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.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, after you were liberated, as you told us here, you had taken the files in the camp commander's office and you looked into these files, is that correct?
A. I never alleged that.
Q. Did you not see files in the office of the camp commander after you were liberated?
A. During the direct examination I testified that immediately after our liberation we took all the files that were still in existence and collected them and gave them to the Information Office. I told you the name of this Information Office twice. I myself have looked into quite a number of files but, by far, not into all of them.
Q. In these files did you see camp statutes for the concentration camps?
A. I never - and not even after my liberation - saw statutes for the concentration camps. It is true that I have seen single documents or forms from which one could see something like camp regulations; for instance, concerning the punishment, beating.
Q. Did you see a service regulation concerning the labor assignment of inmates, and that included some bonus regulations, too? Did you see that?
A. I have seen a regulation directive by the camp commander Pister of Buchenwald in which this bonus system was referred to and in which the bonus system is declared.
Q. Did you have any knowledge of an order according to which 90 percent of the inmates in the concentration camp had to receive the supplement to the normal food for heavy work?
A. I already testified that the food allotments for heavy work were different from one month to another, quite varying, and that, in reality, they were quite different - at different times - from what the regulations said. As to the directive according to which 90 percent of all inmates in the protective custody camps had to receive the supplement for heavy work - but the directive I never saw and I never heard of it, either.
Q. Did you hear about a directive according to which every month the guards should get a lecture concerning the treatment of prisoners?
A. I know that the camp commanders of the guards gave such orientation lessons and had to give them and actually did give them. And, especially, I know of one instance at Buchenwald where the orientation lessons were used to incite the guards against the inmates, especially. Other guard commanders, of course, used their lecture hours to express themselves in quite an indifferent way.
Q. You, yourself, didn't read the regulations, did you?
A. No.
Q. Did you have knowledge of an order of Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl according to which the roll calls in the morning and in the evening were to be reduced to the shortest possible time?
A. I have knowledge of the fact that the trend existed from 1942.
Q. Did you hear of an interdiction, a prohibition, according to which it was prohibited, after the inmates had returned to the camp from their work, to use these inmates in the evening again for work in the camp?
A. I have no knowledge whatsoever of such a prohibition in practice. Anyhow, the situation was just the contrary.
Q. Yesterday, you testified in some concentration camps there were labor assignment commanders and labor commanders and that on the other hand in some other concentration camps they had only either a labor assignment commander or a labor commander. Is that what you said? Did I understand you correctly?
A. Yes.
Q. In the concentration camp of Buchenwald did you have a labor assignment commander?
A. From about 1942 we had one.
Q. Do you know what the field of tasks of this Arbeitseinsatz fuehrer (labor assignment commander) was?
A. The allotment of labor to exterior camps - the selection for the transports, and the corresponding reports to Berlin to the SS-WVHA, the checking of the building locations where concentration camp inmates were made to work, or were to be made to work. That is, in the outside camps and the locations where the outside camps were to be constructed.
Q. What, on the other hand, was the activity of the Arbeitsdienstfuehrer (labor commander)?
A. The labor commander had to decide on the labor of the concentration camp of Buchenwald while they were working on workshops or work locations at Buchenwald itself. He was the superior officer of the SS detail commander, who supervised the different working details of the concentration camp of Buchenwald.
Q. Did you have personal experience with regard to the effectiveness of the labor assignment commander, as far as the question of increasing the working output of the labor, of the inmate labor, and bringing them into a reasonable system?
A. I would have to ask here what you call a "reasonable system" with the SS.
Q. I ask you this question because I was referring to a remark you made in your book. I mean by "reasonable labor assignment" a labor assignment according to the capabilities of the inmates, especially. And also by keeping all possible measures in order to maintain the working power of the inmates. That is what I call a "reasonable labor assignment".
A. There is no doubt that from 1942, as I testified already in direct examination, a trend was clearly seen to maintain the working power of the inmates and to exploit it in a more thorough way. And in a more differential and in a more useful way. And that, therefore, at Buchenwald, in parts of Buchenwald, at least, efforts were made to improve the accommodations, to stagger the working time better and also to improve some of the food regulations. At the same time, however, there were parts of Buchenwald, as well as in the working details in the camp itself - for instance, a small camp - where just the contrary happened.
In the armament industries of the SS great efforts were made in this direction, that more reasonable use be made of the working power.
Q. In this connection what do you know of the abolishment of double-time during the work in the concentration camp?
A. As far as a double-time is concerned, I can only speak of Buchenwald in this connection, of course, This, of course, depended on the detail commander himself. The detail commander did not deal with these masters in the same manner as before. In the armament industry, that is, for instance, in the Gustloff Works, Weimar, and especially at the railroad construction sites, there was partly a very strong and even murdering double-time tempo. That could be seen also in the fact that the inmates, when they went for their noon recess, had to run to their working locations in double-time. But this extreme sense of double-time, as before, was not the rule anymore.
Q. Do you know anything of the abolition of the so-called SK's, the punishment companies?
A. There were occasions when the SK's were temporarily abolished. It is correct that about 1942-1943 at Buchenwald what we call the punitive company at that time was dissolved. But that didn't prevent them from setting special working details with the same character as the punitive companies. And these still existed, and people were constantly, until the very end, detailed there as a punishment or in order to increase the punishment. They were sent into these details which generally still had the name of punitive companies - at least the inmates called them that.
Q If there was an official order from Berlin to dissolve the punitive companies, then his here was nothing but just trying to get out by the concentration camps of this order.
A Yes, if the order was meant seriously, then the order had been violated or circumvented. It is true that I know of instances in which only official orders were issued but at the same time orally the people were instructed that these orders were not to be complied with. Especially, I know of such an instance from the Koch trial, which had to be brought to light by Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Morgen, who was the SS Judge. He referred to a commentary by an SS officer and I think it was in the Legal Department. His name was something like Schulz-Klinkenow.
Q As far as the question of food for the inmates is concerned, do you know anything of a directive issued by the WVHA and distributed to the camp commanders in which the camp commanders were requested to collect wild vegetables and other things as additional food for the normal food of the inmates?
A Yes, I did know of that and we all had a bitter laughter from that. The slaves of the concentration camp were looking around berries. That was just what we had been looking for.
Q Concerning the question of clothing for the inmates, did you hear anything of a proclamation where contact should be made in order to create clothing, warm clothing, for the inmates from already existing material?
A No, I never heard of that, but I did hear from the collection drive of the SS in Buchenwald for the fighting troops at the front and these collections were made from our own clothing and they collected them in the following manner: The block elders, upon the directives of the camp commanders told us the following, "You can contribute to the wool collection of the German people and the clothing collection for the fighting troops and then you will have a very favorable file notice in your file. Whoever doesn't do it gets 25 strokes on his behind."
The result was quite a considerable amount of clothing from what little clothing we had and these were then published in the Thueringer Gau Newspaper as an SS collection.
Q Witness, that was not an answer to what I asked you. I asked you whether there had been a proclamation in order to improve the clothing of the inmates.
A I never heard of it. I don't know where this proclamation is to have been published.
Q I only asked you whether you know anything about it.
A No, I didn't.
Q What do you know of the introduction of the bonus system in the labor assignment of the inmates?
A I already testified in this matter in he direct examination and clarified it. Our own money was not paid to us any longer, with the very trifling exceptions which I mentioned. Also, instead of that we received some sort of check bonus. That is certain details, and the Capos distributed this sort of script and at the camp PX, if there was something to sell, we could buy something with that money.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Just a moment, please. Dr. Belzer, you have asked this witness a very general question, "What do you know about the bonus system?" Now he already testified at great length on that particular subject, if you find some fault with what he said on that particular subject, direct his attention to the precise thing to which you object, but to have him relate again in great detail what he has already told us is just a sheer waste of time. Now, if you do not like what he said on the bonus proposition, ask him a specific question.
DR. BELZER: If your Honor please, this is a question of whether the bonus was created for especially good work or whether they were paid in just a general manner in order to distribute a sort of camp money. I want to make this testimony here.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: But you say to him, "Tell us about the creation," and he starts with the beginning of the world.
DR. BELZER: No, if your Honor please, I wish to draw your attention to the fact that my question was, "Do you know anything of the bonus system in connection with the labor assignment of the inmates?" That was my question.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: "Do you know anything?" That still leaves a pretty big door.
DR. BELZER: If Your Honor please, I give you my offer. The question will be, "Isn't it correct that the bonuses were granted from a certain period owned for especially good work output of the inmates."
A They hold you that it would be like that, but in practice it didn't happen like that.
Q According to your description, the bonuses were not granted to a certain category of the inmates as a sort of thanks and as a sort of incitment for good work, but rather independently from the work, they had a certain category of inmates according to the determination which had been made by certain authorities for the camp?
A Yes, in practice that's the way it was.
DR. BELZER: No, I haven't finished yet. I am sorry. I have another ten minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Do I understand that the time is being rationed among the counsel?
DR. BELZER: I have another ten minutes for my questions, if your Honor please.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that an allotment, or do you mean you need ten minutes more?
DR. BELSER: That is not an allotment, if Your Honor please, but I ask the Tribunal to kindly grant me another ten minutes.
Q Mr. Kogon, at one occasion you hear of a man of the name of Sommer and you ask me his Christian name. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the Christian name, because in your book you only stated the name of Sommer, "there is the matter of a certain commander in the concentration camp of Buchenwald."
In order to enable us to identify the man further, I can tell you that this man was in charge of a bunker.
A Yes, Yes. Of course. I heard this name.
Q In connection with this man, you spoke of a Beast Sommer, Bestie Sommer, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q The reason for the remark was that you said that you gave reports of individual members of the concentration camp inmates concerning the description or account of lust murders, sadistic murders, made by this Sommer, is that correct?
A Yes, but not only that, not only these descriptions.
Q Did you yourself have observations concerning this matter?
AAs many of my comrades, I was satisfied with it when I saw that Sommer came through the camp with his black gloves and he beat down everybody who encountered him. I had enough when I saw that and that was sufficient for me to call him a beast.
Q What kind of an instrument did he beat the inmates down with?
A In many cases that was a whip or oxen whip or simply a piece of wood and often there were other instruments which in German you could not term Peitsche, which means whip, any more, but they had the same effect.
Q Did you ever see Sommer with a dog whip?
A During my life I have only seen dog whips which couldn't do much harm, but the whips I saw with Sommer, if they were dog whips, then I have seen them.
Q Where did Sommer go?
A It is thought that he is still living.
Q Is he sitting here in the dock?
A No.
Q Witness, you have testified that you were one of the people who knew of murder committed by the doctors in the concentration camp of Buchenwald. Why, then, Witness, did you not request the camp commander to remove you from your position where you could see these murders?
A Why should I have asked to do that? To know about murders in a concentration camp where every day from morning to evening, from right to left, and from front to end, these murders happened. If there is a responsibility to know about these murders, it is true that the right way for me would have been to try to get removed from the concentration camp.
Q You, therefore, do not think that by continuing to work with Schuler, and Hofer you became an accessory in the crime in one way or the other, for the crimes which these people have been charged with?
THE PRESIDENT: At least, he hasn't been indicted, so it isn't a question for him to determine.
DR. BELZER: If Your Honor please, I have no further questions.
THE WITNESS: May I add something, if your Honor please? I ask the Tribunal's permission to explain my position, at least, by two sentences because with the position I hold to the public this point is of extreme importance.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, you may speak.
THE WITNESS: First of all, I have never worked with the camp doctor Dr. Hoven; and I never alleged that I did. Second, the director of the Department for Typhus and Virus Research Dr. Ding-Schuler and I worked together very intimately; but I was only his medical clerk. In not one single instance did I ever take any part at all in any act which could have killed or harmed or even violated one single inmate. It is true that from the summer of 1943 onward until 1945 increasingly I did everything I could in the open as was possible according to the forces I had in order to prevent such acts. Thereby I saved a number of lives, quite a number of lives. Furthermore, I spoke quite openly to Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Ding-Schuler about what I thought of these things.
THE PRESIDENT: That is more than two sentences; but there is no need to defend yourself until you have been accused.
DR. STEIN: Dr. Stein for the defendant Eirenschmalz.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. STEIN:
Q. Witness, yesterday you repeatedly spoke of a man by the name of kammler.
A. Yes.
Q. On that occasion you said that Kammler was not only working for the WVHA but that he also had special tasks which had to do with the V weapons and that he also was under the supervision of the Reich Minister Speer.