A. We were so far an administrative Office within Office Group-D, the administrative unit. If there was a decision about budgeting matter, that went to the budget department itself. I don't know what you mean by report.
Q. Did A-2,A-4 and A-5 make any decisions on budgetary matters which concerned Amtsgruppe-D?
A. That is the budget was set up for the entire Waffen-SS Office Group-A, and it must have been an administrative office. The Office D-4 was a purely regional, which concerned the budget. For instance, the budget for the concentration camps, which they had to prepare, and then it passed onto Office Group-A, as its contribution and Office Group-A reviewed the budget for concentration camp, which was passed onto it by Office Group-D. Amtsgruppe-A reviewed the budget for the concentration camps, which was submitted it by the Amtsgruppe-D. Is not that what you just said?
A. Office Group-A put together the whole of the budget by listing together the various contributions. The review on the part of Office Group-A did not apply because their needs would not be known. The reviewing was up to a lower agency which knew about all these requirements. They set up the budget, in this case the administrative office, of the Inspectorate, that is, Office D-4, they put together the budget for all concentration camps, and then passed it on as part of the whole budget of the Waffen-SS, to Office Group-A, which then put together the entire budget.
Q. And to which Amt of Amtsgpuppe-A was the budget sent?
A. To what office?
Q. Which Amt in Amtsgruppe-A?
A. I believe it was Office A-1, but I am not quite sure how it was divided up into details. I believe A-1 was the budget.
Q. And who was in charge of it, Hans Loerner?
A. Yes.
Q. And I now turn to the defendant Fanslau. When did you first meet Fanslau?
A. I saw him for the first time before the war. At that time he was in charge of an administrative office and I met him in Munich. When he joined the WVHA I am not able to say. Yes, he succeeded Frank in 1943, I believe, but I am not quite sure of the figures.
Q. Do you remember when he was made Chief of Amt A-5?
A. No, I don't know.
Q. You know, do you not, that he was in 1944 made Chief of Amtsgruppe-A?
A. Yes. In 1944 in the Summer he took over and he was first charged with Direction, and in September he was later made Chief of the Office Group.
Q. And when he was made the Office Group Chief, do you know that Hans Loerner became his deputy?
A. Yes, I suppose so. I believe Hans Loerner was the most senior to the office chief.
Q. Will you describe the duties of the personnel office of Amtsgruppe-A, and which was Amt A-5?
A. Well, the details are not known to me. The personnel office looked after the personnel data of all administrative leaders. The administrative skilled personnel transferred the planing course, and all other matters which usually connected with personnel offices.
Q. Did they handle the transfer and replacement and recruitment of the Death Head Units?
A. No, the guards in the Death Head Unit were recruited by the Operational Main Office. We had nothing to do with that. The personnel office of Office A-5 only such personnel date were handled up which concerned the leaders of their offices. It might have concerned about three thousand men. I am not quite sure.
Q. What personnel office handled the replacement of the death head units?
A. Concentration camp guards and replacement and recruiting members of the death-head units as such, and all other units of the Waffen SS was the task of the Operational Main Office. I do not know what office in that organization worked on it.
Q. Did Amt A-V handle the placement of the concentrationcamp commanders?
A. No.
Q. I should like to turn to Defendant Vogt, V-o-g-t. He was in charge of the office of audits, Amt A-IV?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you describe the duties and functions of A-IV?
THE INTERPRETER: There is a correction here. It is the Defendant Vogt, not Volk.
MR ROBBINS: Vogt, V-o-g-t.
A. A-IV was the auditing office and was in charge, or rather carried out the preliminary auditing with the units of the Waffen SS.
Q. Fanslau in his affidavit states that Vogt checked up on all expenditures of the individual Amtsgruppen within the WVHA with the exception of Amtsgruppe C and W. Is that correct?
A Yes, that was part of it . They were also units of the Waffen SS. The WVHA also had to be audited, so to speak, and the overheads of Office Group C were of a technical nature and therefore required technical auditing, which Office A-IV was unable to do.
Q. And Amtsgruppe W had its own auditors?
A. Office Group W had its own auditors also. That was the commercial part. The other office groups were put on a different basis, on a fiscal basis. They were quite different auditing fields which concerned with there. Office Group W, therefore, the Office A-IV had nothing to do with because it did not have the technical experts for these tasks.
Office A-IV audited the fiscally laid books, whereas Amtsgruppe W looked after the commercial side of it.
Q. And Vogt audited the books for Amtsgruppe D?
A. Yes, I assume that Vogt also audited those, but the whole auditing procedure in the course of the years, especially in the war was changed so often. Sometimes preliminary auditing could be dispensed with. Sometimes we would call it final auditing, and therefore I cannot say with certainty whether and for that period of time offices were audited. I can say only very generally that Office A-IV audited the Reich agencies.
Q. That includes Amtsgruppe D, does it not? You said-
A. Yes, that was also a Reich agency.
Q. Do you know now when you first met Vogt?
A. I met Vogt when he joined the Administrative Office. That must have been in '36 or '37.
Q. And at that time the office was called Verwaltungsamt?
A. Yes, yes, it was called SS-Verwaltungsamt, Administrative Office.
Q. And what position did Vogt have at that time?
A. We had an auditing office there already in 1936 or '37. Vogt probably was in charge of the department. He may have been a main department chief. I am unable to give the precise details because the organized station and task of the various office groups I am no longer very familiar with. Details go so far and you become so involved that I do not recall it precisely.
Q. Was Vogt an SS man during that period?
A. Yes. I do not know where he came from. He was, during his activity with us, he was a member of the SS.
Q. And he provably joined the SS voluntarily, is that correct?
A. Yes, because he came before the war.
Q. Do you know for a fact that he joined it voluntarily or is that just an assumption?
A. I cannot say for certain. I assume it, because I do not know where he came from, whether he came, he was transferred from a Government department to the SS, which is possible. I do not recall the details. I seem to remember that he came from some food office of finance or supply office.
Q. I would like to turn next to a discussion of the Defendant Tschentschner. He was in charge of Amt B-1, was he not?
A. Yes.
Q. And this was-- Will you describe the purposes and functions of Amt B-1 ?
A. That was an office of Office Group B which dealt with food supplies for the Waffen-SS.
Q. Do you know that on occasion he arranged for the supply of food to concentration camps?
A. No, the Office B-1 had nothing to do with it.
Q. He states in his affidavit that he arranged for a supply of food for the concentration camp Norhausen where the V-weapons were being constructed. Do you know anything about that?
A. He was sent there by me at one time, and there was an emergency, in order to report to me about conditions there, and then he was given the order to supply as much food as possible from troop movements, which was an issolated act of assistance that he carried out. But that was not part of his permanent duties in the Office B-I.
Q. Wasn't it a part of his permanent duties to arrange for food for the concentration camps whenever Amtsgruppe D was unable to furnish it?
A. No, that was not his task. The Office Group D had to be in a position to do so, unless, as in the case of Nordhausen, because transport had been interrupted, and by supply difficulties caused by damage to traffic installations. Whether, that is to say, Office Group B intervened in order to do something about the emergency, that was done in an isolated example on a large scale, and perhaps there were a few more small cases, but they were all of them exceptional, and that was not part of the duties of Office Group B.
Q. Do you recall when you first met Tschentschner,?
A. Tschentschner was part of the units for a long time. I do not know when he joined the main office, during the war it must have been, perhaps as late as 1942, but I am not certain.
Q. And what position did he first held in the WVHA?
A. As far as I can recall he became at once the Main Office Group B Chief of Office.
Q. He was also deputy chief of the entire Amtsgruppe, was he not?
A. I don't know Loerner made him his deputy. The various deputies of office group chiefs I did not decide. The office group chiefs themselves decided who should be their closers collaborator, and any formal confirmation was never done.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Mr. Robbins.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. What supplies did this defendant furnish, and to whom did he furnish supplies?
A. At that time he supplied the Nordhausen camp. On my orders he took food from army supplies in order to combat an emergency. That was done on a large scale. Actually several convoys of trucks were used on a large scale. The actual supplies came from the Waffen SS, that is the troops, which was actually not quite allowed, but as the emergency existed I ordered this so that something would be done then or there was no possibility to help this camp.
Q. I am not particularly interested in that--you already certified to that, we already know that. But did this defendant furnish any other supplies and if he did furnish any other supplies or had charge of furnishing other supplies to whom did he furnish the other supplies--other than food?
A. That was an isolated delivery to Nordhausen camp.
Q. I am not asking about that at all. I am asking you: Did he furnish any other supplies of any kind or character to any other concentration camps at any time?
A. I don't believe so. He was not allowed to do so. He was not allowed to do that.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. George Loerner, who was Tschentschner's superior, and who was in charge of Amtsgruppe B, says this in his affidavit: "If Amtsgruppe D was in need of rations, Berger sometimes turned directly to the chief of Amtsgruppe B-1, Rations, Standartenfuehrer Tschentschner, who reported it to me."
Do you know whether or not that is a fact?
A. I can say nothing about that. I do not know how the various offices dealt with these things among each other.
Q. You have already said something about it. You said that it didn't work that way. I am just asking you now if George Loerner is wrong in his conception of the way food was furnished the concentration camps. He was in charge of this.
A. He should know that himself if he said so. After all, he was chief of Office Group D, and I can't say anything about that. Anyway, as far as official orders were concerned, Office Group B was not competent for that task. Whether he, himself, intervened on his own initiative in certain cases, I don't know.
Q. Well, he goes ahead to say "official channels were from D-4 to Gluecks and from Gluecks to me. I admit that these were normal channels."
Is there anything wrong with that?
A. As I remember it, the channel stopped at D-4, the central administration, and how far that office contacted Office Group B and Office Group B-1 in certain cases is quite unknown to me. I never saw anything, and I can't say anything about the. The arrangements he made between himself and Office D-4 never reached me.
Q. You recall, don't you, that when you were interrogated that after you were first arrested you said that this office D handled food as well as clothing for the concentration camps? You recall that, do you not?
A. Yes, that is correct. I said that, but I corrected it later on after I remembered that the whole of the food supply question was decided on by the Reichs Food Ministry--not by Office D-4.
Q. Do you know whether or not Tschentschner joined the SS voluntarily?
A. I do not know; I do not know where he joined it.
Q. I should like next to turn to the defendant Scheide who was chief of Office B-5, Transportation. Will you tell us what his duties were?
A. Scheide was the technical leader for transportation in the WVHA. He was not a member of the skilled personnel of the Main Office. In his charge was, first of all, the maintenance of all our vehicles. And in order to look after the transports for food and clothing as far as that became necessary within Office Group B. Those were his main duties. What other duties were added to this later on, I do not know.
Q. You say he took care of the maintenance for all "of our vehicles." Do you mean by that the vehicles of all of the Amtsgruppen?
A. Yes, the vehicles of the WVHA--only of the Main Office.
Q. Do you know that he also furnished weapons for the concentration camps; arms, ammunition?
A. Well, ammunition and weapons were supplied by the Main Operational Office, but it is possible that applications of Office Group D to the Operational Main Office went through Scheide's office, but I am not quite sure.
Q. That is what he says in his affidavit. It is not only possible --it is highly probable that that was the channels.
A. Well, as I have said, I do not know the various details of the duties.
Q. Do you know when he first joined your administrative organization?
A. Scheide came relatively late. I don't think he came before 1943--but again I am not quite sure.
Q. And was he made chief-of-office as soon as he was assigned to the WVHA?
A. Well, whether he became office chief immediately, I don't know. But he certainly was that later on, chief of office.
Q. Do you know whether or not he joined the SS voluntarily?
A. I do not know.
Q. I next direct your attention to the defendant Kiefer, in Amtsgruppe C. He was Office Chief of C-2, Special Construction Tasks Will you tell us what this office was in charge of?
A. That office, C-2, as far as I can recollect, was mainly in charge of the whole settlement program, for the post-war years. It had to prepare it. That was, above all, plans for settlement. And Kiefer in this field was a specialist, an expert. For that reason as far as I am informed, Kammler, I believe, borrowed him from the Luftwaffe.
Q. He was at one time Kammler's deputy chief of Amtsgruppe C, was he not? You remember that from the documents, don't you?
A. Yes, I remember reading that here in the document.
Q. You didn't know it before you saw it in the document?
A. No, I didn't recall that. I cannot recall. He may have come to see me once, but I did not recall it.
Q. You know do you not that in his special construction tasks he used concentration camp inmates as laborers?
A. Yes, that whole business was never carried out in the war. No settlements were built as far as I know. Kiefer dealt with plans for settlement. That is to say, with office work.
Q. Do you mean that none of Kiefer's plans were carried out, that no construction whatever was carried out under Kiefer?
A. I don't believe so. Building in the war with timber was very difficult, and I don't think that under Kiefer we actually built settlements. By that I mean these large, living settlements for post-war years which were planned. It was never carried out
Q. He was in charge of building hospitals and infirmaries. Weren't hospitals and infirmaries built during the war?
A. No, in the war we did not build hospitals or infirmaries. We changed them in some cases but large constructions were never carried out because it was not possible to do so.
Q. I didn't ask if large constructions--Some hospitals must have been built during the war under Kiefer, weren't they?
A. Not that I know of. I do not know.
Q. Office C-2, sub-division 2 was in charge of buildings for armament, ammunition, and signal purposes. What did this consist of: building for armament and ammunition? That is on the chart that you signed which is in evidence.
A. I am not acquainted with the details there. All I remember is the office chief of this enormous office. What these people did in detail in departments and sub-departments, I cannot say.
Q. So you can't say with any certainty whether or not Kiefer used concentration camp inmates?
A. No, I am unable to say that with certainty. I am of the opinion that kiefer only planned in his office, but I am not quite sure.
Q. You don't exclude the possibility that he did utilize inmate labor?
A. It is possible, but I am not sure whether he actually carried out building.
Q. Do you know whether Kiefer first joined the WVHA?
A. He also came rather late. I don't think he came before 1943 or '44, I am not sure of the date. I do know that he was a comparatively late arrival.
Q. Do you know whether he joined the SS voluntarily?
A. I believe he was transferred to the Waffen-SS by the Luftwaffe. I once saw him in Luftwaffe uniform, and I assumed that Kammler, who know him from the old days, was at the back of his transfer to the Waffen-SS.
Q. Are you sure about that?
A. I believe that is how it was.
Q. I think we need not discuss defendant Eirenschmalz since we have an extensive interrogation as to him.
Will you tell us what the Defendant Sommer had to do in Amtsgruppe D?
A. Yes, Sommer was a collaborator of Maurer's in office D-2, Labor Assignment. He did not appear in the picture as far as I was concerned, and what he did under Maurer I am unable to tell you.
Q. I believe you said yesterday that he was chief deputy in the office--or deputy of the office. Which was it?
A. I said yesterday that I have seen no evidence that Sommer was deputy office chief. I doubt that also, because he-
Q Excuse me. I didn't ask for that. I only asked was he chief in the office or Chief of the Office. Yesterday you said he was one but not the other. Which was it?
A He was not Chief of Office. He was a collaborator in Office D-II, and, if nobody else was there, he just might have been deputized by the office chief, without being his official deputy.
Q That is not what you told the Tribunal yesterday. You said that he was either Deputy in the office or Deputy of the Office and I am asking you today if you recall which of those two things you claim that he was?
A He was not Deputy Office Chief. He was a deputy in the office as a collaborator.
Q And this was the office that was in charge of allocating inmate labor?
A Yes, quite. Labor allocation.
Q Do you know whether Sommer joined the SS voluntarily?
A No, I don't know. No, I think he was called up because he was relatively young, but I am not sure.
Q Do you know when he joined the WVHA?
A I believe he joined Office Group D in summer, 1942.
Q Had he worked with you prior to that?
A No, I don't know where he came from, where he was before.
Q I would like next to ask you about the Defendant Pook. Do you know what duties he carried out in the WVHA?
A Pook I met for the first time here in Nurnberg and I heard that he was a dentist at Lolling's. I did not know him in Berlin.
Q Do you know the duties of a Chief Dental Officer in the Medical Division of the WVHA?
A No, I am unable to say anything about that.
Q Did you know that Amt D-III had a dental officer?
A I did not know that at all. I heard there were, that Pook was Dental Chief.
Q I would like to ask next about the Defendant Frank. He was your deputy for a time over the entire WVHA, was he not?
A Yes, that is to say, up to when he was ordered away to the Main Office Police and before that I did not have an official deputy. At that time I was represented by the so-called Staff Leader up to 1939; as long as it was an SS Administrative office, the Staff Leader would deputize for me and after that, after 1939 or 1940, Frank, until he was ordered to the Main Office, Main Police, which I think occurred in 1943.
Q He was also chief of Amtsgruppe A as well as your deputy, was he not?
A Yes.
Q Was he ever your deputy in Amtsgruppe W?
A No. He had nothing to do with that.
Q He did precede Georg Loerner in that position?
A No, Frank had nothing to do with Office Group W.
Q Will you tell us very briefly what his duties as Chief of Amtsgruppe A were. Did they differ in any respect from the duties of Fanslau, which you have described?
A No. Fanslau succeeded him and had the same duties.
Q Part of the proof in this case shows that you visited Auschwitz concentration camp with the Defendant Frank in 1943 for an inspection of the I.G. Farben BunaPlants. Do you recall that inspection tour?
A Yes, I believe so.
Q Do you remember what the purpose of the tour was? Do you know the purpose of the inspection tour. Would you recall that today?
A No, I don't recall it very precisely. What the purpose of the trip was. I personally went there to inspect the enterprise, but I don't even know if Frank was with me or not. I am unable to imagine what he would have had to do there. I am not sure about this.
Q I thought you said a moment ago that Frank was with you.
A But I am not quite certain. I can't say with certainty. It is possible that he came down there with me once.
Q And do you recall that Mauer also visited with you on that occasion?
A I am sure that I went to Auschwitz with Mauer on one occasion.
Q Do you recall if the Defendant Frank was with you when you visited with Mauer?
A No, I don't recall that. I am not sure.
Q It is true, is it not, that Frank supplied the funds for various of the SS industries?
A I did not quite understand the question -- that Frank would provide the funds for various SS enterprises?
Q For instance, at Wewelsburg. Perhaps that will refresh your recollection. Do you recall that he arranged for financing of certain institutions at Wewelsburg? You remember that from the documents.
A Frank the Wewelsburg? The Wewelsburg works were financed with the enterprises of Dresdner Bank, Frank had nothing to do with it.
Q Yes, it is true that they were financed through the Dresdner Bank, but on the 14th of May, 1942, Klein, who was in Wewelsburg, according to your testimony, made a report to you, and that is contained in the Document Book as NO-547. It is in Book XVII. It is on page 178 of the English and 176 of the German, and in this report Klein says that since financial help from the Reich Post Ministry will not be possible for some years, the Dresdner Bank, according to the decision of the Chief of the Main Office was ordered to prepare a credit of 9,000,000 Reichsmarks. Do you remember that you yourself carried out that part of the instructions and that you made such instructions?
A Would you please give me once again the number of that document?
Q That is in Book XVII. It's on page 176 of your book. It states that money that was needed in the interim -- in the meantime -- was supplied by a credit of 200,000 Reichsmarks by Brigadefuehrer Frank. This was carried out under your supervision and was referred to you. Do you recall it now?
A I do not find anything about postal credits there. Postal credits were mentioned here before and after 1940, it had -
Q It must be an erroneous translation. Do you have the Document NO-547?
A Yes, I have it of the money needed?
Q Do you see Roman Numeral I?
A Yes.
Q Subparagraph A -- it is right under Roman Numeral I.
A Yes.
Q And under that financial situation the money needed in the meantime was supplied by a credit of 200,000 Marks by Brigadefuehrer Frank.
A It says 12,000,000, 12,000,000 marks.
Q There must be a mistake in my book. Do you recall that this transaction took place?
A Yes, they were, but I don't know if it took place in 1941. This is only an estimate of the money needed for the construction which was to be needed in two years hence, as it says here, because the total credit which the company finally took up amounted to eleven or thirteen millions marks.
Q And this was in connection with the financing of the project at Wewelsburg Concentration Camp, is that correct -- the project under Klein?
A That had actually nothing to do with the financing of Wewelsburg concentration camps, because the funds for the construction of Wewelsburg came from private sources. They were private credits arranged by the Dresdner Bank, whereas the moneys for the construction of the concentration camp came from the Reich and it is possible that the Society for the Preservation of German Culture Monuments -- made an advance here and the Reich paid back later on -
DR. FICHT (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT KLEIN): May it please the court, may I perhaps say a brief words. This is the second report which came later on, but the document consists of two reports and we will see quite clearly from it what it is about.
MR. ROBBINS: I am just trying to refresh the witness' recollection from this page in the document, I don't see that the second report has anything to do with it.
Q At any rate this money was made available to the Defendant Klein, is that true?
A You mean eleven to thirteen million marks? Yes. They were called in slowly by the Dresdner Bank.
MR. ROBBINS: I have no further questions with regard to this subject. This is a convenient time to recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 0930 hours tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 29 May 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Oswald Pohl, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 29 May 1947, 0930-1230, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Witness, I would like to direct your attention this morning to the subject of Action Reinhardt. (Sound difficulty).
I would like to take up this morning the subject of Action Reinhardt. There are two propositions which I wish to test, and those concern the witness's testimony that he knew nothing about mass murder of Jews before Himmler's speech in October, 1943, and that he did not participate in the murders. And, secondly, that he did not know that the vast amount of valuables which he handled in Action Reinhardt came from murdered Jews. Also, the measures that he took after 1943 in executing Himmler's plan for clearing out and exterminating the Jews.
Before we get into the subject again, witness, I ask you if there are any changes that you would like to make in your prior testimony on these points?
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute.
Q. Will you answer my question?
A. As far as my original testimony is concerned, I have nothing to add, and I don't see where I should change it.
Q. The letters which are a part of Exhibits 462, 461, and 460 in the first part of the document book--the letters which are a part of the Exhibits 460, 461 and 462 of the Document Book 18--show that the mass extermination of the Jews was begun at least as early as 1941. Proof shows that much of this mass extermination was carried on in Auschwitz.
Hoess, who was commandant of Auschwitz, says that he gassed 4,000,000 people in that camp. Witness, on the 7th of November 1942, you took steps, did you not, to have this concentration camp at Auschwitz enlarged and expanded?
A. The extension of the concentration camp concerned the establishment of new barracks because they did not have enough living quarters, and in Auschwitz there were constructions carried out every year. I cannot recall that for a special purpose such as extermination of the Jews the camp should have been extended.
Q. Excuse me, I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you took steps in 1942, in November, to have the concentration camp Auschwitz enlarged. Is your answer yes? If it is not, I would refer you to the document which the court discussed with you last week. It is in Book 18 on page 36 of your document book. It is Exhibit 466-PS. This is a letter that you wrote to the Reichsminister of Finance recommending that 4,640 acres be confiscated from Jews, Poles and the Church, and that only racial Germans be paid for the land; and that this was for the enlargement, of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. You recall that, do you not?
A. Yes; that concerns the grounds outside the actual concentration camp.
Q. That is what I asked you. You purchased new property so that the camp itself could be expanded. I was not talking at the moment about crematory or gas chambers. The camp itself was enlarged.
A. No; the camp itself was not enlarged. The actual space of the camp was fixed. What was done there was merely to clear up the communal rights which were involved there. The actual space of the concentration camp was not enlarged.
Q. Well, I will read you the first sentence from your letter and let it speak for itself.
"The Reichsfuehrer of the SS expressed the wish that the territory of Auschwitz concentration camp should be increased to about 4,640 acres to become a private estate to be owned by the Reich."
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Now would you turn to Document Book XX, please. I would like to go through some of these documents for the purpose of testing your testimony that you knew nothing about the extermination of the Jews before October 1943 and I am talking about the extermination in the East -in Auschwitz.
A In October of 1943 the first official communication that reached me was through Himmler's speech. From my own knowledge, previous to that, I knew nothing about this plan.
Q Yes, that is what you told us last week. Now, will you look at the first document in Document Book XX, which is Exhibit 498. This is a letter from Himmler to you and it is dated the 9th of October, 1942. You received this letter, did you not?
A Yes.
Q And Himmler says, "I wish to state the following with reference to the memorandum from the Wehrkreis Commander in the General Government to the OKW, concerning the substitution of Poles for Jewish Labor:
"1. I have given orders that all of the so-called armament workers, are to be gathered together in concentration camps on the spot, that is, in Warsaw, Lublin, and by the SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger and Pohl.
"2. The Jews who are in actual armament firms, that is, in weapon-production shops, motor car work shops, etc., are gradually to be taken out. As the first step, they are all to be in one workshop in each plant. As the second stop in the procedure, the workers of these separate workshops are to be put together, as far as possible, in separate factories through an exchange and so on.
"3. We will then strive to substitute Poles for these Jewish workers, and to reduce most of these Jewish concentration camp factories, to a few large Jewish concentration camp factories, if possible, in the East of the General Government. Of course, there, too, the Jews shall one day disappear, in accordance with the Fuehrer's wishes."