himself, and which you allegedly saved, and that there can be no question of the second diary.
A I cannot understand how the German Defense counsel can possibly draw such conclusions. I am ready to start all over again, just like in a small children's school, and tell you, sentence by sentence, word by word.
Q Witness, you don't have to explain to me. You just have to answer my question.
A I am doing that all the time.
Q Artur Dietsch mentions the official diary here-
A Where does it say that in the affidavit?
Q Because he couldn't be able to speak of something else-
A That is no evidence; that is no proof.
Q You personally admitted that this page was later on changed, is that correct?
A In what diary?
Q In the diary of Block 46.
A What do you mean by that?
Q The official diary of block 46.
A You mean the diary which Dr. Dietsch mentioned?
Q I am only talking of the diary which was in the block.
A You don't know that!
I feel like a small, dumb boy here.
Q I shall put something else before you now, witness. This is a statement which was made by you--to be exact, on the tenth of January, 1947. It says the following and is from your answer: "Ding-Schuler was department chief and chief of block 46. When he gave the order to make entries in the diary, and he, himself, dictated this diary, then this diary was an official diary in block 46." End of quotation. That is on page 1258 of the German record of Military Tribunal No. 1. That was a statement that was made by this witness, at the time. What do you answer to this, witness?
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
THE WITNESS: Between Defense counsel and myself there must be-there are such contrasts. I mean, not as far as the opinion is concerned, but on the capacity to understand things, and to differentiate them...that it is very difficult for me to speak about this thing again.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, I want to draw your attention to the fact for a minute, for the last time-
THE PRESIDENT: You asked him a question; do you want the answer? You asked him a question; what do you have to say to that? He never got to answer it. Do you want the answer?
DR. SEIDL: I want the answer, Your Honor, but I want a factual answer.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, before you could get any kind of an answer you wanted to put something else before him. You are now starting to ask him something else, and you haven't had the answer to your previous question.
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, I believe that the translation did not come through. The witness made a statement which was not nice, and I took the liberty to draw his attention to that fact, that he is appearing here as a witness, and that he has to answer actual or factual answers to factual questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, regardless of that, you read him a statement purported to be made by him, and then you said, "What do you say to that?" And he got only as far as saying that he had some difficulty in making you understand him, and then never answered the question. Do you want the answer?
DR. SEIDL: Yes, I wish the witness to answer my question.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. Now, let's go back and never mind the difficulty you have, witness. Just answer the questions as calmly and as briefly as you can.
THE WITNESS: I want the Tribunal to ask the Defense counsel to repeat the question.
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q Witness, I shall repeat the question. Prior to your examination before Military Tribunal 1, on the seventh of January, you said the following; and I shall quote page 98 of the record. Correction: You testified before Tribunal Number 1.
Just a moment, Your Honors. I am afraid the page is not quite where it should be in the record. I shall ask a different question in the meantime, Your Honors. I shall put another statement of Dr. Dietsch's affidavit before you, and I shall quote. He says, amongst other things, and I shall quote: "I know nothing of a prior experiment A, although I was busy on that station all the time." In the diary which you submitted they are speaking of the preliminary experiment. On the basis of your own recollection, can you tell me if there was such a preliminary experiment, and if such an experiment was carried out? And that, therefore, the entry in the diary which was submitted by you is correct, or if that is the opinion of Artur Dietsch?
A What experimental series was it all about?
Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Q It was the entry of the 5th of January, 1942.
A 1943 or 1942?
Q 1942. It says here, "Preliminary Experiment A, defined as acute method of artificial infection of people." Do you remember that part?
AAround that time I was not medical clerk with Dr. Ding-Schuler. I was in the Department for Pathology and around June we were inaugurated by Dr. Dietsch to the secrets of typhus and Dr. Dietsch here touches a very dangerous point. I myself with reference to the connecttion, I couldn't tell you, if, in January that series of experiments was a preliminary experiment. I couldn't tell you. I told you. I can only quote from the diary. I couldn't do more than that, because I wasn't there.
Q Now, I shall put before you a last entry in that affidavit of Artur Dietsch. It reads as follows: "According to my precise recollection, during the first typhus experiment no deaths occurred. How this entry was made in the document which was submitted to me, that I couldn't tell; the typhus vaccines of experimental series No. 1 were the first which I made and, therefore, I am sure that deaths that occurred would have remained in my mind." What can you say to this question, that is, from your own knowledge, and can you prove Dr. Dietsch's statement?
A It is somewhat difficult for me to remember things which would not be interesting to Artur Dietsch in Block 46 and the preparatory Blocks 46, so many things were discharged that I presume that Capo Artur Dietsch -- it will be somewhat difficult for him to tell the difference after so many years, who, when, or what opportunity they had in the experimental station. They did not only work with typhus there and with other typhus chemo-therapeuthics or visus, but they also worked with a club and other instruments. I only state here that between the entry in the diary and that statement of Artur Dietsch there is a contradiction and furthermore I find that defense counsel apparently presumes in advance that the diary is wrong, that it has either been falsified or Court No. II, Case No. IV.
has bean changed by me, because he goes on saying, "you apparently," or, "allegedly", saved the diary," and that "you say that" etc. and that his opinion is that the diary is not true and that leads him to the fact, to over-estimate Dr. Dietsch's statement, which he puts before me all the time. If the Tribunal can see the difference between Dr. Dietsch's statements and this affidavit, and the entries in the diary, in other words, if this contradictory statement can be cleared up, then Dr. Dietsch is to be put before me and then we shall see who has the better recollection, who can tell you the things in a more convincing way, and who can produce living witnesses who will testify against, or, rather, will testify to the effect that his statements are true ones. I do not see a possibility to say any more at this point, at least not at the moment.
Q Witness, now I shall put before you the affidavit which I quoted before, or, rather the statement which you made before Tribunal No. 1 on the 7 of January, 1947. That is the question which you did not want to answer before. I shall quote: That is from Page 1275 of the German record. "Schuler was the chief of the Department and Chief of Block 46. If he gave the order to make entries in the Diary and he, I am sure, dictated this diary, then that diary was an official diary within Block 46." What have you to say to this, Witness?
THE PRESIDENT: That's the trouble. That opens the door wide. You ask him what he has to say and there is no end. What is the particular question now? Do you want to ask him whether or not his testimony was true?
DR. SEIDL: No, I want to ask the witness and that is the special question, if, from his statement at the time, that is, three or four months ago, it cannot be seen quite clearly that there was only one diary and could only have been one diary and it is impossible to say now that it was an official diary and a second diary which was only known to Artur Dietsch or to him or to Dr. Ding.
THE PRESIDENT: But your question is too long. Why don't you ask Court No. II, Case No. IV.
him, was there only one diary?
DR. SEIDL: Very well, I agree with you. I want to ask the witness to answer that question.
Q Witness, you heard the question put to you by the Tribunal.
A Well, yes, but I would appreciate if the defense counsel would ask me this question in his own manner because afterwards he will not be satisfied with my answer.
Q I agree with the formulation of the question the way the President put it, and I ask you to give me an answer that actually refers to that question.
A There is no logical connection for the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Never mind the logical connection. Don't argue the case. The lawyers have to have something to do. You just answer the questions. Do you know whether there was one diary or more than one kept in Block 46.
A I know that there was the official diary and that there was diary documents and diary sheets from which the entries were made out of which the only official diary was made and that official diary has been saved by me from being burned and turned over to the American authorities by myself.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you know of any other diaries?
DR. SEIDL: I am quite satisfied with the answer, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: I will ask him this on my own. Do you know of any other diary, except the official diary?
A Yes, I do.
Q I shall ask you now something else, Witness. In the direct examination you testified that a poison experiment in connection with this case was carried out before the Russian Prisoners-of-War in such a manner as to make poison on the experimental subjects. Did I understand you correctly?
A Yes.
Q The two SS judges, Dr. Morgen and Dr. Wehner, according to your Court No. II, Case No. IV.
statement carried out the experiment, together with Dr. Ding, is that correct? I mean, is it merely possible that you meant this statement differently, or did I understand you correctly?
A I do not know if I am to answer the question, "Who was behind that curtain?" I don't know. I told you before and I have been telling you all the time what I heard from Dr. Ping Schuler and later on from Dr. Artur Dietsch and also from Artur Gaczinsky and Ernst Walker in Block 46, that is another inmate.
Q You can only tell me what according to your recollection Dr. Ding Schuler told you.
A Yes, what the persons I mentioned before told me.
DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions to the witness.
BY DR. HOFFMAN (Attorney for the Defendant Scheide):
Q Witness, prior to your arrival, that is, apart from the fact that you didn't like the SS, did you have special friends amongst the SS people?
A Yes. What do you mean by special friends? However, I did know persons who were national socialists or then who were in contact with the SS and therefore thus I had discussions with leading leaders of the NSDAP or the SS officers. Maybe I exaggerated it. I don't know how many there were, but in any case, I remember one conversation which I was able to carry out.
Q What was your general impression concerning this conversation?
A The question is not very easily answered. Would it be possible for you to specify?
Q I mean, Witness, if you can tell from the fact that you were entirely against various ideas of the SS, I mean, could you actually find facts which were sort of different than everything that is humane, or were there only certain contradictory things that occurred there?
A Should that mean opinion contradictions and there were also political contradictions and there were also official contradictions there and as far as it was possible, I wish to say, as far as the Court No. II, Case No. IV.
typology was concerned of the SS and their superiors which were something themselves, I tried to recognize, but specific ways of barbarism or cruelty or cynicism did not set me more against those which I met than they became apparent to me amongst others of my comrades.
Q Do you believe that from the ranks of the SS the SS people particularly tried to get jobs in concentration camps, or do you believe that the most active ones among them went to another formation, for instance, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, where they wore beautiful uniforms, and so forth?
A Not only do I think so but I know so from a whole series of direct and indirect experiences I went through and know that there was such a discriminating process in the SS. In the course of time, without knowing it, the worst elements were around and in the concentration camps, while another part, that is, the largest part of the SS, joined other groups of the SS and pursued other aims which were not in direct connection with the concentration camps.
Q Witness, do you believe that such control over people could be carried out in a concentration camp. That is, do you think that people who did not belong to the most intelligent group in advance could be spoiled more than they already were? Do you think that they could become cruel and bad because they had such control over everybody in the concentration camps?
A To be sure, I think that people who normally were good, who then were used as guards or SS officers or Scharfuehrers in the concentration camps, people who weren't against these things ever since the beginning, from the inside as well as from the outside, under the extremes which prevailed there had of necessity to be spoiled by this situation so that they became worse and worse.
Q In other words, you believe that an SS man who had been in a concentration camp could not be put on the same level as an SS man who had been outside of a concentration camp?
A Generally speaking, yes.
Q Witness, do you believe that every camp system - I don't quite know how to express myself - which was under special control could lead to some such results as in the concentration camps in which you were?
A In any camp, no matter where, that is, a compulsory camp, where the manner of administration was that of these National Socialist concentration camps, with no controls, no security measures, where these camps are in a general milieu of society, economy, the state, morals, if they exist in all those groups, then every such camp has to lead to exactly the same results as the National Socialist concentration camps.
Q Witness, do you know the fact that in 1933 a concentration camp system was installed for the first time in Germany?
A Yes.
Q Do you believe that a part of those cruelties can be brought back to these concentration camps or to the first one because they didn't know whether the control could be carried out for the camps?
A That question itself leads deeply into the German problematic. If I am to answer that in a few words, I can only speak relatively. There are many circumstances and connections to be considered here. Undoubtedly the fact that prior to 1933 the German people did not know the real ethical sense of the policy, in other words, the selfconfidence of the citizens with reference to the state authorities who were put in office by the citizens themselves contributed to the fact that the concentration camp system of the SS did actually exist and nothing was done against it.
On the other hand, however, I believe that the SS people who were sent to the concentration camps, who installed concentration camps, or administered them were aware of these historical circumstances in advance; and although they were known to the National Socialist groups in advance, they were not decisive groups.
Q Witness, do you think that the judgment of the International Military Tribunal concerning the SS is just, or do you think that it is too mild?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I think this discussion might be carried out somewhere else; and I do not think it is right to ask this witness to pass judgment upon the decision of the International Military Tribunal.
DR. HOFMANN: No, Your Honor, I didn't want to do that.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what you asked him.
DR. HOFMANN: Yes, but I remember that such questions concerning the judgment also have appeared in German papers and were there answered. That is why I asked that question. However, I am ready to withdraw that question.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it would be better.
Q Witness, do you know that this judgment of the International Military Tribunal the collective guilt of the SS was denied and the punishment of the members of the SS could only be carried out under two circumstances?
A I do not know the differentiation between the two. As far as this part of the judgment is concerned, I had no opportunity whatsoever nor did I have the time to look through all the documents.
Q Then I wish to tell you that a punishment can only be carried out on the basis of the membership of the SS if, Number 1, the people concerned participated in the crime or, 2, knew of such a crime.
Now, I ask you, Witness, do you think that a man who was, for example, in charge of bookkeeping within a concentration camp or in an administrative building should be punished in exactly the same manner as someone who was being used as an SS guard and who had actually beaten or flogged an innate to death and committed other cruelties?
THE PRESIDENT: I wish you would leave something for the Tribunal to decide. That question is strictly one for this Court and not for the witness to determine, is it not?
DR. HOFMANN: Yes, well - however, I will be very much interested in the witness' opinion in that respect because he can give a picture of the whole system and how far the knowledge of cruelties reached within the camp itself.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but that isn't what you asked him. You asked him how different persons should be punished, whether one more and one less.
DR. HOFMANN: Yes, quite. Well, let me formulate the question that way then.
Q Did an administrative clerk within concentration camps have knowledge of the single crimes which were committed, crimes like the ones carried out in Block 46? Did an administrative clerk who worked in the camp or outside of the camp in the administration of the camp have that knowledge?
A That depended on the circumstances and on his own willpower. It was very similar to the case of the inmates themselves. One could be an inmate in a concentration camp for years and years should one survive, still caring about nothing as long as it did not concern the person himself personally. Then one probably knew certain small things but nothing at all compared with the entirety. An SS member, similarly, according to his position could know of the remote acts of inhumanity, and he did not have to learn them absolutely, although he was right next to them.
It all depended on him. To speak generally - and I'm sure that inhumane acts were committed - no matter where he was at the moment, it depended on him to find the willpower in himself and to develop feeling to change for the better.
THE PRESIDENT: We shall take a recess.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess fifteen minutes.
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number II is again in session.
BY DR. HOFFMAN:
Q. Witness, according to your opinion, therefore, was the knowledge of cruelty within the concentration camp different from one SS man to the other?
A. Yes, the knowledge was different from one SS man to the other.
Q. The further this knowledge went from the concentration camp, did it diminish and eventually vanish completely? Is that correct?
A. It was not necessarily that the knowledge diminished in the distance from a concentration camp. That, of course, depended on the position held by the person involved, but as far as the German people were concerned, in a general way, that applied, but again it depended on the position which the person held and from which they might have gained knowledge. If somebody had a job within the SS administration, the administration which involved the concentration camps, then this man could have had even larger knowledge of these matters, but this was no longer knowledge but indirect knowledge. Even in those instances, however, there were exceptions, because high SS functionaries who had general knowledge could even have had direct knowledge - for instance, the Inspector of the concentration camps, to show the most striking case, or else the highest doctor for the concentration camp.
Q. But you are of the opinion that every case had to be examined individually?
A. In order to establish how far knowledge existed and the possibility to interfere existed for every individual member of the SS, that question, of course, has to be examined individually.
DR. HOFFMAN: If Your Honors please, I have no further questions.
BY DR. BELZER (Counsel for defendant Sommer):
Q. Witness, you testified the day before yesterday, if I remember correctly, that when Block 50 was erected among other things you had to correspond with Department D of the WVHA and had dealings with that department. Would you explain to the Tribunal please what office of Depart ment D you had dealings with and what persons you had to deal with in that department?
A. I don't know which individual department of the Department D I had to deal with the exception of Amt D-III, and I don't know either what persons I dealt with. It is true that I can remember that we had to deal with a certain Standartenfuehrer Maurer, and also prior to that, I cannot quite remember the title, whether he was a Standartenfuehrer or he might even have been an Obersturmbannfuehrer or something like that, but prior to that I had come dealings with Obersturmbannfuehrer Liebehenschel. Both of them, as far as I remember, were in the Department D of the WVHA.
Q. Can you today still say what kind of dealings you had with the Amtsgruppe D?
A. The allotment of specialized labor into the Block 50, that it transferred from other camps, was via the Department D. I remember that Dr. Ding-Schuler approached the Department D in the WVHA when there was, for instance, the matter of getting Professor Balachowski from the Dora camp to Block 50 in Buchenwald, have him transferred there.
Q. During your interrogation you always spoke only of the Division D, but I can remember, Witness, from your book, "The SS State", that the official designation of the Department D which you have mentioned here, that this official designation is well known to you insofar as it is Amtsgruppe, is that correct?
A. Yes. Now, during this cross examination I usually used the word "division" or "Abteilung". I have grown accustomed to it, but I have forgotten to say that these divisions were called "Amtsgruppen" and not "Abteilungen".
Q. First of all I want to ask you another question, do you know when the Amtsgruppe D was founded?
A. In the camp I once heard that the organization of the SS WVHA was founded about in 1942. However, I cannot give you a correct statement as to the time when it was actually brought to light.
Q. Is it correct that according to what you noticed the Amtsgruppe D was nothing else than the previous inspectorate of the concentration camps which thus had simply been integrated into this framework of the WVHA?
A. According to my knowledge of that time, that was the way it was.
Q. Do you know who was the chief of Amtsgruppe D?
A. I had knowledge of the fact that at that time the inspector of the concentration camps was the Gruppenfuehrer Gluecks. Now, I think that I quite correctly recall as far as his position is concerned at least.
Q. If in your book, "The SS State", you stated that the Chief of Amtsgruppe D was first of all Liebehenschel and then Maurer, how can you make your statement of today, according to which Gluecks was inspector of the concentration camp and chief of this department? How do you make your statement of today compatible with the statements you issued in your book?
A. In the second edition of my book I shall rectify this distinction, which is not very important for the German public anyhow.
Q. I now come to the question whether or not for the German public, and especially for the Tribunal, this question is especially important because it is just a matter of deciding whether or not the Amtsgruppe D had anything to do with the issuing of the orders for protective custody and for the transferring of inmates into the concentration camp?
A. Is that a question you put to me?
Q. Yes.
A. Already in the direct examination I testified that the issuing of the order for protective custody, and also the sending to the concentration camp was done by the Gestapo or department of the RSHA. From that moment on the man who was in protective custody was under the supervision first of his camp chief and the camp commander if there was a camp commander, and furthermore under the direct orders of Amtsgruppe D of the WVHA.
Without the approval of the competent department in the Amtsgruppe D of the WVHA he could not be released.
Q. We will come back to this question later. Do you know what file number an order for protective custody had, what file mark?
A. In most of the cases which I know the file was D. I myself, as I mentioned already, I never saw an order for protective custody, and I didn't receive any.
Q. This file D, did it have a figure behind it, 1, 2, 3, etc.?
A. As far as I remember, yes, but I don't know what kind of figures were behind it.
Q. Is it correct if in your book you wrote that there was the figure II behind that D?
A. From my recollection I gather that is correct.
Q. On the orders for protective custody was the figure II before the letter D or behind?
A. That is a point where already when I wrote the first manuscript of my book I had some hesitation. I even remember that in two or three points of the manuscript once I saw D-II and once II-D, and then eventually I changed it, in order to unify it, and I think that I wrote II-D. Before this Tribunal, however, I cannot state with certitude whether on the orders for protective custody the figure was before the letter or behind.
Q. Do you know the book, Weissruethel's "Night and Fog", "Nacht und Nebel"?
A. I know the title of the book, and I have read some parts of the book myself. However, up to now, in spite of the fact I have the book at home, I didn't have time to read it completely.
Q. Do you remember that on the first cover page of this book there is a copy of an order for protective custody?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it correct that on this order for protective custody at the left top there is the file II-D?
A. Well, I didn't notice that. I didn't give it any attention.
Q. If I tell you now that this book has the sign for the order for protective custody - you mentioned D-II, but in reality the sign was II-D and not D-II, and I put it to you furthermore that from the similar sound of the file, which you assumed, you assumed a connection between the II-D and D-II, Gestapo and D-II, what do you say to that, did you?
A. Today I don't think that in my book, "The SS State", I have linked the connection in such a manner as if the orders for protective custody in a camp had been issued by the WVHA of the SS. I even think that I remember, that I specified especially that the prisoners had some doubts and some questioning about this letter "D", and very often it was considered the first letter of the concentration camp of Dachau, but in reality the connection was there with the WVHA. Outside of the book I wrote I have to say in this connection that the letter "D" on the order for protective custody was applied already much earlier, as far as I remember even as early as 1938. I don't know whether it wasn't even earlier than that. The SS WVHA, however, was built up from other departments of the SS, from other areas of the SS, and gradually built up, and its final formulation was thought about, and therefore a connection between the Gestapo, or rather the inspectorate of the C.C.O. in the RSHA, on the one hand, and the SS WVHA later on, on the other hand, concerning the letter "D", such a connection is not only probable, but rather exists.
Q. If I now speak to you of a part of your book which deals with this matter, then you can explain your position to me.
A. Of course I can explain my position.
Q. And I quote, whether the-
MR. McHANEY: If this is a continuation of the same type of question I would like to object. The prosecution has never contended that the WVHA issued protective custody orders or had anything to do with the commitment of prisoners to concentration camps. If my memory serves me correctly the indictment excludes that, and charges that the WVHA, Armtsgruppe D, was in charge of all things other than the commitment of prisoners, so I can't see any point in taking up a lot of time discussing something which was in the jurisdiction of the RSHA, and no one is on trial here from the RSHA.
DR. BELZER: If Your Honor please, I have only one further question concerning this matter, and that is in order to clarify the independence of the office D-II from the Gestapo, and the witness, in direct examination as well as in cross-examination, has talked of the sending of the concentration camp inmates into the camp, and the lack of care during the transport. In this connection I thought it was my duty to put this question to the witness and to clarify the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think the matter needs clarifying. Neither the witness nor the Prosecution claims that the WVHA had anything to do with the sending of prisoners to the concentration camps. Mr. McHaney has just admitted that.