Q. I don't know what your reference to one-hundred and fifty people is; these gas chambers were gigantic buildings, they were tremendous, and I can not conceive of any other purpose for which they would be used. Undoubtedly, the people who built those buildings must have known what they were being used for? Well, let me ask you this. The guards who herede the inmates into the gas chambers, they must have known what they were going into the chambers for, didn't they?
A. Well, that could be assumed, yes.
Q. And the people, or the SS men who supervised the carrying out of the dead bodies out of the gas chambers, they knew what was going on, didn't they?
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. And the people who constructed the crematory, as well as those who constructed the gas chambers, and the people who carried the bodies from the gas chambers to the crematory, they knew, didn't they?
A. I can only say this should be assumed.
Q. And the people who collected the property from the dead persons, and the people who examined the dead bodies for hidden valuables, they knew what was going on, didn't they?
A. Yes.
Q. And the people who handled these valuables, and audited them, and disposed of them, they must have known what was going on?
A. I don't know what they were told.
Q. Well, the circle of people who knew about the gassings, and the mass liquidation of people, certainly was more than just a handfull, wasn't it? It was not just a few people you told us about yesterday?
A. I don't think that I used the expression "a few people".
I would like to give you a proportional number, then I would assume that the people who had knowledge and who participated in the planning and execution of these monstrosities, were merely tenths of one per cent, and I would say that itself is a good percentage and to a number of one million members of the Waffen-SS, or the General-SS, that it is on infinitely small proportion. For the majority of the SS it is incomprehensible that the entire group collectively were sentenced as criminals, although they neither played any part in this nor did they have any knowledge.
Q. Well, General, I didn't say that every SS man knew about all of the atrocities, and the judgment of the IMT does not condemn every SS man, only those who became and remained members of the SS with knowledge that the SS was being used as a criminal organization, but I don't think this is the place to debate the correctness of the IMT judgment because they listened to evidence over a period of months and came to the solemn deliberation that the SS was being used on a gigantic scale for the extermination of people.
General, you don't today condone or approve the mass liquidation of Jews, do you?
A. To the contrary, I am ashamed, just like any other German that something like this could have happened in Germany at all, and I am twice as ashamed that this happened in a uniform which for us incorporated the highest honor and that this uniform was soiled in such a manner.
Q. And you do not approve either of the working of concentration camp inmates to death, do you?
A. No, by no means.
Q. And your sentiments today are exactly as they were during the war; is that correct?
A. Yes, now I have felt on myself for two years what a concentration camp means, because our imprisonment and our internment is nothing else than a little change from a concentration camp.
Q. I assure you General, that there is a great deal of difference between your imprisonment here in Nurnberg or in any other jail under the Allies from the conditions of inmates in a concentration camp. I would ask you, Do you approve or condone of the killing of inmate workers after they were no longer able to work? That was carried out on a mass scale by the SS.
A. I am opposed completely to this, like any other decent human being.
Q. I ask you if you condone or approve of the wholesale mitration of peoples from one place to another, forced migration?
A. No. If a person really did not come voluntarily, then this person should not be subjected to the injustice and brutality of force.
Q. You don't approve of shipping Poles by the wholesale into Germany for work?
A. No, I am not in agreement with that at all. If I can say it in this way, there were Polish agricultural workers who had come to Germany in peacetime many decades ago. Whoever comes voluntarily, yes, but I am opposed to forced deportation.
Q. And you are opposed, are you not, to the forceful migration of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto under the force of arms?
A. Naturally.
Q. You are opposed, are you not, to the incarceration in concentration camps of people who were guilty of no other crime than being Jews or Poles?
A. Yes, and I am altogether opposed to the principle of concentration camps out of my own bitter experience.
Q. As to the migration of people from the Warsaw Ghetto, were you informed about that, details of Action Reinhardt?
A. No.
Q. You did not know that Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka and to Lublin and other extermination centers?
A. No.
Q. General, you have maintained that position throughout your testimony here. I would like to show you a document which I believe will considerably refresh your recollection on that point. This is a letter addressed to you, is it not? Do you recognize this letter, General?
A. I have seen only the first letter. May I also look at the enclosure, the second letter?
Q. Yes, indeed. That is your answer to it. I would like to read part of the first letter there, which is a letter from Ganzenmueller, Secretary of State of the Reich Ministry of Transportation, to you. It is dated 28 July 1942, and it reads:
"With reference to our telephone conversation of 16 July, I wish to pass on to you the following report from my General Directorate of the Eastern Railways at Cracow for your information:
"Since 22 July one train per day with 5,000 Jews goes from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka, as well as two trains per week with 5,000 Jews each, from Przemysl to Belzek. Bedob is in constant touch with the S D at Cracow. The latter agrees that transports from Warsaw via Lublin to Sobibor, near Lublin, should be interrupted as long as building on this route makes those transports impossible."
And then your reply a few days later on 13 August 1942 to Ganzenmueller:
"Dear Party Member Ganzenmueller:
"Thank you very much, also in the name of the Reichsfuehrer SS, for your letter of 28 July 1942. I was especially pleased to learn from you that already for a fortnight a daily train, taking 5,000 members of the Chosen People every time, had gone to Treblinka--" and so forth. "I have contacted the departments concerned myself, so that the smooth carrying out of all these measures seems to be guaranteed."
Does this help your recollection, General?
A. Yes, the letter is an original letter which State Secretary Ganzenmueller addressed to me. It also bears my personal remarks, and it is beyond any doubt correct. Likewise the letter which I wrote in reply.
Q. Would you read to the Tribunal the handwritten notes which are in your handwriting on the original? I don't think they appear on our copy.
A. Yes, very well: "Thanking you very much. Copy sent to Dr. Brandt, Brigadefuehrer Globocnik and Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger. 2 August "and my initial "W".
Q. Now, you told us this morning that it was considered bad taste and indelicate to discuss such matters as this. Apparently, such discussions were carried on. The letter says that you talked to Ganzenmueller about this on the telephone; you wrote letters about it. You don't still maintain that you knew nothing about the transportation of Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka? You were informed about that?
A. I do not deny in any way, after my memory had been refreshed in this way, that I was connected with these things. However, it is completely impossible after many years have passed to precisely remember every letter which ever passed through my office, and may I also point out that this was the usual procedure. When we were captured, not only all our papers were removed, but also all our personal property was taken away.
Q. Do you mean to tell us that you didn't hear anything about this matter until 1945, until you read it in the newspapers in Switzerland? Do you mean to say that you could not remember that 5,000 Jews a day were being shipped from Warsaw for six days--no, you say in your letter 14 days. That is 70,000 Jews, General.
A. I admit without any reservation that this had slipped from my memory. However, it is not possible for a human being to remember every letter which I wrote during a number of years. I gave the answers according to the best of my belief and knowledge and to the best of my recollection.
Q. I am not so much concerned about your remembering the letter as I am about your remembering the general subject matter of the letter. I am asking you if this represents what you call the best blood of the Germans? Is this the elite group that you were talking about, the select character of the German nation? Is that the way you were building up Greater Germany, and if we are going to look into the examination of history, as you have told us, those are facts that ought to be brought out, isn't that true?
A. Certainly. However, in a transportation of the Jews, I really can't find anything which might be considered criminal.
Q. Well, you consider transportation of Jews in wholesale masses from Warsaw to Treblinka for the purpose of extermination as a war crime, do you not?
A. I told you that I can only use my memory, and I can only certify to the best of my knowledge and belief that I had nothing to do with these things.
Q. Let's see if your memory is better on another subject. Do you remember Himmler's address to the officers of the SS-Adolf Hitler on the day of Metz on the presentation of the historical Nazi flag? It was in 1940 or '41.
A. Where did that happening take place?
Q. Well, it was on the day of Metz, M-e-t-z. I don't have the location of the speech. It was on the presentation of the Nazi flag, and it was addressed to officers of SS-Leibstrandarte. You don't remember that?
A. I don't want to claim in any way that I did not accompany the Reichsfuehrer and that I was there. As a matter of fact I consider it probable. However, I am not able to say it with absolute certainty after six or seven years have passed.
Q. Do you remember Himmler's statement on that occasion as follows: "The building program, which is the prerequisite for a healthy and social basis of the entire SS, as well as of the entire Fuehrerkorps, can be carried out only when I get the money for it from some where. Nobody is going to give me the money. It must be earned, and it will be earned by forcing the scum of mankind to work." Do you remember Himmler saying that?
A. I cannot remember it, but I consider it quite probable.
Q. Were you at Himmler's speech at Cracaw in April, 1943? It was a speech to the Gruppenfuehrers.
A. Certainly not. As far as I can remember I was not at Cracow anymore in 1943.
Q. Do you remember-
A. Can you tell me when this was alleged to have happened, on what day and in what month?
Q. It was in April, 1943.
A. Well, I can certainly remember it because I am able to prove that in April, 1943, I was still in the hospital at Hohenlychen, convalescing from a wound of an operation.
Q. Did you hear that Himmler said on that occasion that antisemitism is exactly the same as delousing, getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology?
A. No, I did not hear that at the time. I only heard it here during my imprisonment.
Did you hear that Himmler said at Posen in October, 1943, the following: "I also want to talk to you quite frankly about a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. I mean the cleaning out of the Jews the extermination of the Jewish race." Did you hear about that?
A. No, at that time I was in combat in Italy, and I did not receive any knowledge of that according to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Q. Well, Himmler says that, "We should speak about it quite frankly among ourselves." You mean that he never spoke to you about this question?
A. No.
Q. You know today that millions of Jews were exterminated under Himmler's policy, and I ask you if this is the best, represents the best of the German blood? Is this the elite that you were talking about, the select character of the SS with all of its cultural tendencies?
A. The majority of the SS members had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Q. You don't deny that the SS themselves carried out the program, do you?
A. No. I said that the majority of the SS, and I again want to point out that only a very small minority actually had anything to do with this matter and had any knowledge of it or heard of it subsequently.
Q. Well, you don't claim today that Himmler was among those elite people who represented the best of German kind, do you?
A. No, I cannot maintain that today, much as I would like to.
Q. And Rudolf Ferdi and Hoess, who was an SS man in charge of Auschwitz has given an affidavit which is used in this case in which he says that he carried out the execution of three million Jews. You don't consider Hoess an example of the best of German kind, do you?
A. In no manner whatsoever. One only has to look at him to see that.
Q. And you know Otto Ollendorf, do you not? He was an SS man?
A. Yes.
Q. He has given an affidavit which is used in this case, and he says: "When the German army invaded Russia I was leader of the Einsatzgruppe D it liquidated approximately 90,000 men, women and children. The majority of those liquidated were Jews, but there were among them some Communist functionaries too. The unit selected for this task would enter a village or a city and order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose of resettlement." And then he goes on to say how they were shot sown in ditches. That was not carried out by one SS man. You don't consider this the best that Germany can offer, do you?
A. No.
Q. And you don't consider this just a minor violation of land warfare, do you?
A. No, this is the worst crime which has been committed in the history of mankind.
Q. Well, there have been quite a number, General, that were carried out by the SS which perhaps were just as bad. Did you hear about the destruction of the village of Lidice in Czechoslovaki? The I. M. T. found as a matter of fact that this was carried out by the SS. This isn't the best that the German youth can offer, is it?
A. I am unable to judge that. The court at Dachau has also determined that forty-seven men of the Leibstandarte had shot down the Americans at Malmedy, and later on it was discovered-
Q. I didn't ask you anything about the Malmedy trial. I am asking you, you don't condone the destruction of the village of Lidice, do you, you don't approve of that, do you?
A. I am unaware of the details which happened there. I can only claim for myself that under my command no villages were destroyed and no such actions were ever carried out.
Q. Well, I am asking you now about the demonstrations that took plane on the 10th of November, 1938, where all over Germany property of the Jews, their houses were destroyed and burned, and synagogues were destroyed and burned. That action was carried out in part by the SS. You are not proud of that, are you?
A. No, to the contrary.
Q. You told us yesterday that the murders in the concentration camps which were carried out by SS men could be explained by the fact that only the thugs were left to guard the concentration camps, and the best of the SS men went off to war. But I ask you, General, before 1939 such men as Koch, Burger, Schroeder, Lolling, Eicke, all those men were in charge of concentration camps and working in concentration camps before 1939, and even the Defendant Oswald Pohl here has told us that the reason he had so much trouble with the concentration-camp commanders and guards was that they were trained under Eicke, which was before the war began. Let me ask you this, General, the fact is, isn't it, that the SS men were trained from the beginning to be hard criminals, and isn't it true, General, that they received their training to be hard in the concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Then I want to ask you, General, about the destruction of Warsaw, and the wholesale killing of the Jews there. Did you ever hear of the report by Globocnik? You know Globocnik, don't you? He was an SS man.
A. Yes, I know Globocnik.
Q. Did you hear of his final report on the clean-up of the Warsaw Ghetto?
A. To the best of my belief and knowledge, no, I have no knowledge of it.
Q. I could read to you for hours from it, the horrible details, but I am just going to read you two sentences from Globocnik's report. This was his report to Himmler. "Of the total 56,000 Jews caught about seven thousand were exterminated within their former ghetto in the course of the large-scale action, and 6,929 by transporting them to Treblinka too which, "he says, means fourteen thousand Jews exterminated altogether. Beyoun the number of 56,000 Jews an estimated number of five to six thousand were killed by explosions or in fires." This action was carried out by SS men, General, and he reports that a total of sixty Waffen-SS men were killed in cleaning out the Warsaw Ghetto because the Jews put up such a terrific fight. You are not proud of such a report as this on the records of the SS, are you?
A. No, I am not proud of those atrocities at all.
DR. SEIDL (For Defendant Oswald Pohl): Your Honor, the translation came through to the effect that we are dealing here with a report by SS-Gruppenfuhrer Globocnik. However, this report has not been provided with any document number. However, if I understood the contents of the report correctly to which the Prosecutor was referring, then this was not the report of Gruppenfuehrer Globocnik but it was the report of Brigadefuehrer Stroop.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Dr. Seidl is correct, witness; the Action Reinhardt was carried out in Warsaw by Globocnik who was an SS man. This report, however, was written by Stroop. Do you know Stroop? He was also an SS man.
A. Yes.
Q. And Eicke? Do you think he represents the best of German youth? The best that the SS could offer? He ran the concentration camps in which thousands of Jews were exterminated.
A. May I ask you when and where they were slaughtered under the responsibility of Eicke?
Q. Well, they were murdered from 1939 on up until the time when he was removed from his position.
A. If that is correct, and the Prosecution must be in the possession of the appropriate documents, then of course I can only object to these actions in the sharpest manner.
Q. And about the beautiful designs that were made by the SS? You told us about Himmler's designing porcelain horses that didn't have to be supported by flowers or some other instrument, so that they could stand on their hind legs. Can you tell us if the same designer designed this piece of porcelain as designed the shrunken heads at Dachau? This was also carried on by the SS. You heard about the shrunken heads of the inmates, didn't you?
A. I have only heard it here, and I have read it in the book by Kogon; I have read it with horror. Of course I cannot say myself if it is true or not.
Q. If it is true, it is nothing to be proud of, is it?
A. No, in no way whatsoever.
Q. Now, you have told us about the character of the defendant Pohl. Proof in this case shows that under the WVHA and under the supervision of the defendant Pohl in the stone quarries people were worked eleven, fourteen hours a day; people were worked until they were no longer able to work. They were killed while they were working, and when they were no longer able to work they were sent out to extermination camps, in the concentration camps under the defendant Pohl.
Thousands and thousands of people --- six hundred thousand, Pohl says -- that in 1944 those people were enslaved and imprisoned; the property was taken away from them. People who loved life and fought for life just as hard as you and I do, General. What about a man like Pohl? Is this the best that the SS had to offer? Is this the man that you are proud of?
A. I have already repeatedly told the Prosecution today and yesterday that in my conviction Pohl did not have anything whatsoever actively to do with these things, and up to now the Prosecution has in no way led me to believe that Pohl, who was only responsible for the direction of the allocation of labor, and was only organizationally and schematically brought into connection with these things -- that Pohl is really guilty in the sense. The prerequisite for the fact that I declared myself prepared to appear here as a witness in one of the most important of the SS trials on his behalf, and on behalf of his comrades, was his answer to a question which I asked him on his word of honor; whether he had anything to do with it. And I asked him whether my concept was correct or not, and he confirmed that I was correct, on his word of honor. Since I have known him for many years only as a very decent human being, and since, as one of the few survivors, I still know exactly the organizational connections; I refuse to the utmost to leave a comrade when I am personally convinced of the fact that he never issued an order for a killing or for an arbitary commission of inhumane acts.
Q. General, we have not a single order which Pohl issued for the execution of a person, and I would be very much surprised if we were to find one. But in the concentration camps which were run by Pohl thousands of people were killed and worked to death. I don't intend now to try to convince you of the guilt of Pohl. I think that is completely beyond the realm of our purpose here. But I say to you, that if no crimes were committed there, then concentration camps never existed; no one ever died in a concentration camp.
You told us that Pohl had a difficult job. I ask you, General, if it wasn't an impossible job. Wasn't it a job that was completely beyond the scope of human capabilities, to enslave thousands and thousands of people and make them slave laborers and to regulate every movement of their lives? It was an impossible job, wasn't it?
And, General, wasn't it a crime in itself to undertake such a gigantic and impossible task?
A. It is correct that it was an impossible task which was heaped on a single man, and it was impossible from the technical point of view, and from the load of work.
Q. That answers my question. I have no further questions.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. General, in this letter that you wrote, the reply to the letter that you received on the 28th of July, 1942 in regard to the transportation of Jews from Lublin to Treblinka, you say in this letter this: "I have contacted the department concerned myself so that the smooth carrying out of all of these measures seems to be guaranteed."
What do you mean by that?
A. In only referred to the actual transportation movement, the actual movement of the people.
Q. Whom did you contact?
A. I can only reconstruct this now according to the file notes which are contained in this letter with my signature.
Q. I am not talking about the file notes. I am talking about what you said. I want to know what you meant by what you said. That is what I want to know.
A. I meant that I had sent copies of this letter to Brandt, Globocnik and Obergruppenfuhrer Krueger for the smooth carrying-out of all of these movements of the population.
Q. I am asking you what this sentence means; "I have contacted the departments concerned."
Now, what departments did you contact?
A. As far as I can answer this question so quickly, I meant the agencies which have been listed here, and which were concerned with the transportation movement as far as the technical execution was concerned.
Q. Wasn't the Reichsfuehrer SS concerned considerably about this?
A. If Dr. Brandt received a copy, then it was automatically to be submitted to the Reichsfuehrer.
Q. Did you contact him and ask him something about it?
A. This procedure was carried out in writing because it is stated here that a copy of this letter was sent from Gunzenmueller to Dr. Brandt and all persons concerned.
Q. Where were you when you sent this letter, when you wrote this letter?
A. I was in the Fuehrer's headquarters --- and give me a moment to look at it --- yes, I was at the Fuehrer's headquarters. It was located in Winniza in the Ukraine, and the Reichsfuehrer SS was at least 25 kilometers away, at Berditschew, if he was not located elsewhere. That is why all the persons concerned received a copy of this letter, and that settled the case.
Q. What would these people, these Jews -- 5,000 a day -- be, as you called them, Chosen People? That is what you called them: The Chosen People.
A. Yes, they probably were Jews.
Q. I say, you called them The Chosen People. You meant the Jews, didn't you?
A. I am not certain, but probably I meant the Jews by that.
Q. Well, General, you answered a letter about Jews in which the letter calls them Jews. You come back and call them Chosen People.
There is no quibbling about that.
A. Yes; the Jews themselves proudly call themselves the Chosen People.
Q. I said but what you called them. And you meant the Jews when you said that, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. Now, were they being sent, from 5,000 a day, to Treblinka. Why were they being sent there?
A. I don't know, but it was done by order of the Reichsfuehrer.
Q. Why didn't you find out? If you were thanking somebody for doing that, why didn't you find out why they were being taken there?
A. With the innumerable orders which had to be taken care of during the day it was sufficient for me to know that the Reichsfuehrer had given such and such an order; that the Reichsfuehrer had ordered such a movement of transportation. And actually because it was purely a transportation matter and not an extermination measure, the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transportation had to furnish the necessary transportation and, therefore, it was one of my tasks which brought me to contact the proper agency, so that the necessary transportation could be furnished. I did this in good faith, and that is the way I worked on it.
Q. Were you thanking them for yourself and in the name of the Reichsfuehrer SS for carrying on this program? And you tell this Tribunal that you didn't know what this program was?
A. Yes.
Q. And you expect us to believe that?
A. I can only ask you to believe it -- not only because of the personal impression which the Tribunal has, but on the basis of the actions which I really carried out as long as I acted independently. I have really put a good system into effect for two years in Italy, where I was also forced to have a concentration camp -- and I can assure the Tribunal that here not a single person died, and that over-
Q. I am not talking about that. I am talking about this particular matter. I am not interested in that at all. I am interested in this particular letter that you wrote in which you say that you knew nothing about it: the extermination program of the Jews.
A. Yes.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: You know nothing of why they were being transported, this shipment?
WITNESS: No, I didn't know.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: And you didn't ask anybody why? That's all.
WITNESS: As far as I can recall.
CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. General, I didn't think there was any doubt that you knew what these people were sent there for or I would have gone into the matter further. You talked about 70,000 Jews being sent in 14 days to Treblinka. You know today that Treblinka was one of the biggest extermination centers, don't you?
A. No, I have heard it now.
Q. How big a place is Treblinka. Is Treblinka a place that can accommodate 70,000 people?
A. I don't even know where Treblinka is located. I only knew that Auschwitz and Lublin were extermination camps, but the name "Treblinka" is new to me.
Q. I might tell you that it seems to me that if you didn't know you should have found out that it couldn't possibly accommodate this many people and that in this place, Treblinka, thousands and thousands of Jews were exterminated and that this was one of the largest extermination camps.
RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SEIDL (Attorney for defendant Pohl):
Q. Witness, the letter which has been submitted to you comes from the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Transportation. You have answered in reply to it with a letter of the 13th of August, 1942. In this letter which originates with you are referring to a movement of the population which was to be carried out as quickly as possible at that time. Did you assume at the time that the Jews would be sent to Ghettos and camps, or what did you think about it?
A. I thought of a movement of the population into camps and nothing else.
Q. At the time you did not know that these Jews were to be brought into extermination camps?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. The prosecution then asked you what responsibility the defendant Oswald Pohl had with regard to the concentration camps and the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps. The prosecution has submitted a document, I think with the file number 1063-PS, as Exhibit 39. This is a letter of the chief of the Security Police and the SD of the 30th of May, 1942. It is addressed to all agencies of the Security Police and the SD and it deals with the incorporation of the agency of the Inspectorate of the Concentration camps into the SS-WVHA. It is located in Document Book 2. It is on page 69 of the German text. This document appears to be of considerable importance to me. I would like to read to you the contents of this document, which consists of two paragraphs, and I quote:
"By order of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police of the 3rd of March, 1942, the agency of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps was removed from the SS Operational Main Office and was transferred as Amtsgruppe D into the SS-WVHA.
"This measure serves the direction of the labor allocation in war time and - as I expressly emphasize - it remains without influence on the RSHA with regard to the confinement and release of prisoners and on granting leave to prisoners, and so on."
Here we are dealing for the first time with the confinement of prisoners and here we are talking about the release of prisoners. Furthermore, this letter deals with the granting of leave to prisoners and so on. I now ask you, witness, doesn't this order, which has been presented by the prosecution, show quite clearly that the purpose of the incorporation was purely of an administrative nature and that this responsibility was to be marked--
MR. ROBBINS: May it please the Tribunal--
THE PRESIDENT: That is a question to be answered by the Tribunal, not by the witness. We can interpret the letter, I think as well as the witness can, and decide what it means.
MR. ROBBINS: May I also say, Your Honor, that this is not the order which incorporated the Inspectorate into the WVHA, but it is just a letter which is reporting about the incorporation.
DR. SEIDL: In this letter from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to the agencies of the Security Police, reference is taken to the order of the Reichsfuehrer SS of the 3rd of March, 1942, and it would be appropriate - and it would be favorable for the defense - if I could obtain possession of this order by the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, and probably this decree would show very clearly in what field the responsibility of the defendant Oswald Pohl was to be limited with regard to the concentration camps.
MR. ROBBINS: The prosecution would like to have the order also. We have made an extensive search for it and we haven't been able to find it and, if we do find it, we will give it to Dr. Seidl.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, I have read the contents of this letter to you in order to refresh your memory. I now ask you the following question: What considerations were decisive for the order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler to subordinate the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps to the defendant Oswald Pohl and to what extent was his responsibility to be limited?
A. The order shows quite clearly that the main and predominating thought was to centralize the allocation of prisoners.
MR. ROBBINS: Obviously, the witness doesn't understand the question or the nature of the document which was read to him. It wasn't the order incorporating the Inspectorate. It is just a letter talking about the incorporation.
THE PRESIDENT: Even if it was the order, Dr. Seidl's question is, "Please tell us what was in Himmler's mind when he made the order?"