SS.
Q.How many members of the SS were there in concentration camps, and which units did they belong to?
A.Toward the end of the war there were approximately 35,000men of SS units, and in my estimation approximately 10,000 men from the Army, Air Force, and the Navy, who were employed at the labor camps for guard duties.
Q.What were the tasks of these guards? As far as I know, they were different. There was the actual guarding and then there was a certain amount of administrative work, in the actual compounds.
A.Yes, that is correct. It is correct in that sense.
Q.How many guards were employed in the inner compounds? That is to say, can you estimate it down to a thousand? How many guards were necessary for a thousand detainees?
A.You can't express it in that way. According to my experiences, the situation was that 10 percent of the total number of guarding personnel were used for interior purposes, that is to say, administration and supervision of detainees within the compounds, medical personnel, and all that sort of thing.
Q So that 90 per cent were therefore guarding outside the camps;
that is to say, they were watching the camp from watch towers; they were looking after working commandos of the company deternees?
AYes.
QDid you make any observations as to whether, on the part of those guards, there was ill treatment of prisoners to any considerable degree, or to a smaller degree, or whether the ill treatment was usually carried out by the so-called Kapos?
AIf any ill treatment did occur -- which I myself have never ob served -- and if it was committed by guards, then this was possible only to a very small degree since all departments in the camps took care that as few SS men as possible could have immediate direct contact with the inmates, because it had occurred that in the course of the years the personnel had got so much worse that the requirements which were made on guarding per sonnel before could no longer be maintained.
We had thousands of guards who could hardly speak German, who came from all countries of the world as volunteers and joined these units, or we were concerned with older men, men of 30 and 60 who were in no way interested in their duties, so the camp commandant had to take care that these men ful filled even the lowest requirements of their duties.
Furthermore, there were, of course, elements among them who would act against deternees, that was obvious, but they were never tolerated.
Furthermore, it was impossible that these masses of people should be directed by SS men when they were working or when they were in the camp, so that everywhere there had to be deternees who in turn were giving instruc tions to the other deternees and telling them to work, and who were looking after the interior in the administration within the camps and had that in their own hands almost exclusively.
In that connection, of course, there was a great deal of ill-treatment which couldn't be stopped at all because at night there was practically no member of the SS in the camps, and only in the case of certain specific events were SS men allowed to enter the camp, so that the deternees were more or less under the supervision of these deternee supervisors and exposed to them.
Q You have already mentioned regulations which existed for the guards, but there was a standing order in all the camps and that must have stated punishment against any deternees who were violating the camp rules.
What punishment was used?
AFirst of all, transfer to a penal company, that is to say, harder work, and deterioration of their accomodations as such; next, detention in the cell block and detention in a dark cell; and in the case of very serious cases, shackling, chaining.
The punishment of "turning" was prohibited by the Reichsfuehrer in either '43 or '44.
Then, there was the so-called stand ing to attention at the entrance to the camp, and the last means, the so called punishment of beating.
However, their punishment could not be decreed by any commandant independently.
He could only apply for it. In the case of men, the decision came from the Inspector of Concentration Camps, Gluecks, and where women were concerned, the Reichsfuehrer only could make such a decision.
QIt may be known to you that members of the SS, too, had two penal camps which have also been called concentration camps.
There was one at Dachau and one at Danzig-Matzgau.
AThat's right.
QWere the standing orders and regulations in those camps and the treatment for members of the SS who were accomodated in such camps any different than the corresponding regulations applying to concentration camps proper?
AThese two detention camps were not under the Inspectorate for Con centration Camps.
They were under the SS police courts, and I myself have never inspected either of the two camps or seen them.
QSo that you don't know anything about the standing orders in those camps?
ANo.
DR. BABEL: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn for ten minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
DR. KARL HAENSEL: I have a question that I would like to ask the High Tribunal A second defense has been requested for the SS.
Is it admissible by the Court that, for the second defense counsel, several questions may be put on his behalf ?
THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal ruled, a long time ago, that only one counsel could be heard.
DR. KARL HAENSEL:Yes, sir. BY DR. KRANZBUEHLER (counsel for defendant Doenitz):
QWitness, you just mentioned that members of the Navy were used to guard concentration camps.
AYes.
QWas it concentration camps, or was it labor camps ?
ALabor camps were concerned in this.
QDid labor camps -- Were they used auxiliary to armament?
AYes, if they weren't in the actual building, they were used as auxiliaries.
QI have been informed that soldiers who were used for guard duty at labor camps were transferred or used by the SS.
AThat is only partially correct. Part of these men -- I do not recall the figures -- were taken over into the SS. A part were again returned to the unit, that is, were exchanged back. There was a continuous flux or change.
DR. KRANZBUEHLER:Thank you very much.
COLONEL AMEN:If the Tribunal please, first I would like to submit, on behalf of our British Allies, a series of exhibits pertaining to the Waffen SS, without reading them. It is merely statistical information with respect to the number of Waffen SS guards used at the concentration camps.
I ask that the witness be shown Exhibits D-745-a-b, D-746-a-b, D-748, D-749-b, and D-750, one of them being an affidavit of this witness.
(The documents were submitted to the witness.) BY COLONEL AMEN:
QWitness, you made one of these affidavits which have been handed to you?
AYes.
Q And you are familiar with the content of the others?
AYes.
QAnd you testify that those figures are true and correct?
AYes.
QVery good.
COLONEL AMEN:These will become Exhibit No. 810, USA.
Q (Continuing) Witness, from time to time did any high Nazi officials or functionaries visit the camp at Mauthausen or Dachau while you were there ?
AYes.
QWill you state the names of such persons to the Tribunal please ?
AI remember as far back as 1935, at which time the entire group of Gauleiters were at Dachau, and Himmler led this group. As far as particular people are concerned, I cannot give you any information.
QDo you recall any of the ministers having visited either of those camps while you were there ?
ADo you mean the inspection tour of 1935?
QAt any time while you were at either of these concentration camps.
AYes, in 1935 Minister Frick wrap at Sachsenhausen; he was there with the Regierungspraesidenten.
QDo you recall any other ministers who were there at any time?
ANot at Sachsenhausen, but at Auschwitz, the Minister of Justice.
QWho was he?
AThierack.
QAnd who else? Do you recall any others?