That was the normal way in which trouble was being dealt with between the two people who were competent. The inmate was in the middle and, of course, the inmate was the one that was to take the blame. The same as it applied in this small example as I told you now applied to the large examples.
Q. Were you in a position to experience that this struggle between the interest of the concentration camp management and the work management was a constant and exhausting struggle, both for Mummenthey and the work management?
A. It was a constant struggle. It was a latent and also an open struggle. That was the reason why Neuengamme was relatively speaking more advantageous for the inmates, because the works management was represented by a man who was a diplomat and quite clever. I am convinced and I know that struggle also took place in other enterprises and other camps, but only it did not develop as advantageously as it did in our camp, namely, because the work managers there were not so clever. Let me explain the whole thing by an example. From 1941 to 1942 we had an epidemic which resulted in a quarantine. The plant stopped working. After the quarantine was over, the living conditions became so horrible that I cannot possibly describe them here. There was hardly any food, nor was there hardly any clothing. The works manager, when these inmates were brought to work in the morning, saw that they could not possibly do any work. He immediately contacted Berlin, and I'll have to admit here that Mummenthey also quite often in this connection had the interest to support Kahn. The result was that he tried all right to improve conditions, namely, to get some foodstuff, and also, at least, to permit the inmates to wear their own underwear, but by the time such success had been scored, that is, when Berlin had succeeded in getting something through, there was immediately hostility. Let me give you another example. In the month of October 1944 we secured for the inmates from the Klinker Works at the expense of the Klinker Works, with Mummenthey's permission, a truckload of potatoes. These potatoes were to be distributed exclusively to the inmates who were working in the Klinker Works from the concentration camp of Neuengamme. We had them boiled, and we had them distributed as additional food, when boiled. We did that through our inmate organization, knowing that we had to do that as secretly as possible. In spite of that the commander found out about it. I believe it was seven o'clock in the morning, shortly after work had begun, when he saw inmates who were chewing potatoes which they still had left over from the evening before.
That was an awful violation of law on the part of those inmates. The commander beat them with his own hand, and, of course, he found out where the potatoes came from, whereupon Kaliss was very much reproached and the remaining potatoes were confiscated for the "needy" SS, for the SS industry. The camp administration received the remaining potatoes. That is how the cooperation worked between the concentration camp and the factories.
Q. Apart from this one incident, which is rather striking, were the conditions of the inmates improved in any way with the help of Mummenthey?
A. Many things were tried by the works management to improve the conditions of the inmates. As I stated before, it was a business interest behind it. It is a fact that I cannot employ any slave if I starve them to death. I cannot receive any slave from a slave driver for slave work if I was not doing everything to help him, the slave, to do the work. Now whether it was purely business interest or not is not the question. The fact is, such did exist.
Q. Didn't you write out a report on one occasion, witness, concerning various bad conditions in the concentration camp at Neuengamme, and about the treatment and the food for the inmates? Didn't you sent that report to Berlin and, if you did, what was the result of that report?
A. I compiled these reports currently for Kahn, and I worked partly as a typist, and some of them I had to compile myself. I really don't know what report you refer to, defense counsel.
Q. It might have been a report of 1940 or 1941.
A. Reports which went to Berlin had a certain tendency to have this or that changed, and many suggestions were made and some suggestions were accepted at Berlin, so far as they could be accepted. I can recall one report which was written out in 1942, and it had far reaching results. Maybe you mean that one.
Q. It should be right around that time.
A. Around the end of that period of time, which I referred to before, the conditions were so strikingly bad that the work at the plant almost had to be ceased completely. The undescribable report sent to Berlin was probably submitted by Mummenthey to the defendant Pohl. I can recall that Pohl, thereupon, without informing us of his arrival, which he used to do, arrived unexpectedly, and he saw the conditions personally as they prevailed at the time. He drove into the plant yard, the works manager Kahn came running down, and also the commander had been informed in the meantime, whose name was Weiss. Pohl scolded the camp commandant in his own expressive way. I was standing a few meters behind Kahn in order to be able to take notes if it became necessary, and I can recall this whole incident as vividly as I do because it was surprising for me to see how an SS general would scold a concentration camp commander who had the rank of a colonel, and I had only seen this happen before when I was a kid, when I saw a teacher scold a small child in his school. His reproaches were approximately the following: negligence of the inmate working energy, and the statement that such negligence on his part is quite close to sabotage. Pohl left and he was very mad about it and meant to take steps. The commander apologized by saying he was not the man who was competent, but rather the Administration Manager, whose name was Barnewald, was responsible. Anyway, Pohl left, and the following day Barnewald came to see Kahn and he made a horrible scene. He told Kahn that this was a breach of comradeship and this was treason, etc. Kahn tried to evade, and Barnewald said that this bunch of people would have to pay for it anyway. He meant by that the inmates. He said it was silly to cause trouble to one of the comrades in order to help this bunch of people. By that he meant the inmates, of course. Barnewald was immediately afterwards transferred, and Weiss a short time later had to give up his job as commander of the concentration camp. The events that followed show how the SS was not a homogenous entirety at all: The commander Weiss was transferred as punishment to a place higher up, namely, he became the commander of a much larger camp, Dachau, and Barnewald, who was the administrative leader, was also transferred as a punishment and went also to a higher up position.
He received a special position in the administration of the SS Troop Administration, which was located in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, or actually was annexed to this one of Buchenwald. Now, if a homogeneous collaboration would be possible here, these two would not have been able to go higher up, after they had been transferred as punishment by one of the generals. The danger for us inmates was that the other concentration camp commanders and the administration leaders would see this example and realize how unimportant the influence of work management and the office chiefs were. They saw even though a man had made a mistake he was going higher up than he had been before.
THE PRESIDENT: We will continue tomorrow morning at 9:30.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 1 August 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
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 1 August 1947, 0945-1630, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
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.
DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for the defendant Bobermin):
Your Honor, I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would issue a rule concerning the following case. The Tribunal granted me the witness Dr. Winkler. I intend to examine the witness here. However, I have no opportunity to see Winkler alone because a representative of the Prosecution will always be present when I interrogate him.
Dr. Winkler is here in jail, and I am of the opinion that if the witness is granted me, and the Prosecution does not intend to bring him here as a witness, that then I should have the right to speak to him alone, and prepare the examination.
MR. MC HANEY: If the Tribunal please, I do not know Dr. Winkler offhand. I don't think the Prosecution has any objection to Dr. Gawlik's speaking to him alone. However, I would like to have time to speak to Mr. Robbins at the intermission and see if there are any special circumstances in connection with Dr. Winkler's case which might require that we have a man present. Offhand I don't know of any, and offhand I have no objections. I would like to have the opportunity of consulting with Mr. Robbins.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you understand, Dr. Gawlik?
DR. GAWLIK: Yes, Your Honor. However, I would appreciate it if the decision could possibly be made today because Winkler was granted to me for tomorrow and if I can't speak to him tomorrow then I will probably have to apply for him on Monday, and it will be Wednesday or Thursday--and in the meantime, of course, my case will be on, because I Court No. II, Case No. 4.have to make the application 48 hours in advance in order to speak to him.
THE PRESIDENT: The decision will be made at eleven o'clock-between eleven and eleven-thirty at the recess-time today.
HELMUT BICKEL (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Mummenthey):
Q Witness, first of all, let me remind you of the fact that you are still under oath. Witness, yesterday you gave us a very interesting picture of the stars of the SS with their smaller and larger stars--and at that moment I thought of one of the great words which one of the great poets wrote, which is:
"If the great persons on earth could only thunder like Jupiter, Then they would try to exceed God's power; Because even the tiniest, insignificant judge would try to outdo God's ways; and there would be nothing but thunder."
Did I understand you correctly, witness, approximately? Is the answer namely that everyone of those stars thought it had a great power in itself and always endeavored to become stronger and stronger and upwards? However, let's come back to reality and turn our faces to the inmates, to those inmates who had been in the concentration camps and who were working in the factories of the DEST.
In the course of this trial it has repeatedly been mentioned that these inmates received so-called "privileges," and even those privileges were taken advantage of by both the concentration camp managers and the works managers.
Are you in a position to tell the Tribunal what the whole idea was of these special privileges to the inmates--and particularly to tell if and in how far the defendant Mummenthey participated in this talk of the extent of privileges, and also of the individual powers which were struggling against each other in this connection?
A The privileges were nothing but a symptom for the relationship Court No. II, Case No. 4.between concentration camp administration and the works management.
From the very first day, when inmates were used for so-called productive work there was always the endeavor in those circles which were gaining their power and wanted to have more privileges and profit out of the inmate labor to first of all keep the inmates willing to work; and, secondly, in a somewhat good position to be able to work, strong enough to work.
On the other hand, in the concentration camps you had the endeavor with the administrations to do something on their own, they considered themselves very efficient if they exterminated the inmates by first torturing them.
It is from those two lines that you had the divergencies. These divergencies at the time of Heydrich who was the greatest murderer in history were on the side of the concentration administration. That was up to 1942. When, in 1942, Heydrich had been killed and Kaltenbrunner took his place, this line became less strong. It was no longer as strong as it was--not because Kaltenbrunner was more humane than Heydrich but rather because he didn't have that Nordic lust to murder that Heydrich did. Then we reached the moment when those circles which were interested in increasing the capacity or the power of the inmates, that they got a sort of boost in their own endeavor to reach more authority and more power. Exactly one day after the elimination of Heydrich a better situation resulted for us inmates.
There were privileges of all kinds. All these privileges had been suggested and initiated by the works management. The DEST Administration for those purposes had several works managers conferences. In 1942, for instance, amongst other conferences there was a conference in Neuengamme of all works management of the DEST. It was for this purpose that I had the big inmate office evacuated and had an office prepared for a conference, and I had a partition made of wood, where two inmates and myself wanted to control the conference. We wanted to see ourselves by this what the gentlemens' attitude and opinions were. Partly by stenographic notes we had gained knowledge of the conversation of the conference, and the result of this particular conference. Some of the works managers were skeptical in reference to the success of the intended privileges which should be granted the inmates. I shall have to stress here that those were simply suggestions or proposals which the works managers were to work out under the leadership of Mummenthey. According to the complicated structure of the SS Administration, it was not possible for them to make the decision themselves. Some of the works managers, for instance, said that with the means at their disposal they could not possibly increase the output on the part of the inmates, and, Mummenthey was intense in being against those ideas as pronounced by some of the works managers. His tendency was absolutely clear, and to get whatever privileges could be obtained for the inmates. I would like to interpolate what I had stressed yesterday, that his point of view was that of a business manager of the entire enterprise, that he did that out of a commercial interest. However, he did have an opportunity to make a few sociological remarks to support the question of privileges which showed that these remarks which he made in connection with commerce were actually the results of his own character. After a while the various privileges came through one after the other by the orders of the Main Office of Chief Pohl.
The concentration camps received those orders rather reluctantly. Sofar as things were concerned which could exclusively be dealt with by the works managements, of course, everything was carried out then. But if something was to be done where the assistance of the concentration camp administration would become necessary, then there were difficulties. Sofar as those privileges were privileges which came, or were to come exclusively from the concentration camp administration, then there was sabotage done. I remember some orders. For instance, towards the end of 1942, there was an order from Pohl that the inmates who were important as employees for the factory, namely, the work of whom was of special interest for the management, or for the plant, like special stokers, or special technicians, or particularly skilled laborers, or handcraft, that these inmates should be taken out of the concentration camp. They were to be taken out of the concentration camp, they were to work outside the camp, they were to be billeted out of the camp in a more human billet. They were to receive SS food, and, what is of interest, they were to receive hygienic care by the SS. By that it was admitted, of course, that the hygiene of the camp was not sufficient, otherwise, this could not be regarded as a special privilege. Apart from that those inmates were to receive something close to a salary up to two marks a day. I believe that only fifty pfennigs out of their two marks were to be deducted for food. Therefore, generally speaking, a special kind of inmates was planned who were to work more or less under normal workking conditions of a normal human being, and it would, of course, offer the opportunity that these inmates would be left alive. It was a so-called "could" order. Gluecks had granted that to Pohl, but it was not a "should" order. Take for example the Neuengamme concentration camp, Though the work management in Nuengamme had very frequently taken the matter up with the commander Pauli of Neuengamme, not one single inmate had received any privileges in this way, not one single inmate.
Why? Because there was a possibility now to sabotage a "could" order. Had it been a "should" order they would have had to do it. It would have been a "must" order. Let me give you another example. In 1940 a Reichsfuehrer-SS order arrived. That was an order from God, from the SS-God, of course. The approximate context of the order was the following: a visit at the concentration camp of Mauthausen has brought to my attention a surprising case of homosexuality. There were a few personal remarks added to this case, and the conclusion was that in the concentration camp brothels were to be installed in order to prevent that inmates who had been in the camp for years, should become homosexuals in the camp. Because of the fact that homosexuals in Germany had been locked up in the concentration camps. Therefore, one could not possibly produce more homosexuals. But, though that was an order, even that order was carried out very reluctantly by the concentration camp commanders. For instance, the commander of the concentration camp of Flossenburg fell because he would not comply with this order. When Himmler in 1944 carried out an inspection which he had announced in Neuengamme, the concentration camp commander very hurriedly and quickly installed such a brothel, which was called a special barracks. Within three weeks, working day and night shifts, he had a more or less luxurious brothel installed, which grew right out of nothing. For this purpose he even took from the Wehrmacht stocks an especially large barracks. They could if it appeared necessary for them to do so, do something. But if it appeared necessary for the inmates' sake only, then they could not do anything.
Now coming back to the privileges, there were all kinds of privileges. For instance, additional bread, the additional heavy workers allowance. The work managements were fighting for it for a long time. Finally, in 1942, the inmates received this allowance. There was also the so called, danger allowance.
In our plant in Neuengamme, in the brick factory men were working on the ovens. They came constantly in contact with carbondioxide gas, and their lives were being threatened all the time. In that instance there was always a struggle to receive milk for these men. Berlin arranged that these men received a certain amount of milk daily. But they ever removed the cream off the milk, and then gave them just the skim milk instead of giving them the full content of milk which they needed, after having received and signed for proper milk.
Then, of course, there were other privileges which were being fought for, namely: The elimination of one or two of the roll calls. There were three roll calls, one in the evening, one in the morning, and one at noon; two were to be eliminated. Sofar, these privileges were supported by normal working conditions, they were carried out by the concentration camp commander. Before the inmates had left for work they had already stood in line for one or two hours for a roll call in the morning. The inmates were not machines. All these hardships which they suffered standing for roll call resulted in less work, and the same applied to the noon roll call. An additional privilege was then the installation of canteens for the inmates. These inmate canteens, of course, did not have any large supply, or important things for sale. It was more of a joke what one could buy there, and a normal thinking human being would not possibly believe if one would tell him, that for instance, for twenty marks we could buy a large amount of red beets and just as much sauerkohl, a few pieces of sand-soap as soap, and as a center piece, we would receive a few cigarettes. But they did not have anything themselves, which they could offer. Then we had further privileges, which were the following, namely: The working conditions themselves. Then in the billetting at the camp, and in certain other things, which are not made so important.
A (Continued) The most important thing is that toward the end of 1942 a bonus system was introduced. Up to that time we could only receive money from home. From that moment on the money was no longer paid out. The inmates were limited to bonuses. That means they received 50 pfennigs up to 4 marks per week in bonuses, this was camp money, depending on how much work they did. The highest amount of four marks was prescribed. You could buy things in the canteen for those bonuses and those bonuses could also serve to order newspapers and to use the camp brothel. Those bonuses were developed quite well by Office W-I. As I stated before, 4 marks was the total amount that could be received and the bonuses had to be paid by the works managements. The camp had nothing to do with it. There was a further regulation, I believe, that 10% of the amount which the works management or private firms had to pay to the SS Treasury, to be transferred for work done by the inmates, at the most could be used for bonuses. From Neuengamme with the help of the works management and the inmates we helped boost up those bonuses, with special bonuses, so the inmates were receiving from 1½ marks up to 12 marks. Then they received special bonuses in the shape of goods and individual articles, for instance, clothing, etc., as far as could possibly be provided in the camp secretly, because the resistance of the camp commandant was to be evaded. I can give you the figure from the balance of 1944. In 1944 the Klinker Works in Neuengamme had paid for inmate labor assignment to the Reich a total of approximately 300,000 marks. It could have been a few thousand marks over that. Then we paid for special bonuses and special achievements, etc. to my comrades and myself 100,000 marks which was roughly 33% as compared to the 10% which was permitted. Mummenthey, in order to come back to your client, Mr. Defense Counsel, absolutely agreed with that tendency although it was not quite in compliance with the main order that had been made. Mummenthey permitted expenditures, I mention in this connection that all expenditures had to be approved by Berlin.
The works managers had only authority over smaller amounts. That's the way it was in the SS, namely, that because they had no knowledge of economy everything was overorganized and administered, or everything was under-organized. Let me turn to another SS-enterprise from the main office group, the DAW. It was also in Neuengamme and inmates were working for them. This DAW had protested against the extension of bonuses by the Klinker Works. They had turned in a complaint about both the work manager and the labor assignment officer of Neuengamme by saying that this bonus system resulted in a competition by the difference in pay the inmates would get. The inmates of DAW would not be willing to work and would ask for special privileges and special premiums also or ask to be transferred to the Klinker Works. I don't know for sure, but I believe that complaint was even made to Mummenthey in Berlin. The man who originated this was the manager of DAW in Neuengamme, SS-Untersturmfuehrer Mueller.
There were also additional privileges on other fields, I don't think necessary to mention them here. The most important thing in all those privileges was that there was the tendency to improve conditions under which the inmates were working in the Klinker Works. But, the most important thing, as I said before, they couldn't take care of. They could not provide them with sufficient food and sufficient supplies nor could they possibly guarantee their lives because in this field the SS-concentration camp administration which was administered by the SS-RSHA decided alone. Thus they had to follow the tendency which was coming after Heydrich's death. They had to treat inmates a little bit better and they would have to stop this torture and killing. But the concentration camp administration still wanted to succeed by exterminating the inmates.
Q. Witness, you mentioned the conference before which took place in Neuengamme under the chairmanship of Mummenthey and the works managers However, in the course of your statements you deviated from the context of this conference.
Could you tell the Tribunal something more about the conference you listened to through the wood partition? Tell us Mummenthey's attitude and the attitude of the works managers?
A Mummenthey opened the session. He informed the people of the subject of the conference which dealt with a few general commercial and organizational questions. The most interesting points were the question of privileges and the increase of the willingness to work by inmates by granting special privileges and taking special measures. The works managers had been informed in advance of the order of the day of this conference. That was the reason why they had taken along suggestions, plans and ideas to this conference. You are not interested in organizational measure, Your Honor, and I don't think it was very interesting either. There were individual suggestions and after that they discussed all the individual suggestions brought before the President. Those suggestions contained what actually took place later on. Some went beyond, some remained behind the suggestions but all ran along the same line.
Q Did Mummenthey actually agree with those ideas?
A Yes, he did. He tried his best to eliminate the opposition which resulted with respect to a few points. He also said a few words on one occasion which actually made me smile which were of a sociological nature. One of my comrades, and I repeat this verbatim, said, "Now, Mummy, is going to become a teacher. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow he acts as a physician."
Q You use the name Mummy. Was that for Mummenthey?
A His name is long and usually in the case of a long name it is abbreviated and that was the reason we called him Mummy.
Q But this abbreviation in some way had something commendable in it?
A No. I didn't think about it. The name was somewhat jovial and the whole attitude of Mummenthey, who was moving about the SS uniform, was a little bit different from the attitude of other SS leaders.
He did not have the Prussian manner.
Q Witness, let me go on to another point. According to your testimony the inmates were exclusively in the power of the concentration camp administration. The inmates as far as we knew were picked up by the guard units and taken to their work and after they had finished their work they were taken back to camp. How was the supervision carried out during the work? Did the works managers have possibility to assign the work to the inmates and supervise that work without using the guards or did the guards themselves get mixed up in the kind of work being done? Did they help?
A This point is perhaps one which illustrates best. In the morning the individual units were selected in the camp during roll call. Then the competent group leader of the concentration camp would take over the detail - this detail leader usually was a sergeant - he took the detail to the Klinker Works and again had roll call there and checked the names again, counted them up. Then he would have the individual working columns stand in line. Every capo or foreman would take over his column and went to work. The commando leader, the SS-Unterscharfuehrer or rottenfuehrer were exclusively subordinate to the concentration camp commandant.
They had to take no orders from the works manager or his deputy. It was absolutely clear that the inmates, even while working, were within the power and the authority of the concentration camp. The civilians in Neuengamme, two or three of them, simply had to give instructions to the inmates which directly - I stress the word, directly - referred to their work and nothing but their work. Other conversations and other statements or orders were explicitly forbidden.
Now, a very unfortunate order had come out in 1942. The tendency of those two lines which separated themselves, of the Reich Security Main Office and the WVHA, RSHA and WVHA - the name of the main office formerly was Main Office Economy and Administration - had been recognized in Berlin. It was not difficult, even the laymen in Berlin had to see that it had no sense. For that reason an order came out which promoted the concentration camp commanders to works managers or works directors of the enterprise. There had been difficulties constantly. There were frictions, because the managers, works managers, said, "The work in the enterprise is our own job and nobody else's." The concentration camp commanders said, "The inmates who work there belong to us. It is up to us. It is our business." In order to possibly build a bridge across those frictions an order was issued by Pohl. Pohl at least at the time thought he was doing well by doing so, but he was a layman, a layman in economic matters. He made the concentration camp commanders work directors of all those enterprises where inmates under their administration were working. By that he gave them authority which was higher than the one of the works manager. We had a very clever works manager who somehow could find his way out of this dilemna. We had others, however, who had to comply exactly with the commanders' orders, particularly if the man who had been placed in charge was an SS NCO, not a civilian, as, for instance, was the case with the Klinker Works in Neuengamme. These subordinates these NCO's of the SS, who were in charge of leadership, felt that tendency very well by intuition. And you surely all know the character of the Prussian non-commissioned officer.
He is known the world over. This Prussian non-commissioned officer, of course, had the authority intensified a hundredfold, a thousandfold, in himself, the authority which he thought his leaders had, and he also passed on that authority with the necessary results, of course. One case is characteristic. (There was an interruption because of difficulty with the sound equipment.)
THE INTERPRETER: All right, Your Honor, I believe we can go on.
A (Continuing): I wanted to tell you the names of these commando leaders. I want to give them chronologically, briefly. We had a Rottenfuehrer by the name of Nau who was a commando leader. He was a beast. Then we had Rottenfuehrer Speck. He was worse. Both have been hanged. These people had nothing else in their mind but torture and murder. They were cruel to their inmates and killed them or they would go through our working place and disturb them in their work. The will to work suffered. Particularly in Neuengamme, the Klinker Works, the work was highly mechanized, so that inmates were working on machines which were rather hard to handle. We had to neglect the work due to these constant disturbances.
I repeatedly pointed this out to Kahn who was in touch with these inmates and supplied him with facts. However, the guard was never relieved. The commander would not let himself become impressed with matters to work. One morning a comrade of mine came and told me that he and several other inmates had surprised Nau while he with the cook of the civilian enterprise had some sort of dealings, which I do not have to refer to in detail. Thereupon Nau was relieved of his duties because that was not in accordance with the morals which the commander expected of his men.
Speck, after his departure, mistreated me because they had found out afterwards I was the one who actually did the whole thing. He knocked out a few of my teeth and deformed me in some other way. Kahn was quite mad because I told him I couldn't finish the balance and I remember Kahn turning in a complaint with the commander of the camp, and Speck was also punished with eight days arrest and no privilege of promotion for one year.
When the new commando leader came, a new man in charge of the detail, he did nothing but continue the policy there. In the noon recess he held a speech to all the inmates of the work there and he told them, "A certain man by the name of Kahn who used to be the works manager thinks that he has the right to say something here. I am the only man who gives orders around here. I am the commando leader, and don't forget that. Namely, your life is in the hands of the camp. The factory cannot help you if we want to destroy you." That was this little NCO, the Prussian NCO actually used the right terms and put things in the way the situation actually was.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Witness, if I understood your testimony correctly, you wished to say, and in order not to put the answer into your mouth, I am asking you the following: Who was responsible for all those bad regulations under which the inmates had to suffer and which cost the lives of several of them?
A I can only answer that question of yours with reference to Neuengamme with 100 percent certainty. The answer is: the management and the people responsible in the works are not responsible for any of the deaths.
Q Witness, do you know whether Mummenthey endeavored to help inmates and to get out of the concentration camp and by that I mean inmates who were working well, and to put them back on a civilian status. Do you know anything about it?
A It is actually the case that inmates who were working in individual enterprises of the DEST, upon Mummenthey's suggestion through Pohl and to Gluecks, have been released by the RSHA. The first case which I heard myself was - and according to what I hear now it wasn't the only case - the following:
Namely the case of the inmate Ludwig Fischer. He was an architect in my office of the Klinker Works in Neuengamme. In 1941 he was released upon Mummenthey's suggestion and was employed as an architect, as a civilian employee, in Trambachkirchen near Mauthausen. In 1942 I had been in a position to speak to Fischer for quite a while during the conference, in 1942. As a works manager, as a civilian, or as a construction manager, rather. He had come to the conference in Neuengamme, the conference which we were speaking about before. As an old comrade, of course, we sneaked into a corner and we had quite a long discussion about this and that and the other. I also learned about the terms and conditions under which he had been released and was employed as a civilian. He told me that he was receiving a salary as a construction manager and apart from that he could also take care of his business, a building firm, near Karlsruhe.