A. Between Himmler and the Reich Ministry of Justice, and the Reichsminister of Justice, an agreement had been made by way of which I believe there were criminal prisoners, in any case those prisoners who were in confinement through the Reich Ministry of Justice were to be committed to the concentration camps. After those prisoners had been sent to the concentration camp it was reported to me that these prisoners would make up the high percentage of sick prisoners, and persons who were incapable of working, and, by virtue of this fact I then wrote to Himmler, and explained the state of affairs to him. This then prompted me to send my letter to the Reich Ministry of Justice in which I pointed out this fact, and I requested him to see that the transfer of sick persons and prisoners who were incapable of working should stop, and should be discontinued in the future. At that time I had the impression that the Reich Ministry of Justice tried to get rid of its old and useless prisoners in this manner. That was the purpose of this letter.
Q. The Prosecution had only submitted a draft of the letter which you wrote to the Reich Ministry of Justice, which was addressed to the Reich Ministry of Justice. Sofar as you can remember, was this letter actually sent, and did conditions improve in the future, or, were complaints of this nature made to you afterwards?
A. I believe I can tell you that this letter was actually sent. Later on I did not hear anything further about this matter and similar complaints reached me in the future.
Q. As Exhibit No. 165, Prosecution has submitted a letter that you wrote in September 1943 to the Reichsfuehrer SS, in which you refer to the cases of death, and to the death rate in the concentration camps. It is Document 1469-PS, in Document Book 6, on page 34 of the German and the English text. I now ask you what caused you to write this letter to the Reichsfuehrer SS?
A. I repeatedly informed. Himmler about the development of the physical conditions and death rates in the concentration camps, because this question was vitally connected with the allocation of labor.
This letter also was one in these reports which shows above all what measures were taken by me in order to reach an improvement of the conditions in this field. I would like to point out in particular the following points: 1, the improvement of the hygenic conditions; 2, measures in the field on food; 3, measures with regard to clothing, that prisoners were allowed to wear their overcoats at winter times; 5, discontinuance of the rollcall; 6, the execution of training for cooks who cooked for the prisoners, in order also to gain an improvement in this field. Then, of course, about the mortality rate, which is shown by the document itself.
Q. In this connection I would like to ask you a general question. Several witnesses had testified to living conditions, and the mortality rates in the camps. I now ask you during your time in office as Chief of WVHA what matters became known to you in this respect, and what did you yourself observe during your official trips in these matters?
A. I looked at the development in this field by looking at the monthly reports, and the monthly report which I received from the chief medical officer, and from which I could see the development of the death rate. On the occasions of my other few trips to the camps, with the short period of time I was able to stay there, and calls during the day, the prisoners for the most part were working, and I actually could not make any outstanding observations. Of course, I also visited the hospitals and the sickbay. For example, I also visited the last hospital, which had been established on my order to make the camp selfsupporting. This was carried out sofar as it was possible, within the limited possibilities and time factors.
Q. Did Himmler's order to be kind to the prisoners and to improve the living conditions include the Jews that he was trying to exterminate?
A. Well, Your Honor, it is always the same question. Apparently he had two souls within him.
Q. We'll agree on that. I just wanted to make sure that he did not tell you to be kind to the Jews, while he was telling other people to exterminate them.
A. Toward me he never made any difference. To me he spoke only about prisoners, because he knew exactly with what prisoners I was dealing.
Q. You were dealing with Jews among others.
A. As far as I could be considered for the question of the allocation of labor, yes. They were treated exactly like all the other prisoners.
Q. And Himmler was very anxious that they get fresh vegetables?
A. He gave me no word that Jewish prisoners were to be exempted from this order.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. As Exhibit 166 the Prosecution submitted a report of the camp physician of Neuengamme to the Chief of the Medical Service of Amtsgruppe B of the 29 March 1945. It is Document NO 2169, Document Book 6, Page 39 of the German and 41 of the English. In connection with this report I want to ask you now: On the occasion of your official trips did you also visit the sick bays and did you see the physicians in the various camps, and what was the impression that you gained with regard to the medical care given to the prisoners?
A. As I have already stated, I have visited the sick bays and hospitals. The facilities there were quite appropriate. They were clean, and, in particular, in the sick bays and in the hospitals all facilities existed which were necessary for the medical care of patients. There were sleeping rooms. There were therapy rooms, with all necessary facilities, and there was also sufficient medical and nursing personnel, so that I never gained the impression here that there was cause for complaints.
Of course, I am always referring to normal times. While I personally am convinced that these conditions, after the summer of 1944, deteriorated more and more and very quickly as time went on, however, from what I personally saw I did not see any cause for complaints. The reason for this was the extraordinary overcrowding of the prisoners in the individual camps, which was caused by the flooding back of prisoners from the concentration camps which had been dissolved and new entries from the labor camps.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. What you are saying would be much more impressive if the crematoria had not been built before 1944, before things got to be bad. I think we can realize that there were increasing difficulties both in food and clothing and material as the war drew to a close, but I suggest that you do not forget that the crematoria were built long before that happened.
We'll take the usual recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Exhibit 167 is a memorandum on a conference of the RSHA which took place on 26 September 1939. Document NO-905, Document Book VI, page 43 in the English, page 47 in the German Book. I would like to ask you, witness... Did you take part in that conference, or did you at any time hear about the contents of the conference?
A. I did not take part in the conference, nor did I hear anything about its contents.
Q. Now, Document 1234-PS, page 50 in the English Book, page 45 in the German, is Exhibit 168, and it is a report from the Commander of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, to SS-Brigadefuehrer Mueller on 23 October 1941, and I would like to ask you... Did you know anything about that business before it happened, or afterwards?
A. No.
Q. Then, Document NO-1531, Document Book VI, page 60, Exhibit 169. This is a letter from Obersturmbannfuehrer Liebehenschel to concentration camp commanders, of 9 March 1943, and it deals with racial certificates, and it refers to a decree of the RSHA. I would like to ask you... Did you know anything about the contents of that letter or the decree of the RSHA?
A. No.
Q. Have you hear anything of the decree by the Reichsfuehrer-SS to which the letter refers?
A. No.
Q. The next four documents submitted by the Prosecution concern the selection of individuals. Who could again become German citizens. These are Exhibit 170 to 174.
The negotiations were carried out by the representatives of the RSHA and the Main Office for Race and Settlement Questions, and I would like to ask you ... Were you present in these conferences, and what can you tell us about this business.. had you heard anything about it?
A. I had nothing to do with this business, nor did I take part in conferences of this sort, nor did I ever hear anything about them. In Exhibit 172 my name is mentioned, but in a totally different context. I remember very well that my wife and I at that time invited Kaltenbrunner and Hildebrandt to come to see us, and the remark here refers to that indication, and I assume that we discussed this matter when they left us, or before they came to see us, but we did not discuss it in our presences...that is why I think my name is mentioned here. I did not discuss the business with either of them nor did I participate in this matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Go back to Exhibit 168, please. It is on page 45 of the English Document. Do you mean to say, witness, that when somebody took twenty of your Russian laborers and executed them, that you were never told about it?
A. Your Honor, this business took place in 1941. At that time I had nothing to do with concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Quite right.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. So, you say you had heard nothing about this business?
A. No.
Q. Exhibit 177... The prosecution submitted a report to the Congress of the United States concerning--it was submitted out by Mr. Barclay, and it is an investigation of atrocities by the Twelfth Army Group. It is Exhibit 178. They are Documents L-159 and 2222-PS, Document Book VI, pages 70 and 90 of the German Book, and pages 58 and 86 in the English text. You read these two reports, witness, and I would like to ask you whether you have anything to say about them. Define your attitude as regards these statements made therein.
A. Generally speaking, I can say very little about these reports. As far as they describe conditions in the last few months of the war, as we saw them in that film about concentration camps, they correspond to the facts, and I myself, from my own knowledge, can say nothing at all because in the last few months of the war I had been eliminated, as far as giving orders was concerned.
And as far as all the other statements are concerned, some of which come from witnesses and inmates, very little can be said because they can't be checked. Details, such as food in Dachau in 1942, was bad -- may be correct, or may not be correct. I am unable to testify about this. It is difficult. On page 92 I happen to see... It says here -- "Roughly, seventy-five to eighty thousand forced laborers were sent to these installations." I happen to come across that passage. I do not know of an installation or construction place where you could employ such masses of people. I think the biggest assignments consisted of ten to twelve thousand men.
Various rations are mentioned here, but I gave the figures from my own knowledge, such as they applied throughout the various years, and therefore there is no point in my saying any more.
Q. Witness, in connection with the concentration camps, I want to put a final question to you.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. The Tribunal understood you to say in the testimony that you yourself made certain recommendations as to the food of concentration camp inmates from time to time.
A. Yes, Your Honor.
Q. Did you follow up those orders and directives to see that inmates received the food that you recommended that they have?
A. If your Honor please, in Berlin I was in charge of a large office employing fifteen hundred men. Then I directed thirty or forty important economic enterprises. In thirteen concentration camps and five or six hundred labor camps scattered all over Germany I supervised labor allocation and assignment. In view of all that work it was quite impossible for also as far as the time element was concerned to examine each kitchen and supervise whether each inmate would receive his food. I was quite incapable of doing that.
Q. I understand that.
A. Whenever I was on official trips I, of course, looked into that question, although I was quite convinced that the picture presented to me on such trips was an artificial one and that something had been faked for my benefit. On those occasions I left Berlin usually in the evening and after office hours without telling my collaborators where I was going, and even my driver would be told after we left the house where we were going, because I believed through that method to be able to pay surprise visits to camps or other enterprises. But I never succeeded once because as soon as I reached the gate five minutes later my name was all over the camp, and whenever I turned up everything was in the most wonderful order.
Q. Well, they could have hidden a lot of things, sure, but if you had investigated, and the evidence of the Government is true in this case, you would have found thousands and thousands of people starving to death, and you could have seen that. Did you ever see anything like that?
A. I never saw anybody who was starved to death. I saw, of course, that the food situation was very bad later on, and that people did not exactly look well fed.
Q. Did you see people so emaciated from lack of food that they were unable to work?
A. At least a large part of them certainly did not look well fed, but anything stricking, such as we saw in the film, I never came across at all. People who worked in the enterprises up to the end were in an entirely normal state of health from the point of view of food because they were well looked after.
Q. Did you ever talk to the inmates and ask them what they had to eat?
A. No, I did not use to speak to inmates.
Q. Well, if you were expecting to see if they got the food you ordered them to get, why didn't you ask them about it?
A. Questionnaires were not the custom, and I didn't think it was necessary. Once I had seen that measures have been taken by me, and that their execution had been carried out as best they could, that was all I wanted to see.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, now here is my final question in connection with the concentration camps. I would like to ask you finally, what efforts did you make during the period of your official activity in order to improve matters in camps, and what circumstances prevented these efforts from reaching full results.
When you answer that question, please be brief, and take into consideration what you said before on those various points.
A. In the field of food, as far as I can recall, apart from securing heavy workers' rations, I took the following measures for the inmates. By an agreement with the enterprises I secured considerable and current supplies of special food, of yeast for hospitals and sick beds. I believe in 1943 and 1944, by using large detachments, including particularly Jehovah's Witnesses, I had vegetables, mushrooms, and berries gathered, which resulted in very large quantities of vegetables reaching the inmates. In certain emergencies, and all I recall at this point is a very grave situation in Nordhausen, I arranged for a considerable amount of food stuff belonging to the Waffen SS, that is to say, I transferred it from the army sector to the inmate sector, therefore greatly violating official rules which I was not supposed to do. I am fully aware at that time in Nordhausen several trains and convoys of trucks reached Nordhausen.
In the field of clothing, which situation was very acute, by agreement with private enterprises I endeavored as far as was possible for private enterprises to give their inmates protective clothing and warm clothes. We, ourselves, from 1944 onward, when deliveries of clothes and material for inmates' clothes became very difficult from the point of view of the textile industry, we switched over our own workshop in Ravensbrueck, and from various surplus clothes we wove clothing ourselves. I don't think the camp commandants understood this, but I arranged for a sort of competition so as to obtain warm clothing from substitute material.
My idea was to line coats with paper, such as it was introduced with the army later on. Other efforts as far as I recall, other changes I may have arranged were for instance, I got rid of the roll call. Punitive detachments were dissolved. Repeatedly I issued orders concerning treatment of inmates, that they must not be beaten, that they should be treated decently. I issued an order that when they returned to the camp they must not be given any more work. I made efforts to supervise camp commandants very closely, and as far as I can recall I started four to six proceedings against commandants who had violated the official rules.
Those things, by and large, are the things I can recall at this moment as far as the measures are concerned I took in these fields.
Q. I now come to a few questions which deal with the medical experiments. Case One, before Military Tribunal 1, has shown, and the documents submitted here show, that Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, when he ordered a number of experiments, played a very important part. I should like to ask you, how did it come about that Himmler should become so active in this complex, and what were the reasons for him to do so?
THE WITNESS: Excuse me, Dr. Seidl. May I just go back for one moment to the food rations of inmates, and would you ask the President whether I could tell the Court how certain measures of mine took effect by my quoting from certain books of inmates? Therefore, you can see what effect these measures of mine had on inmates. I do think it is important to quote them, because I myself could not see how these measures would work.
These are quotations from Kogon's book and another book called "Two Thousand Days in Dachau."
DR. SEIDL: If the Tribunal please, the defendant, following up the last few questions dealing with concentration camps, and which were aimed at the measures he himself took in order to improve conditions in camps, has just suggested to me, prior to the last question put to him, he be allowed to give the Court a few quotations from books which are in his possession and which were written by former inmates of concentration camps, including Dr. Kogon, who was a witness here. There are only a very few quotations. The defendant himself gives the reason for this type of evidence by saying he himself was in no position, from Berlin, to study the effect of his measures on the inmates, and therefore all he can do is refer himself to the things said by the inmates themselves, testifying to the effect these measures took. I should like to add that these are a few quotations the reading of which will take up only a very few minutes.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal, I have no objection to Dr. Seidl introducing parts of Dr. Kogon's book, and perhaps quotations from other books, but it seems to me that it would expedite the trial if Dr. Seidl presented them in the regular manner so that the translators would have copies, court interpreters...and a rule providing for copies twenty-four hours in advance, complied with. I don't want to stick to the technical rules, but I think that it would expedite the trial if they were presented in the ordinary course.
DR. SEIDL: I did not avail myself of these quotations so far, and I did not submit it in writing, or submit the quotations as an exhibit because that would have given more work for the translation section, paper is wasted; but if the defendant himself reads these few sentences they can be translated at once and the whole matter will not take more than two or three minutes.
I think that would be quicker and more practical.
THE PRESIDENT: If they are not too long...if they are not too lengthy, you may follow that method.
MR. ROBBINS: I would like to get a concession from Dr. Seidl. I attempted to introduce several pages from a booklet which was written by concentration camp inmates, and he objected on the grounds that an affidavit was not made by the inmates. Now, I should think that if he is permitted to read these quotations, then we should be permitted to put in our quotations.
THE PRESIDENT: What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I think that is a fair offer, Dr. Seidl, don't you?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
MR. ROBBINS: You remember the document, don't you? (To Dr. Seidl) The concentration camp Buchenwald?
DR. SEIDL: I do not think it was I who objected to that. As I remember it, it was one of my colleagues.
If the defendant should now read a few passages from these books--in contrast to what the Prosecution tried to do at the time--this Court No. II, Case No. 4.does not mean documentary evidence.
We do not submit these passages as evidence to the Court. All we wish to do is to use it as a means to facilitate--to emphasize the things which I said before by resorting to statements made by concentration camp inmates.
Of course, if one can say that the inmates felt it--the effect of these measures on themselves--it would help the testimony. I do not wish to submit these books as evidence. The defendant only wishes to use them as illustrations.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, go ahead. And when you have finished--or sometime later--Mr. Robbins can put in a few quotations of his own.
DR. SEIDL: Yes, your Honor. Witness, you can now read the quotations to the Court which you have earmarked.
WITNESS: Kogon, in his book "The SS-State" says on page 223, and I quote:
"A considerable part of the described atrocities since about 1941 were done away with in the original camps. Apart from the official beating as a punishment, flogging ceased, more or less. New arrivals would be sent in a somewhat more bearable manner. Bathing, disinfection, and the chambers functioned normally, although they remained stations of humiliation; but they were lacking those special atrocities and shameless acts which, for such a long time, had been characteristic of them."
"In the blocks the Block Eldest had its deputy, and he would come from one of all sorts of nationalities. The block leaders now dealt with very few things. The old detachment leaders were removed, or else they were comparatively tame. The last two circumstances particularly took away quite a few of the special terrors from the main camps which they had been used to before."
"In the interest of objectivity it must be said that these changes be emphasized". End of this quotation.
MR. ROBBINS: Excuse me. I would like to know whether the Court No. II, Case No. 4.witness has read this as refreshing his own recollection of the events described there, or just what the purpose is.
THE PRESIDENT: His counsel states that he is to use it for the purpose of illustration and that it is not of any probative value.
WITNESS: From the diary of Inmate 16,921, "Two Thousand Days in Dachau"--the author is K.A. Gross--I would like to quote the following from page 61. May I say first of all, the author was in Sachsenhausen since 1939, and there he came across the terms "Amt A" and "Amt D." At that time "Office A" was part of the Main Office Budget and Building; and administration of economy, respectively, whereas "D" was the same designation which he would find on the orders to commit people to protective custody, because in 1939 there was no office group "D". I shall now quote from page 61:
"The two currents from offices A and D decided on the character of these innumerable camps and the fate of the individual inmates. These waters did not run parallel to each other but they would flow into one another and, depending on where you were driven to, you were either lucky or unlucky. You were lucky if you could swim in the river of a good detachment."
"Inmates had to be treated sparingly. Human power is precious, and food must be taken care of, and so forth." End of quotation.
And from the same book, page 227, the author makes these comments on the decree concerning treatment of inmates which is contained in the document books. "I copied this order because it is a typical order from Department "A". The sentries must not even touch an inmate--let alone beat him. He must be nice to the inmates."
I think I will confine myself to those few quotations.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q Witness, I am now coming back to my earlier question which is concerned with the reasons which made Himmler take so active a part in the medical experiments, and which became clear from the evidence of Court No. II, Case No. 4.the Doctors' Trial before Military Tribunal Number One, and which becomes also clear from the document submitted by the Prosecution in this trial.
A I never discussed the medical experiments with Himmler inasmuch as he never gave me his basic attitude on this question. His interest probably was that of a more or less educated layman; possibly he had some conversations with doctor friends of his. It was very easy to interest him in these things. I know of no other reasons.
Q Did you, yourself, have anything to do with the medical experiments and did you have any scientific--or any other interest in these experiments?
A No. As far as experiments on human beings were concerned I had no interest because I am not a doctor.
Q The Prosecution have submitted Exhibit 183 which is an affidavit signed by yourself; and another affidavit, Exhibit 184, also from your pen. This is in Document Book 7, pages 1 and 6; or pages 1 and 4 in the English document book. These are documents NO-605 and NO-407.
I would like to ask you, do you still maintain the things which you said in these affidavits?
A Yes.
Q The Prosecution have submitted as Exhibit 185 Rudolf Brandt's affidavit of 24 October 1946, Document NO-444, page 9; or 7 in the document book. In that affidavit of Rudolf Brandt's, it is stated that you had selected the experimental subjects. Is that correct?
A No, that is not correct. Brandt contradicts himself here. He says: "Selections of persons to be experimented on were taken by the chief of the WVHA," and a little lower down he says, "The selection of various experimental subjects was made in the camp itself."
I neither ordered experimental subjects to be detailed, nor did I carry it out. If I had done that I would have had to go to the concentration camp concerned from Berlin, would have had to select the persons there; and I do not think that was part of my duties as chief of the WVHA.
Q. I shall now come to Document L-7. The prosecution submitted that as Exhibit 186, and it is an extract from a decree of Office Group D of the WVHA of 4 December, 1942. It is signed by Obersturmfuehrer Maurer. It is in Document Book VII, page 12 of the English Book. That concerns the selection of inmates and their transfer to the camp physician for experimental purposes, and I should like to ask you, did you have any knowledge of that decree of Office Group D?
A. This is a work done by D-II under Kammler and I knew nothing about it. Otherwise, I would most certainly have protested against using inmates who were capable of doing work or even were skilled workers.
Q. Then I come to Document NO-436, which is Exhibit 187, and it is a letter written by you on the 21st of May, 1943 to the SS oberfuehrer Deuschl, page 11 of the English Document Book, Volume VII. In that letter you talk of 8 to 10 Experimental Series. I would like to ask you what experimental series are we concerned with here and by whose orders were they carried out?
A. The figure 8 to 10, as it becomes clear from the passage, was my estimation. I did not know at the time how many there were where and to what purpose medical experiments would be carried out. Dr. Deuschl was a friend of Himmler's and Himmler himself decided that Deuschl might be used possibly to control these experiments. This is how this letter came about, I did not know Deuschl myself and the figures and character of the experiment were not at all clear to me.
Q. Then there is Document No-919, which is Exhibit 188, and it is an order from Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler of 15 May 1944. It concerns the carrying out of medical experiments.
It is in Document Book VII, page 13 of the English Book, and I would like to ask you, do you know how this order of Himmler came about and did you, in any way participate in this?
A. I had been informed by a report from Lolling that Professor Schilling as late as 1943 was carrying out his malaria experiments in Dachau. I had heard about this shortly after he had started on this. I had been at the time on a construction inspection at Dachau and I had come across this enterprise of Schilling and he showed me his cultures mosquitoes there. That is how I knew that he had been staying there for considerable time and I was somewhat surprised that as late as the end of 1943 he should still be working, but, as a layman, I could not form an impression that as far as the combatting of malaria is concerned, which in the tropical countries is always done with quinine, so much research work should be made there, and, as Lolling told me, he needed so many inmates, I protested against this by a letter to Himmler. The result, as I found out afterwards, unfortunately was not that the Schilling experiments were called off, but merely that the Reichs Physician-SS was used and employed there to supervise these experiments. The other statement that all medical experiments, without exception, should need Himmler's personal approval was completely superfluous in this context, because even before then they always had to have Himmler's approval. That is the history behind that letter.
Q. I shall now go to high altitude experiments, and I would like to hear from you what you knew about these experiments. When did you hear of them for the first time?
A. I believe it was in 1942, on the occasion of a report to Himmler, which took place in Munich. Himmler asked me whether on the following day I would still be in Munich and where I was staying.
I told him I had something to do still in Munich and I was living in Dachau. Thereupon, he told me, would I come and meet him right outside Dachau the next morning. When he turned up he said he is to look at Rascher's experiments and "you had better come with me." That is how I heard for the first time the reason why he had asked me to go to Dacnau. We soon entered Rascher's station, and Rascher showed us one of his high altitude experiments in this sort of chamber. An inmate was put in and he was exposed to low pressure. Rascher looked at it through a piece of glass. As soon as the inmate had fainted or become unconscious, so to speak, he was taken out and Rascher put questions to him. Now that I have seen all the reports, it is my impression that at that time the experiment which Rascher showed to Himmler was intentionally not prepared as radical and extreme as the other experiments, because the inmate was able to stand up and walk relatively quickly, and, as a layman, it was my impression, if you fly at high altitudes, you feel peculiar. That was my impression. He gave clear answers very soon and then he was dismissed and my impression was as though these experiments were comparatively harmless. From my knowledge today I can see, of course, that they were not. Himmler then talked to Rascher for about ten minutes on the side and I had to wait with his adjutant and than we went away. That was all I saw of these medical experiments with my own eyes.
Q. Now Document 1971b-PS, page 96 of the English Document book, and page 30 of the German. This is a letter from Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler to Dr. Rascher of 13 April 1942; a copy of that letter was sent to Brigadefuehrer Gluecks.