It was not always very pleasant for us to have to taste these foods. However, it was necessary, from the point of view of science. Therefore I was not surprised about the experiments with Biosyn-Mycel; above all, we always tried out these things ourselves or we had to try them out ourselves. In this connection I recall that a very small file was handed to me- I do not know on what occasion this was - and in this file I saw that these Biosyn-Mycel experiments had been carried out on inmates of concentration camps. However, when I read this, these experiments had already been concluded. In this connection I cannot recall that the name of Professor Schenk had been mentioned. The purpose of these tests probably was just like in all normal food experiments - to use all opportunities in order to discover new sources of food. We were forced to do this by the difficult food situation which prevailed in Germany. I have only referred to this incident now when I saw in the files of the trial that this matter has been referred to there, at the time I was not further interested in the development of this product and I did not speak with Professor Schenk about it. It was not a particularly outstanding novelty as similar drugs were issued at that time at all possible places, even the troops, May I mention the so-called "Phrix's Yeast" in that connection. Some weeks ago I saw in a journal here in the prison, an announcement where this drug Biosyn-Mycel was mentioned. The same name was not used by from the name of the author I could conclude that the same thing was being referred to here.
Q. Was that the same incident as the testing of a Biosyn-Vegetabil Sausage?
A. I cannot give you an exact answer to that question any more and above all I cannot say where this drug was given in the shape of sausage. However, I assume that the file I saw at the time made reference to this incident. This drug was called Biosyn-Mycel; that is a composition of biological synthetics. Antizil is the word for mushrooms and it was formed by certain substances of egg yolk; it was a substance which contained albumen from about 40% to 50%. That is about all the knowledge I have about that.
Q. At the time wasn't it mentioned that fatalities or physical damage had been caused?
A. No, I did not find out anything which could have pointed to the fact that some fatalities had taken place. I have heard here for the first time of such alleged happenings. However, up to now no proof has been submitted with regards to that charge. There was no sign to indicate that some fatalities actually did occur. Even today I cannot imagine that this drug should have been harmful or fatal in any way. I cannot imagine that it should have had any harmful results. I know to tho contrary, from this file, that it has contained diagnoses of physicians who were very satisfied and even enthusiastic about this product. One even went on to state that the finger nails and the hair of the experimental subjects had grown very quickly; of course all this did not give us any reason to suspect any harmful effects or fatalities, The letter of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl to Himmler of 9 September 1942...
Q. May I interrupt you. This is a document from Volume 8. It is NO-003, Prosecution Exhibit No. 260; it is on page 10 of the English text and on page 15 of the German test. Did you know that letter at the time?
A. No. I did not know this letter according to its contents nor did I know of the subject with which it dealt. It was written a year before I started in my position but of course I may have heard something about the idea which was stated there. However, this was not the case.
Q. Therefore you did not know anything about the letter which was written a year before you took over your position? You did not see it later on?
A. No.
Q. Was Professor Schenk, who has been mentioned here, subordi nated to you?
Could you exercise any supervision over him?
A. Professor Schenk was directly subordinated to Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl. That is already shown by this document, and that question has already been clarified here by other witnesses. Furthermore, Professor Schenk could report directly to the Reichsfuehrer; I heard that one time through a conversation; he therefore worked completely independently. However, I admit that we had common interest in the field of troop supply and that, therefore, I had frequent contacts with Schenk.
Q. Did Schenk have ay other tasks? What were the tasks of *** Schenk which brought him into contact with you?
A. These tasks extended to new methods of conserving food. For example, we worked together on the production of new food which could be dropped to troops which were surrounded from the air by airplanes. In this way we could supply then with food; this was concentrated food of the Waffen-SS. Then we had to pack that food--we had to conserve it-and we had to deal with such questions for the most part. However, I did not make any suggestions to that effect and I did not order it. Schenk developed this procedure on his own initiative and as soon as he would developed any tangible results he would consult me. I then gave my expert opinion on then. I was not the only one to give my opinion for Gruppenfuehrer Loerner and Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl would also give their opinions. However, all these were completely normal tests in the field of troop supply. I, myself, never carried out any experiments in that field and I did not event make any harmless experiments.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess until 1:45.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1:45.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours).
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 23 June 1947)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q Witness, to come back to the position of the food inspector; Brof. Schenk the document mentioned before to us the letter from Pohl to Himmler of 9/9/1942, showed very clearly that everybody was quite prepared to ruthlessly endanger the health of all the inmates, if it was possible to carry out experiments on them with a promise of results. While there is mention made expressly of food experiments in documents of this trial and the Doctors' trial, I had not found any definite indication about these food experiments with the exception of a document, which is in Document Book 21, on page 30, which is an affidavit by one Freidrich Endres. He, in a very general manner, referred to experiments made by Professor Schenk, of food experiments, and he also referred to fatalities.
THE PRESIDENT: Whose affidavit is this, please?
DR. PRIBILLA: It is by Freidrich Endres.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, Endres.
DR. PRIBILLA: It is Document NO-2368, Exhibit 516.
BY DR. PRIBILLA:
Q Now the thing to conclude from that would be who was the official responsible for food experiments, if anything was done in that field did it pass within your field of task? On that basis I would like you to tell us very clearly who Professor Schenk was, and what his relationship was between himself and the organization of the WVHA, and your office?
AAt the beginning of the war in 1940 I saw Professor Schenk and met him actually at that time when the first campaign in the west had started. He was attached to our division for reasons of which I did not know at the time, or what his special field of task was. I merely referred to him as a troop doctor. Only later on in the was I became better acquainted with him, he had left when the WVHA sent him in the field which dealt with problems in the field of troop feeding.
These problems which he dealt with were entirely of Schenk's ideas, and, furthermore, they were concerned namely with how food could be prepared in the most useable manner, and how the soldier could be fed, therefore, with the proper amount of calories which were discussed and as food inspector I came across him only when in the end of 1943 I went to the WVHA. There, his position was entirely definite. He was subordinate, as I said before, and other people have had him immediately under Pohl, and so I don't wish to say anything unpleasant, or what the things were. He was also Himmler's favorite, as I saw it, because Himmler was interested in Schenk's idea of a reform in the food field, and, of course, it is a fact that Himmler whenever he was interested in an idea, in a possibility concerned, had to pass his own ideas at any costs to tho world, whether or not it would go too far. To give an example, it may be very funny, but this night be quite sufficient that Schenk had made a large number of official trips, and I heard in conversations, that on Himmler's behalf he spent several weeks or months in Russia with the troops at the front in order to continue this food research there, and, again from conversations I know he lead a private nursing home, or hospital in Schwabing, near Munich, where he was. I never tallied to him about it, but I assume that it was possible a hospital where they worked on food reform, such as the Weisse Hirsch in Dresden, a home in Germany which was known at that time New did he have any reason to tell me what ho had done on his official trips, as somoy times he was quiet about them, and sometimes he had just vanished after having said goodbye, and again, sometimes I did not know that he gone away anymore.
Q Witness, I would like to hear more complete things. Was the position that you were in a position to give orders and to instruct Professor Schenk? Was the position that he worked in, was that under your control and supervision, you as a food officer for the troops to be working in a position to tell Schenk in what direction to work to find out things, or to invent something now; to test something; or did Schenk have a position which went beyond your competency; did he work for other agencies?
What was his position within the framework?
A: As I said before, it was not the case that I gave Schenk orders or instructions, but that Schenk on his own initiative would investigate certain problems in the food field, as he was a research worker, nor can I say that orders or suggestions were his own, in any case, or whether he received them from a third party, let's say, Himmler, or the Reich Research Council, which would have been entirely possible. So far as I was concerned Schenk only invited me to inspect something he had actually completed, and that was exclusively on a factor of food supply for the troops, and it became never clear on those occasions that he had made experiments on inmates. As I said before, I learned of that particular document which referred to food experiments in a concentration camp, but in that document the name Schenk did not appear, so far as I can recall at the time. It was purely a report by a doctor who was giving a very favorable recommendation on that product. Nothing was said in the document that people had died, or at least received damage to their health. As far as Schenk's field was concerned he did not confine himself only to the Waffen-SS and the Police, because his official designation was Food Inspector of the Waffen SS and Police, who in the least year of the war, roughly from the middle of 1944 onwards was also assigned to the duty of Food Inspector with the OKH. Schenk, therefore, was a man who was such a worker and scientist who had a reputation and name in the last sense of the word, as I was able to find out in that field, and he did not work under me, nor was he under my direction; by which statement I don't wish to be particularly smaller than I actually was, but I was certainly not a man who was above Schenk.
Q Now, if you had to give an organizational chart of this, where would Schenk have to be put according to his actual tasks? Can you put him anywhere on this chart here? (Indicating)
A Not in the end actually. He was then the food inspector of the whole of the army. Therefore he would have been part of the Army Administrative Office; but within the WVHA, although he had a position within Office Group B in order to allocate him somewhere in an office and to be able to pay him--he must have his desk somewhere and his telephone and so forth--but from the point of view of his actual tasks and the orders he would receive, he was under Himmler and Pohl directly.
Q Therefore, he had every freedom of movement?
A Yes, he could and that becomes quite clear from Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl's letter which says that Schenk is not tied to any office. Although I did not know that letter at the time, I can confirm that his position was regarded as that, and I did so too.
Q Now, when you joined the WVHA in 1943 Schenk and his influence and position already existed, and you took no influence on them?
A No.
Q Would you not have been in a position to give suggestions and orders for such food experiments? You were concerned with the feeding of the troops. Were you not therefore a man who gave orders to Schenk to do this, that or the other?
A I have described my task before. My duties were to keep food ready which could be used immediately. Whenever new measures were taken, such as synthetic food, Schenk would report to me. I was not the first one to whom he showed this, but sometime or other I was taken into his confidence in order to give my opinion on what I, who had had practical experience, thought of this, whether according to my experience it was suitable for the troops, whether the packing was sufficient, whether it would suffer in transport, whether the climate would be able to damage it all, and so forth. That was the limit usually of our conversation.
As far as I can remember, we never made such experiments with the troops, not even when valuable food items were concerned. I recall nothing of that sort from my time of my service in the war.
Q To sum up, I might say that Schenk had a position which went far beyond the limits of your office. He was Himmler's favorite. He finally became food inspector also for the OKH. He had every freedom of movement and, so to speak, in higher spheres than those of your office. Now, when Schenk had any requests to make or suggestions to offer, he would discuss them with you as an expert for the SS food supplies, as he would other agencies of the army., the Luftwaffe, and so forth; is that correct?
A Yes. That I can confirm fully. There was also the fact that as a prominent scientist, Schenk had every self-confidence. Our relations were quite good, but he certainly would not have stood for any orders coming from me. In that respect, he would have regarded me as a layman and would have declined to avail himself of my suggestions.
Q During your service, did you hear anything beyond the things you told us this morning about food experiments with poisonous food?
A No. I said before that I did not even know anything about the idea at the back of this letter. Under "poisonous foods" I can not visualize anything. Actually, that is a contradiction in itself. Food can do damage to you. Game or fish might result in food poisoning, and equally a man might fall ill because he has eaten unsuitable food or often not enough food. Food scientists maintain and attempt to prove that people who always eat canned food suddenly fall ill with certain symptoms, and scurvy is one of the best known illnesses of that description, but that is all I can visualize under that. Poisonous mushrooms or berries are well known in their effects. Therefore, no reasonable man would call them food. Anything else which goes beyond this, I can regard only as a attempt to poison somebody, which no longer has anything to do with food experiments.
All that I knew about these things was just the things which would turn up in my daily routine work because, after all, I was a layman in these fields. I think the whole thing has been somewhat exaggerated also by Schenk, and perhaps he was merely trying to show off. I don't think anything really evil was at the back of this.
Q But in this letter by Pohl to which we have referred before in Document Book 8, it says fairly clearly, does it not, that an intention exists possibly to use inmates for disadvantageous experiments, which surely is an intention which must be taken seriously. How can you say now that you think much of this was simply based on showing off?
A Well, one must know how these people were used to expressing themselves. These reformists called things poisonous or poisoning which to a normal person would seem completely poisonous. For instance, in the minds of these reform fanatics, as I might call them, a cup of strong coffee or too much meat represents poison, or canned food, as I have said before, and therefore, I regard this as a piece of showing off to say in this letter that there is a house mentioned which is called "the house of bad food" which did not exist. That was simply a whim of Himmler, and nothing further was done. We smiled perhaps and shook our heads, had took knowledge of it, but that was as far as it went.
Q Was that your impression also, of Prof. Schenk and the orders he received from Himmler and which he discussed with other agencies?
A Yes, quite. I said before what I observed in these things and what I took part in where entirely normal, common cooking tests and cooking experiments, such as any housewife does at times. I can not imagine even today that people were killed on these occasions or suffered any damage. I would have to know more about this first.
Q Witness, did you hear anything about the so-called euthenasia program at any time?
THE PRESIDENT: Before you leave the food experiments, what was the exhibit in which the word "poisonous food" was used?
DR. PRIBILLA: Mr. President, Document Book 8, English Page 10 NO-003, Exhibit 260.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the only place where any reference is made to poison, isn't it?
DR. PRIBILLA: As far as I know, yes.
THe PRESIDENT: In this Pohl indicates he wishes to have experiments made in two groups, first, such as cover the examination of poisonous ingredients of our food, or such as are slowly growing poisonous. That, to my mind, now speaking for the Tribunal, does not all suggest the feeding of poisonous food to prisoners but does refer to the growth of poisons in food by fermentation, by contamination, or in some such method as that. If that is all the poison there is in this clause of the indictment, I think we can find an antidote.
THE WITNESS: In another affidavit, of course, mention was made, I don't know where it was, that inmates were given wooden sausate. We discussed that this morning.
Q. (By Dr. Pribilla) Witness, your knowledge about these things does not seem to go too far. Who among your subordinates was the one who had more knowledge? Did you have a specialist in your department?
A. We did not have a specialist in that sense. We had somebody but we did not use him as such. One of my colleagues was the former ministerial councellor in the Ministry of the Interior, and with the Reich Health Leader, one called Obersturmfuehrer Ertl, who, it so happened, knew Schenk from the old days and worked together with Schenk in a civilian capacity. As he knew his ideas and methods of work for a much longer time and more thoroughly than I did, Ertl would therefore by in a position to give more reason and to tell you more about this.
DR. PRIBILLA: Oberministerial Councillor Ertl was permitted by the Tribunal to appear as a witness here, and if this should become necessary after the cross-examination by the Prosecution, to speak more about Schenk's experiments with poisonous foods, then we have perhaps in Ertl the antidote which the president has deferred to.
A. (By Dr. Pribilla) How we can leave this subject, and I would like to ask you now what you knew of the so-called euthanasia program?
A. As far as the carrying out of that program was concerned and above all using that program for the committing of crimes, I did not know at all. That crime, as many other crimes, I heard about only here in prison.
Euthanasia as a problem of a general nature I knew something about in the old days. I knew as much as any interested layman with an average degree of education, because that problem was discussed a great deal a long time before the war, long even before National Socialism came into power. Quite probably both at home and abroad people expressed their opinions against or for it, and beyond that I heard nothing about it. Particularly I never knew that the final opinion was in governmental or expert circles, and looking back I can only say it world have been somewhat difficult for me to notice anything about that, because at that time, when this program was used, I was not in Germany, not at home.
Q. Did you not hear anything abut the fact that Jews, Poles, and other members of so-called inferior races were systematically sent to extermination camps?
A. Shortly after 1933, Doctor, when one of the first laws issued by the National Socialist Government came out, we had the law which forbade vivisection, and that saw was being explained too. Even had I known anything about these things, I would not have believed it, that a Government which so expressly had fought the cause of animals would have done anything go barbaric and insane on human beings. Even had somebody told me about this, I think I would not have reported this man to the Gestapo as you might assume, I think probably I might have called a psychiatrist, because I think this would have been so insane that I only could have believed it if I could have seen it with my own eyes, because I worked in a field which did not bring me into the remotest contact with that sort of problem.
Q. But did you not, for example, hear the speech made by the Reichsfuenrer SS Himmler on 14 October 1943 at Posen, and which we have mentioned before here in this trial?
A. It has been said before that this speech was addressed to a small circle of higher leaders to which I did not belong then or later. Also I saw Himmler for the last time and heard him in the autumn of 1940 in Holland.
Therefore, I heard nothing of the so-called Posen speech at the time nor later on.
Q. But the speech which you heard in Holland in 1940, what did he say there, what principles did he mention?
A. On that occasion Himmler spoke at Atten Doorm in Holland, addressing the Leader Corps of our division. I cannot recall too many details of that speech. All I know now, which seems to me the most remarkable thing, at the time he demanded from us who were in the occupied foreign countries, exemplary behavior. We were, as he put it, to win over the population of those countries to our cause. These were expressions and golden words which had nothing criminal to them and were entirely on an ideal basis. What I feel today is that whatever circle he was addressing he spoke to in accordance with the effect he wished to make.
Q. The Posen speech never reached you, nor was it the basis of your action ever?
A. No, I heard nothing of the speech at the time, and my immediate superior, Georg Loerner, had not been to Posen. Pohl, who was present, did not tell us anything about it because we did not have that close contact with the head director there. The ideas were not the basis of our actions, because I , and other of my friends, always believed in acting as decent human beings and soldiers.
Q. Did you come across the term "action Reinhard" ever?
A. Only in this trial. In the old days I never saw, experienced or read anything, for instance, the expression itself or something similar to it, which could be connected with it.
Q. Did you know of any special task "G" within the framework of the WVHA?
A. No, that term again is completely new and strange to me, and I can only say the same thing about Action Reinhard. I made no observations which in any way could be connected with it.
Q. Were you not concerned with the evaluation or listing of the valuables, moneys, etc., which came from the Action Reinhard?
A. No. after all I was a food expert, and we were--Here we did not have the food items, but other valuables which did not touch upon my field of task at all, I never had anything to do with it.
Q. Did you not have anything to do with it by the fact that you were known as deputy, Georg Loerner's deputy from time to time?
A. No, I need not modify what I said at all.
Q. Did you not obtain any knowledge that the Reichsbank had gold, gold from teeth, valuables, jewels, which had come from the Action Reinhard, and which was deposited there for the WVHA?
A. Not at any time did I hear of this, and on the basis of files and documents it is my impression that this things happened sometime before I joined the WVHA. Therefore it was quite impossible for me to have any practical contact with it.
Q. But a document has been submitted here in Document Book 18, Page 135 of the English text and 142 of the German, which is Document NO-2003, Exhibit 480 by the prosecution. That is a report addressed to Himmler, presumably from Pohl, and it says that thousands of watches fountain pons, billfolds and things having been repaired were sent to the SS Division to their post exchange places, etc. Now, you were competent for the troop storage camps. In that capacity, perhaps as the expert in that respect did you take part in the distributing of these items to the troops perhaps?
A. First of all, I never read that report. At the time when that letter was drawn up I was not with the WVHA yet, but I was with a division in Russia. Also, that letter was a top secret. It was therefore subject to the utmost secrecy, and therefore it was quite impossible for me to obtain any knowledge about it. But speaking quite generally I may say that neither in the field nor later on when I was chief of B-I did I come across anything which had anything to do with these things.
If reference is made, for instance, that these watches were distributed to the divisions, as the administrative official I would have had to notice this, even though it need not have meant that I would have had to draw conclusions where these watches come from. But all the same it would have had to appear somewhat peculiar when five hundred watches appeared out of nowhere, so to speak, which were did derent in their make and despite any repairs one could have seen that they were not brand new. I know also that for the PX places at the front we had watches forwarded. They were brand new watches, however, all of which looked alike and came from Switzerland where they had been bought. I could think only of one thing. The letter was written in March, 1943 and in July, 1943, I was transferred away from the field division. All that might have happened was that these watches were distributed later on.
Then there was a second method in which watches of that sort could be distributed among the troops. That was through what was called the Officer for Ammunition and Arms, who was also responsible for a certain amount of technical equipment. I know that that officer once sent somebody to Berlin in Summer 1943 in order to receive watches; but I also know that these watches which he brought back with him were exactly the same watches which we had sold in our PX, i.e. new watches from Switzerland. The watch was called "Silvana."
Q May I interrupt you here? You had never heard anything of these things?
A No.
Q Now, what about clothing? Defendant Georg Loerner in his affidavit NO-1911, Prosecution Exhibit Number 5, Document Book I, Page 19 of the English version, Page 27 of the German text, and Page 126, said this: that large quantities of clothing and second-hand clothing had arrived from the East and dispositions were made of them. Did Georg Loerner, if only conversationally, inform you about that fact? Were you responsible in the matter of how this clothing was disposed of?
A No, Loerner never said a word about this to me? and this process seems to have taken place in 1942 or 1943 on the whole, again at a time when I was not yet in the WVHA. Therefore, again as a matter of course it was impossible for me to hear anything about it; and therefore it should be clear that if later on anything touched on B II casually of these things, that would never have reached me because this process was done purely by letters from one desk to another, so to speak. If they amounted to anything bigger at all, they had lost the charm of novelty, if I may put it that way. So I was never concerned with these things, nor have I been told about them.
Q Now, what were your relations with the various W offices?
A Hardly any relations at all. Today we have the situation that everybody makes frantic efforts to be put at a distance from everybody else? but it is obvious that the W offices were civilian enterprises and the people working there were on the whole civilian workers and employees.
Even the inmates working there were fed by the civilian sector. Therefore, there were no natural points of contact between those offices and my own. Otherwise, the W offices were located -- at least most of them -- not in Berlin nor in the Main Office Building in Berlin -- Lichterfelde. I may have known the chiefs of the W offices from seeing them twice or three times; and I knew that this or that person was a chief of a W office. But any more close conversations or conversations about secret matters of a special nature were quite impossible in view of the casualness of this contact.
Q Did you have any influence on labor allocation of inmates?
A The answer should be obvious from what I have said before. I had nothing to do with it. It did not touch on my field at all nor did I know that there was a special agency to regulate this field.
Q Were you never a shareholder or manager or anything of that sort in one of the W enterprises?
A Never in my life was I a participant in any enterprise; neither a private one nor a WVHA one.
Q Did you know that Himmler was the sole shareholder of the German economic enterprises?
Or did you know that Pohl and Loerner were managers?
AAs to Himmler's legal position in those enterprises, I never heard anything. That Pohl and Loerner were at least formally in commercial law, were managers, I had heard, it is true; but what that involved in detail I never knew. I didn't even know that Loerner had been a trained expert in that field and that he was a diploma merchant. We didn't even discuss that.
Q You heard here what co-defendant Georg Loerner said in this respect when he was asked about participating in founding or managing W enterprises. As his deputy were you not concerned with anything of that sort? Did you go there perhaps instead of Georg Loerner when something had to be founded in a hurry?
A I said quite clearly that when I acted as deputy for Loerner, it concerned only the field of Office Group B. I was never in a position to observe that Goerg Loerner was particularly busy in Group B. As Loerner did not play a very important part in that field any more, we never discussed it.
Q Did you not have any financial advantages in your position as a Standartenfuehrer in the Waffen SS, the General SS or did you have other material advantages?
A Of course I received my salary in accordance with my rank. When in 1943 I joined the Allgemeine, General, SS, I received loss at the beginning than I did with the Reichsbank. My salary went up slowly. When I became a Standartenfuehrer of the General SS I received roughly the same pay as a captain of the armed forces. A Standartenfuehrer in the Allgemcine SS, to put that quite clearly, is not the same thing as Standartenfuehrer in the Waffen SS or a colonel because it was only in 1944. that I became a Standartenfuehrer in the Waffen SS and received the pay of a colonel, which was about eight hundred or nine hundred marks. These were the only advantages, if I can call them advantages. At any rate it was my only income. After I had lost everything in the inflation, I never acquired anything particularly important in the way of property.
I must say until the end of the war the question of my pension wasn't even settled. During the war I did not think it worthy of myself to put my private interests into the foreground and insist on these things being fixed. But anyway it would have been for nothing as it was.
Q This brings us to the end of the evidence on your own behalf. But I should like to put one final question to you. Witness, you have heard the indictment; you have seen the documents which the prosecution has submitted; you have heard the witnesses; and you have heard what has been going on in concentration camps. What today is your position about these things?
A I said it before. I joined the NSDAP for political reasons, from my political conviction. This is also true of the SS. I regarded the NSDAP at that time as the only bulwark against Communism.
I might say perhaps that I regarded it as the lesser evil. I joined it from the purest idealism, I may say, and I did not derive any particular advantages from doing so. Today I am horrified at the crimes which have occurred in the concentration camps; and I feel after my blind faith and confidence deeply disappointed and betrayed.
In order to case my own conscience, I am bound to say that my tasks and my work in the WVHA did not bring me into contact with all these things and bound to say that personally I am sitting here with clean hands. In the one case, the case of the Dora works, where I heard about these bad conditions, I had to regard it as a terrific exception. I believe I have proved that I helped there as a matter of course, as you would help every human being when you come across a catastrophe.
I would be grateful if one thing would be believed. Had I even remotely thought or been in a position to think that the dogmas of the Party program and the system would lead to these crimes, I would then somehow or other have taken the final step. That is all I have to say about that.
DR. PRIBILLA: I have no further questions.
EXAMINATION THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO):
Q Witness, after you observed these horrible conditions at Dora, the Dora Labor Camp, and you went back to your work with WVHA, having done what you could to ameliorate conditions, did it not occur to you that similar conditions might be true of other labor camps?
THE WITNESS: In the excitement which was caused by these conditions and when Gruppenfuehrer Pohl and Kammler were in this state of excitement I was confirmed in my view that here they were concerned with something special and exceptional because those two high leaders otherwise would not have shown themselves to be so concerned. That was my impression. The other impression which Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks made on me was somewhat strange, but at that time, I believed that this was jealousy because somebody else, that is Kammler and I, interfered in his concentration camp and wanted to show him how things should be done properly. You frequently come across such jealously with troop commanders or managers of enterprises. They will not allow any one to put matters right in their own enterprises. That is a false ambition, but sometimes quite understandable and not entirely strange.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: All right.
THE PRESIDENT: Any cross examination by Defense Counsel? I have one question, please. You mentioned that your office was not in Berlin, but was in a small town of about 2,500 people.
THE WITNESS: Mr. President, that was my agency before the war, up to 1939. It was a small town of 2,500 inhabitants.
THE PRESIDENT: Tut upon joining the WVHA you, of course, went to Berlin?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I was in Berlin.
THE PRESIDENT: What particular task did you have with the WaffenSS when you were at the front? Were you a supply officer, a food supply officer?
THE WITNESS: I was the divisional administrative officer. I was in charge of the administration of a combat division. My work consisted of supplying the troops with food, clothing, accommodations, their pay and some smaller items.
THE PRESIDENT: That was a very responsible position. You were general supply officer there?