Q Your 1-B in the German Army is similar to G-1 in the American Army - personnel?
A No, not personnel. That would be 2-A or 2-B. 2-A and 2-B is personnel, and 1-B is purely organization which deals with statements and statistics of figures.
Q Well, in your position having to do with figures you possibly were concerned with labor in Rechlin?
A From Rechlin we started to build a shelter in Larz and to carry this out we had to ask for labor.
Q Didn't they consolidate requests for labor and give them to you and you would send than up?
A Requests were sent on to labor exchanges and all the others.....
went to the GL.
Q And they were sent by you?
A They were sent by the Commanding Officer of the Testing Stating, that is, to say, my superior officer.
Q But you got them up and gave them to him to send them on?
A I worked on them and passed them on to my Commanding Officer.
Q You said that you had concentration camp workers -- you also had foreign workers didn't you?
A There were about 1000 concentration inmates and a certain number of foreign worker's - Russians, French, and Italians.
Q Did you have any Prisoners of War?
A Yes, we had some Prisoners of War.
Q How many people were employed there altogether?
A In Rechlin Prisoners of War and foreign workers, Germans, altogether there were 4 to 5 thousand.
Q Well, now we have got 1000 concentration camp workers. So that leaves 3 to 4 thousand left. How were those broken down among Prisoners of War, foreign workers, and Germans?
A Prisoners of War roughly 500. There were about 300 foreigners, and the rest were German civilians and German military personnel.
Q Now, these concentration camp workers, were they guarded?
A They were guarded in their own camps and in some cases on trucks were taken to their places of work on the east Boek air strip.
Q And the foreigners, were they guarded?
A I think they were at first a little guarded or, let us say, not at all.
Q How about the prisoners of war?
A The Prisoners of War were under a similar condition as there were not very many guards at our disposal - guards were very few.
Q You talked about the concentration camp people marching back and forth. Were they marching under guard?
A Yes, they marched under guard.
Q In stockade?
A They were in large camps or huts under stockade and under guard.
Q. Was there barbed wire around it?
A. Yes, there was barbed wire.
Q. Add guards walking around?
A. And guards, yes.
Q. Armed guards?
A. Yes, they were armed.
Q. Now, you told about passing on these orders about the terror fliers to the buergermeisters. The order that you spoke of that you got from the defendant?
A. From the GL.
Q. The GL was Field Marshal Milch?
A. That was Herr Filch.
Q. And you gave those orders on to the buergermeisters about the so-called "terror fliers"?
A. The buergermeisters and county councils.
Q. And then one day you heard about four fliers who had parachuted or made a forced landing - anyway they came down, and you sent your soldiers over there and you were told that they were not available?
A. No. The officer came back and said that the police had arrested the four pilots who had made a forced landing, contrary to our order and contrary to the regulations where the telephone number of our air field had to be passed on to the buergermeisters. The report to the buergermeisters had the purpose to inform the air field as quickly as possible so that from there a truck could pick up the pilots.
Q. Which police had taken these four fliers?
A. Unfortunately I do not know. The officer of the air field came back and reported that the police had fetched them. He didn't see the police. He merely was informed by the buergermeister of this.
Q. And then what did you do? Did you call the buergermeister up?
A. No, we passed this on to the air field and the air field reported this to the Luftgau. The Luftgau is the next superior office above the air field.
Q. Did they ever get these four fliers back?
1198a
A. No.
Q. They never got them back?
A. I do not know where they were taken to.
Q. You were the second man at Rechlin. You know that these orders were passed on to the buergermeisters that you received through your immediate superior from the Generalluftzeugmeister?
A. I was not the second man. I was E Commander - commander of that office. I was purely an expert in I B. I was concerned in this because Colonel Peterson of the SD Commando ordered the air field should make investigations because of the Milch order to the effect that every pilot should be at once taken to Oberursel.
Q. At any rate, you didn't do anything about this after you heard it?
A. Oh, yes. The report was immediately sent to the Luftgau that the pilots had been taken away.
Q. Did you send the report?
A. No, the report had to be sent by the competent office of the ground organization - namely, the air field.
Q. You never made any effort to find out what happened to these four Allied fliers?
A. Oh, yes, that was passed on at once and the air field having received it sent it on to the Luftgau and continued to work on this matter. What happened at the end I could not possibly find out because the Luftgau, the next highest office, had to report on it through those channels of command.
Q. You never tried to find out, did you? Did you ever call up anybody over at the Luftgau and ask them what happened to these four fliers?
A. No, I could hardly do that because I belonged to the testing station and there was a certain amount of dualism. It was rather like air activity on the one hand and the ground organization on the other.
Q. You knew what the Hitler order was about terror fliers, didn't you?
A. Yes, I learned about this much later after this emergency landing in 1944. I heard about this in 1945 when I was interrogated in Munich by the Reichsmarshal Special Court.
Q. What nationality were these pilots?
A. I could not say that. I assumed they were Americans but I could not say that with certainty because we never saw the insignia of the aircraft nor even the pilots themselves as we did not take them prisoners.
Q. Were there any SD units around where you were?
A. In Rechlien itself, no, but my chief, Peterson, and I myself learned later on that we were supervised by the SD Service.
Q. You say that in your position you would have heard complaints from any of the workers of whom you had four to five thousand of whom approximately two thousand were made up of concentration camp workers, prisoners of war and foreign workers. You never got a single complaint from any of those people, is that right?
A. No. I can only confirm that repeatedly the foreign workers gave expressions of their gratitude for what the office did for them --presided over by a sergeant and which came to them from the Stalag.
We would have been forbidden anyway to enter the concentration camp compound because it was part of Oranienburg and Oranienburg was an SS office.
Q. So you never were inside, were you, in the concentration camp?
A. I went repeatedly there. I myself attended the hospital hours. That is to say, I looked at the ill people before they saw the doctor and I asked the doctor afterwards if he needed anything and thereupon I got the medical supplies from the air field and for that purpose I was able to do this because I was supported by the order of the GL.
Q. The Generalluftzeugmeister was able to arrange it so you could go into the camp and look around?
A. On the basis of the order where it was my duty to look after the people that they should be well-treated and well-looked after and therefore I was admitted into their compound.
Q. And the compound was under the jurisdiction of the SS who had jurisdiction over ....
A. (Interrupting) Yes, that was under the jurisdiction of the SS.
Q. And they had jurisdiction over all of the concentration camps?
A. I didn't know that but all I knew is that they came from Oranienburg and that the regulations concerning that compound came from Oranienburg.
Q. You knew that Himmler was head of the SS?
A. I heard about that in 1945.
Q. In 1945 you found out that Himmler was the Reichsfuehrer SS?
A. Yes.
Q. I have not more questions.
JUDGE MUSSMANNO: Witness, you mean you did not know, before 1945, what power Himmler had in the SS?
WITNESS: No, Your Honor. Particularly in the testing station we did not discuss that nor did we receive many reports there.
The attitude of my chief -- I may perhaps say here, of the GL himself it was known what their attitude was towards the Party. We ourselves were under the Gauleiter of Mecklenburg who supervised us. Therefore we went to no trouble to look into other matters.
THE PRESIDENT: This testing station was in Germany, wasn't it?
WITNESS: Yes. Rechlin is roughly 120 kilometers north east of Berlin on the Mulef Lake.
THE PRESIDENT: And an officer of the German Army, 120 kilometers from Berlin, didn't know who Himmler was until 1945?
WITNESS: Of course, I knew that Himmler was a Party member but that Himmler had all the concentration camps under him I really didn't know until very much later.
THE PRESIDENT: But you knew he was head of the SS?
WITNESS: I knew that he was an SS commander. I did not know until then that he was the head of the SS.
***** PHILLIPS:
Q. How many concentration camp victims did you hoar were killed up to 1945; starved to death and killed?
A. I did not know that and I only learned it from press notices, which came out in connection with the Nurnberg trials.
Q. How many concentration camp workers were killed in your camp?
A. Nobody was tortured or killed in our camp; not even one man.
Q. Did any of them die a natural death while you were there?
A. Nobody died; I can confirm to the court that both tho health and the individual's happiness was such that there was neither case of death or complaint.
BY JUDGE TOMS:
Q. The name of this concentration camp I must know; what was it?
A. The camp was near Rechlien and was an office attached to Oranienburg.
Q. That was Oranienburg you were talking about?
A. It must have been a branch of Oranienburg. Up to my resignation on 31 January 1945 neither torture or fatalities occurred there. I said that before, Your Honor, and I should like to repeat it.
Q. Don't repeat it.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. How many inmates were there in this camp; what was the population of this camp?
A. The camp was roughly about 1,000 people strong.
Q. And how long were you there?
A. From October, 1942 until January 31, 1945.
Q. So that in approximately three years time there was not one death in this camp?
A. Your Honor, the camp was not founded in 1942; as far as I can remember, it only came at the end of 1943 or early in 1944. I cannot give you the exact figure of the arrivals. I think it must have been at the 1203-A end of 1943 or the beginning of 1944.
Q. And in all that time there was not one single death in the entire camp?
A. Your Honor, I had not heard of one single case of death. Should one case of death have occurred, it is possible that the SS in Oranienburg would have been told. We ourselves had not heard of one case of death in that camp.
Q. Do you mean this camp was functioning as a health resort?
A. I cannot say that your Honor, but after the end of the war I heard that the camp was removed. And I heard that the people did not like to go away. Before the end of the war, the people lived there and they were given food just as much as was corresponding to their performance and they were merely able to work there.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I myself have no further questions to the witness. I should like to say one thing, and that is that not every plant or concentration camp tortured its laborers. One hears now of certain camps, but it was not everywhere the same way and as long as there was responsible supervision, conditions in the camp were quite human. As you heard yourself just now. The term "concentration camp" is not always synonymous with murder.
I have no further questions to the witness. No further questions, Your Honor.
JUDGE MUSSMANNO The witness is excused.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Court, may we now have a recess until tomorrow morning? I have nothing to submit to the Court at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, we will recess until tomorrow morning at 9:30.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 18 February 1947, at 0930 hours.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the natter of the United States of America against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 18 February 1947, 0980, Judge Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats. The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal 2. Military Tribunal 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Court, may I call the witness Colonel Pendele?
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will bring the witness Pendele to the courtroom.
MAX PENDELE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Witness, you will raise your right hand and repeat after me:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, will you please sneak slowly and will you also pause after each of my questions so that the translators can finish translating my question. Witness, will you please give the Court your first name and second name?
A. Pendele, Max.
Q. When were you born?
A. 25 April 1891.
Q. What was your rank and position in the Wehrmacht?
A. Colonel of the Luftwaffe, Adjutant to the GL.
Q. Do you know Herr Milch?
A. Yes.
Q. If you see him in the courtroom, please point to him with your hand.
(The witness complied.)
DR. BERGOLD: Will you please state in the record that the witness has recognized the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will so show.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, since when were you adjutant to the GL?
A. Since 1937.
Q. Were you with Milch since that time or were you at first with his predecessor?
A. With his predecessor, Colonel-General Udet.
Q. After his resignation you had some official contacts with Milch?
A. Yes.
Q. When was that?
A. After Udet's death, in the autumn of 1941.
Q. Can you give me that date a little more precisely?
A. Udet died on 17 November 1941 and after that time I was with Milch.
Q. From when onwards was Milch connected with armament in the war?
A. The tasks of the GL were given to Milch after Udet's death.
Q. When did Milch resign as GL from his armament task?
A. Virtually by the middle of 1944, when the new office of Chief of Technical Air Armament was created.
Q. What did Milch have to do with the Four Year Plan, as far as you can judge?
A. Milch had no position in the Four Year Plan.
Q. As GL, or otherwise, were Sauckel and his various labor exchanges under Milch?
A. No.
Q. As GL, did Milch have anything to do with the recruiting of foreign labor, their transport, or their feeding?
A. No, The recruiting and the looking after of foreign workers was exclusively the task of the plenipotentiary for Labor; that is to say, Sauckel.
Q. Was Milch in a position to give orders to the military commanders in the occupied territories or civilian authorities there?
A. No.
Q. Witness, did you yourself have anything to do with the Central Planning Board?
A. No.
Q. Did you have to take part in conferences of the Central Planning Board as Milch's adjutant?
A. In the first meeting of the Central Planning Board Field Marshall Milch was accompanied by his first adjutant, Polke. It is possible that later on I took part temporarily in one or two meeting.
Q. What do you call "temporarily"?
A. As adjutant, it was my task to accompany the Field Marshal. I was called out to take telephone calls during meetings; to deal with visitors. I had no responsibility in the meetings proper. My presence at meetings was purely temporary in that sense.
Q. Witness, what was the labor position in the air armament industry? Was there enough labor or insufficient labor?
A. Labor was insufficient.
Q. Do you know whether Sauckel's promises and Sauckel's statements - according to which he had supplied a certain number of millions of workers - were those statements correct or not?
A. They were usually not correct. I can remember very well when Sauckel gave his famous, "I report, my Fuehrer, that I have supplied three or four million workers to the armament industry." Actually, only a fraction of that figure turned up in reality.
Q. The term "fraction" is a bit vague. Can you give me an approximate figure?
A. When the statement of three million was made, air armament only had about 280,000 workers.
Q. Witness, do you know that there were foreign workers in air armament?
A. Yes.
Q. What were your own observations on that point, as to how these foreign workers were treated?
A. I never accompanied the Field Marshal during his inspection tours to armament factories. As far as my own observations, however, in my private life I lived in Berlin, Lichterfelde West, near the big Telefunken factory. There I could observe that foreign workers employed there, mainly Frenchmen, were completely free and left at large; that in the big camp near Goerz, where Russian women workers were employed, they went in close parties on Sundays, singing.
Q. Did you observe whether they were well dressed and looked well fed?
A. They looked very well fed and very decently dressed.
Q. Witness, did Milch, in his capacity, have any power to punish workers in the air armament industry, Germans or foreigners?
A. Never over workers.
Q. Did he have such power over prisoners of war?
A. He did not have that either.
Q Did it ever become known to you whether he had foreign workers or prisoners shot or hanged?
A Ho nay have expressed his indignation, perhaps, he may have said these people must be hanged, but the powers for that, to carry this out, the Field Marshal didn't have at all.
Q You called it expression of indignation, was it well known in this circle that Milch frequently used strong language without their taking it seriously?
A Oh, yes, that was known to us.
Q These expressions of indignation, did they go beyond his immediate circle?
A No.
Q And you in your own circle didn't take these expressions seriously.
A No, it was known that the Field Marshal was fond of using strong language. He was apt to blow up, but we never took that seriously.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Bergold, excuse me, please. We have had a great deal of testimony on this subject, and you have asked on several occasions this same question, namely, did these remarks of indignation or threats on the part of the defendant go beyond his own circle, and the answer invariably was "no." Now, I assume you mean by that that the circle included his coworkers , his collaborators?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: But in the record there are references to declarations on the part of the defendant in the way of threats to people not within his own circle, that is, the workers themselves, these foreign workers, people brought in from other countries. Now you did not regard them within the circle, did you?
DR. BERGOLD: No. I will only prove that these expressions of indignation only occurred during those meetings, and that they did not go beyond this immediate circle of his co-workers, that in particular they did not even reach the foreign workers concerned.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, you have heard what has boon stated in the record. Did they reach the circle of foreign workers?
A. No, never was there any possibility for those statements to roach the ears of foreign workers. The record and minutes of these meetings were never distributed, and otherwise what was said in those meetings always remained within the circle of those taking part.
Q. Did Milch ever issue an order to that effect, to beat or to shoot foreign workers?
A. No, to whom could he issue such orders. Ho had no powers of command on the management about those workers.
Q. If I understand you correctly, these were purely, if I may put it a little bluntly, these were purely platonic expressions?
A. Yes, quite.
Q. Witness, is it not true that Milch, if he gave orders for foreign workers to work, particularly if he did not also issue orders as to the care of foreign workers, did he not issue such orders?
A. Yes, he did, I think particularly on the taking care of workers, or special allocations of smoking goods, smokes and tobacco. There was a special department, even within the staff, and later on within the armament staff, which was concerned exclusively with the looking after of these workers. It was in our interest after all, to increase the production efficiency of those people in order to obtain the best possible results.
Q. Witness, these expressions of indignation, were they also concerned with his health. Did they become more acute after certain incidents?
A. We talked about the fact that Milch's excitability could be explained by an air crash in which he was over Munich in 1933. In any case his excitability became worse when the Field Marshal returned from his inspection tour at Stalingrad, where his car ran into a railway engine.
Q. Witness, do you know the secret orders by Himmler on the treatment of foreign workers which he issued to the SD?
A. No.
Q. Romberg's report on the State of Affairs in the East?
A. No.
Q. The regulations in Poland?
A. No, may I add that this be taken into consideration, that with the GL we had a colossal daily mail of about three thousand letters. I myself worked on about 10 percent. I had to look through about ten per cent of this and so, therefore, one only concentrated on the most important things, above all the things which called for action, and submit it to the Field Marshal and I read these things myself. Of course, any uninteresting reports which did not concern the work of the GL these were put away as quickly as possible considering the volume of mail.
Q. In other words, they never reached the eyes of Herr Milch.
A. Well, when you asked me about Romberg's reports. I can no longer refer to them now but it is quite possible that a great many things were immediately dealt with without reaching the Field Marshal.
Q. Did you work with Milch on a confidential or friendly basis?
A. I was with him for six or seven years and I got along with him very well. I hope he gave me his confidence.
Q. Did he ever tell you he heard anything about the mistreatment of foreign workers during their transport or recruiting?
A. No.
Q. Would it have been possible in that long period of time that you would have heard about this, was it his characteristic to say these things quite frequently?
A. Oh, yes, he would have talked about them.
Q. Witness, in August, 1941, Goering ordered the transfer of a hundred thousand workers into the air armament industry. Did this happen before Milch became GL?
A. August, 1941, after all Udet only died in November, 1941. In other words, it must have been before Milch's time.
Q. A document has been submitted according to which before November, 1941, Goering ordered the employment of Russian prisoners of war, who was GL at that time?
AAfter 1941, Udet, virtually throughout his last three months of his office, UDET did not work at Buehlerhoehe.
Q Did Milch look after the GL's office at that time?
A No, at that time the last chief of staff was in charge, Colonel Oberst Bloch.
Q In an affidavit of Sauckel, it has been stated that he had reported monthly to Milch concerning the recruiting of workers. He was under obligation to do so in fact. Do you know that Sauckel appeared to make oral reports?
A He was not under obligation to do so, because he was not our subordinate. Certain reports came in, of course, but not regularly, how many workers had been taken into the industry, but he was not under obligation to report.
Q Witness, what was Milch's attitude throughout to these reports of Sauckel? Did ha think they were true or did he fight against them?
A Sauckel's reports were not taken quite seriously. As I said before, on the occasion of the famous Fuehrer record they only received a fraction.
Q Is it known to you that Goering based answers on Sauckel's figures, and therefore reproached Milch for not producing enough?