Q. Witness, about this 30 million credit to the DWB, is it correct that the DWB in the summer of 1943 received a Reich credit of 30 million marks?
A. That is correct.
Q. Part of that credit, was that credit removed from account No. 1288?
A. Yes, 12 millions according to my recollection.
Q. In Document Book No. 18, on Page 148 of the German and 141 of the English text, we have Exhibit No. 448 of Document 554. That is also in Document Book No. 17, on Page 33 of the German. This document deals with the credit to the Schutzstaffel, or protective squads of the SS. According to that, the first part was used in order to pay back a debt, a Red Cross debt, is that correct? Do you have the document book before you?
A. Yes, I have to go into details about this document because my name is mentioned there. I do not want to bore this Tribunal with this matter, however. It deals with a loan of 8 million marks which the Red Cross, as far as I can recall had granted to the SS in 1939. At the time I had nothing to do with this transaction. Why that credit was granted to the SS and why this credit took such a detour through the savings account of the SS, I could not tell you today. The SS Savings Association was an institution which had been established by the Reichsfuehrer where all the SS units, which were a part of the main office, had to pay part of their salaries to that particular Treasury. When I became chief of Amtsgruppe A, this saving association was included in my field of tasks, and there I found this credit which, came from the Red Cross, and I found that they had gone through the saving group association accounts and from these particular saving group association accounts it was turned over to the DWB.
In June 1943, I had conferences with Pohl about it and I asked him to correct this mistake because it did not appear correct to me that such an association should possibly be charged with such a credit. Pohl told me at the time, "Frank, I cannot possibly remove this credit from my W-Industries.
It is part of the capital of the industry. If you want to do that, you have to give me eight millions from the Treasury of the Reich." And it was on that occasion that Pohl furthermore told me that he urgently needed additional funds for the execution of the Reich armament tasks.
That was the reason for the thirty million credit which developed out of this matter. It was a Reich credit. There was no doubt about the fact that it had to be paid back sometime to the Reich and we always had to pay interest for it. Why at the time I removed part of the credit from the special account 1288, which had also become Reich money by that time, I do not even know today. However, as far as I can recall, shortly before I resigned from my position in the main office, I had this money transferred to account 1288 by transferring it from one account to the other.
Q. About those eight millions which came out of this Document No-554, were they used to pay the credit for the Red Cross?
A. Yes, that can be seen from the document clearly.
Q. How was it then that this credit received the name "Reinhardt Fund"?
A. Because as I already stated, the first two installment payments were withdrawn from account 1288.
Q. Then the eight million marks out of the thirty million credit were no longer withdrawn from the Reinhardt account?
A. No, they were taken out of the current budget funds of the Reich.
Q. Then the first twelve million could have been taken from the current budget, couldn't they?
A. Yes, that is correct. I already told you that I don't know why this 12 million were withdrawn from that account.
Q. However, there must have been some sort of a reason why the original money was withdrawn from the funds which had been placed aside and not from the current Reich funds?
A. Well, to make it a short story, around the same time representatives of the O STI appeared in my office, and they asked me if they could possibly receive a credit of two and one-half million marks in order to take care of certain armament matters. Originally, these two and one-half were also to be withdrawn from account 1288. I looked at the special requisition slips at the O sti and I saw that those were purely armament matters, not for the SS but for the Army itself. There upon, I visited an expert of the Army administration and I asked him if he could not possible put two and one-half million marks at the disposal of the people who come to see me from his own treasury. He did not exactly refuse to do so, but he was surprised because he said, "Why don't you?" And that was the reason why I gave the money. When I later on became Chief of the Army Administration, I told myself that the Army was giving hundreds of millions of credits to armament firms. In Department for Rearmament in the Army, over one billion was spent for armament industry.
Q. You say that this particular sum of twelve million consisted of Reich funds.
I mean those twelve million which came from Jewish property. However, I can't help thinking that these twelve million, practically speaking, were to be credited to the account of the SS economy.
A You mean they were embezzled actually, is that what you mean?
Q Yes.
A No, that could not have been the case, because then the whole thing would have been started in a very stupid manner. If we had merely wanted to embezzle that and transfer the money to the economy, then we would have started in some other way. However, in this way these amounts went entirely through the cash books, and they went through the books of the economists. They were subjected to the inspection of the auditing court, and there was no doubt that all these funds were purely Reich funds. That the origin of the money is based upon the property of the Jews, I will admit openly. However, this does not change anything in the fact that at that particular moment when the money was taken into the Reich Treasury it became Reich property.
Q I shall now come back to Account 1288, the so-called Reinhardt Fund. You said that the funds became Reich property, the moment they were taken into the Reich Treasury. However, these confiscated funds of the inmates somehow represented an enrichment for the SS budget and therefore the SS had more funds, or do I understand you wrong?
A For the layman that is precisely the way it looks. In this connection I would like to mention also the pay, the wages for the inmates. By that I mean those particular funds which the Reich received from the industries for supplies for the inmates, that is to say, lodging, clothing, and for their food. Those funds, just like all the other funds which came into the Reich Treasury were no profits for the Waffen-SS or for the SS generally speaking.
Q Yes, but the Waffen-SS could spend more, therefore it did have a profit?
A No, it only looks that way. The budget of the Waffen-SS was a budget which was independent as to income and expenditures. That is to say as a budget chief I was not interested in budgeting the income. I could not spend one single pfennig more or less than what had come in or gone out.
Whatever came into the Reich Treasury became an income or a revenue of the Reich, and what we spent we received from the Ministry of Finance. In other words, we could not say that in January we shall spend fifty million marks more than before because we had an income of fifty million. If I shall use a commercial expression, it was not a so-called balanced budget like for instance the postal system or the railroads. Those were Reich institutions, the expenses of which depended on the revenues or the income. Is that clear?
Q I hope that the Tribunal has understood this matter. However, in order to make sure, I would rather mention something else in this connection. That is in connection with the fact, as you know yourself, that in America the question of financing plays a larger part than it played with us. You already mentioned during your examination by this Tribunal, when you were examined about the supply of food, that the money was not the important factor here but the raw materials and that also speaking from a budgetary point of view you told us that the expenses of a certain institution, like the Waffen SS for instance, did not depend at all on the income. Can you tell us about that a little more explicitly?
A I can tell you about it in two short sentences. In peacetime it was exactly determined what we were to spend, that is down to the pfennig, and during the war we spent whatever we needed for the war effort, that is to say without any consideration of the amount. The Finance Ministry would mean under those expenses. However, he could not possibly change things because the war effort required those expenses, and he had to give us the money, because how was he to control the establishment of a 275th division or know that a 257th division was necessary. After all, he could not tell Hitler, "You are not to set up another division. I do not have any more money." That was the reason why he didn't have any influence during the war on the expenditures.
THE PRESIDENT: See if I understand it right. The SS, including the industries, did not have to be self-supporting or self-sustaining?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, you used the word "industries". That disturbs me somewhat.
THE PRESIDENT: I will withdraw it. I will withdraw the word "industries". The SS, for example, in all its activities, did not have to pay its own way?
THE WITNESS: That is quite right, you understood it correctly, Your Honor , that is exactly the way it was.
Q (By Dr. Rauschenbach) About this credit amounting to two and a half million marks to the OSTI, I am going to ask you a few questions. Take Document Book No. 19 , please, Exhibit 483, and Exhibit 484, documents NO-1266 and 1269.
A Yes, I have that.
Q Now, how did this credit come about?
A I have already stated that these credits were based on a request by the OSTI with me, and they were given by me. First of all they were to be withdrawn from Account 1288. However, they were taken out of the normal Reich funds later on. I believe that can be proved, because in Exhibit 483 - forgive me, I mean in Document 1271, that is the balance of the OSTI, dated the 29th of February, 1944.
Q That is Exhibit 491, isn't it?
A Yes, 491.
Q In Document Book No. 19.
A On page 28 of the German, paragraph 15 it explicitly refers to the Account Reich is mentioned there, not Reinhardt and from this same paragraph 15 it can be seen that the credits were already repaid by the 20th of May, 1944, up to half, in other words, at the time when I was no longer in the WVHA.
Q How is it then that in Exhibit 483 in the file note of 26 June 1943 the context is mentioned, "Loan from the Reinhardt funds"?
A Because as I already said it was to be withdrawn from the Reinhardt funds originally. However, I refused that. In other words, I had nothing else to do with the OSTI, than to help here for those particular credits which we thought necessary for the execution of the armament tasks.
Q Witness, today in a different connection you had already mentioned that you, in the summer of 1943, tried and finally succeeded in joining the regular police as an Administrative Chief. What was your activity there, and when did your activity begin?
A Well, sir, on the 1st of September 1943, I was appointed by the representative of the State Ministry of the Interior as the Administrative Chief of Police. Thus I was in charge of approximately two hundred police districts and their directors, including the Special Tasks, which I have already mentioned before, namely criminal police, food police, market police, and all the controls as far as the population was concerned, and all the contacts with these agencies were rather incomplete.
Q Witness, you were still under orders, weren't you; as far as the Reich was concerned you were still the Chief of Amtsgruppe A, weren't you? Did you carry out your activity as Chief of Amtsgruppe A besides your activity with the police?
A No, that was not possible because this new task kept me quite busy. However, together with the menior chief in Amtsgruppe A, the man who as year later became the Chief of Amtsgruppe A, I had quite often discussions about personnel questions, and I answered questions which he, due to his lack of knowledge, could not solve.
Q In other words, they were simply troop administrative questions?
A Yes, they were troop administrative questions which I had gathered after a long experience in the army, and I could not possibly forget it overnight.
Q Did you remain the Chief of the Administration of the Regular Police until the end of the war, or did you join another agency prior to that?
A No. On the 1st of September, 1944, I received the additional task of being the Chief of Army Administration. On the 1st of October, 1944, I was officially promoted to Chief of the Army Administration, and I became Obergruppenfuehrer General. That position was that of a commanding general also, as my predecessor was also a commanding general.
Q. What were the reasons that you, as an SS general, should be placed at the head of an administrative agency although that agency consisted of nothing but army people?
A. The reason probably was that Himmler, in the autumn of 1944, became the chief of the Army Replacement System.
Q. And who was your military superior as chief of the army administration?
A. The chief of the staff of the high command of the army. Then I had another chief who was the chief of the high command of the Wehrmacht.
Q. What was your relationship to the commanding chief of the Wehrmacht?
A. The administrative officer of the army was responsible for the food supply of the entire German frontline army; both for the Air Corps, for the Navy, the Organization Todt, the Red Cross units, for the Waffen SS, and to be short, for the entire frontline group. In that connection I was subordinated to the chief of the high command of the Wehrmacht directly. I had two conferences with Himmler on this basis.
Q. Apart from these Wehrmacht supply warehouses, were any other Wehrmacht depots transferred to you and were any orders issued on that basis?
A. Yes, in February 1945 I made an open statement to Adolf Hitler about the food situation of the German Wehrmacht. The Russians had broken though, the Allies had broken through, and without making a secret out of the whole thing I told Hitler that it was time now to end the war. Keitel was absolutely disappointed by my statement and Himmler was mute, and he released me without making a single comment, so that I was under the impression that everything was all right. A witness of that conference was State Secretary Backe; he was Food Minister at the time. I took him along to see the Fuehrer, and he, in his field as the civilian food administration, told the Fuehrer the same thing.
And to my surprise on the 14th of March, 1945, I received an order by Adolf Hitler which was signed by him personally, in which I was assigned to take charge of all the army supply warehouses all over Germany and on the front lines. In other words, not only food warehouses but all the other quartermaster warehouses, food supply warehouses, and supply warehouses, etc.
Q. Witness, do you know anything about the fact that Himmler in March also ordered the "scorched earth" policy to be used?
A. Yes, on the 20th of March, 1945, I received from an ordnance officer from headquarters a letter which I had to sign for personally. In this letter it was stated that if the enemy should approach, or if the enemy should be close, everything was to be destroyed, anything that could be of use to the enemy. I was to blow up all the warehouses which belonged to the German Wehrmacht as soon as the enemy was approaching.
Q. What did you do upon receiving such orders?
A. Prior to that a different order had already been issued about the blowing-up of installations, if the enemy should approach. This order, which I mentioned before, of the 19th of March, was the so-called "scorched earth" decree. I do not recall the exact date when I received a telephone call from the Reich Minister of Armaments Speer. He was on the phone himself, and he begged me to come and see him at his private home. I had that conference with him and he asked me if I felt like carrying out this order of the Fuehrer - at least in my field of tasks. I told him that I did not think of doing such a thing because this was an insane order, and that I completely agreed with him as far as sabotaging this order was concerned. I sent to all warehouse chiefs I could reach a special order that all these warehouses were to be transferred to the civilian authorities, to the mayors, or if possible they should be transferred to the rear areas.
Q. Witness, with this special term didn't you mean the execution of the special order which was sent to you by your higher superior?
Didn't you refuse to carry out this order?
A. Yes, undoubtedly. I knew exactly that I was risking my head with that because it was sabotage of the highest Fuehrer order.
Q. How many of your supplies do you think remained after the end of the war for the population of Germany?
A. It is very difficult for me to state today, as I have no documentary evidence to that effect. However, as far as food alone was concerned, I guess that there was over one million tons which remained for the German population, and several other hundred thousand of tons of the most important goods. I believe that I can also add that by sabotaging this scorched earth policy on purpose I played into the hands of the enemy with the only aim to conclude this war as soon as possible and cease all those sufferings for the German people because I in my position had found out very clearly that every day the war was being continued was a crime against the German people.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: What date was this?
THE WITNESS: That was on the 19th of March, 1945.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, this scorch earth decree, together with another affidavit of the former Reich Minister Speer, I shall introduce as a document afterwards, as it has not been granted me to bring the witness Speer here.
BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, I have a last question to put to you. The President of the Court asked you about the methods of the political arrests in Germany a few minutes ago. Now, I want you to make a difference between your opinion today and your opinion at the time about all those things, and the possibility of your having had any influence on these things at the time. Did you, in your position as chief of Amtsgruppe A of the WVHA, or as chief of the administrative office of the SS prior to that, or later as chief of the administration of the Regular Police or the Wehrmacht - did you have any knowledge of and could you have intervened in any way with regard to the treatment of political enemies of Germany?
Take the Frank Exhibit I which I introduced yesterday. Take a look at the Frank Exhibit No. I and tell this Tribunal on the basis of the red and blue lines above by whom and to whom the orders about the arrest and the release of inmates, etc. were issued. And who ordered the executions. And explain to us now in how far Amtsgruppe A had anything to do with it.
A. As I have already stated before, the RSHA, in its channels of command, was entirely independent from the WVHA. It had a direct influence on Amtsgruppe D and on the concentration camps. An official or an employee of the RSHA could also carry out arrests if he had the authority to do so. The other channel to Amtsgruppe D went through the chief of the WVHA, particularly as far as labor allocation and administrative matters were concerned. Amtsgruppe A was only in a loose connection with the concentration camps as far as financial matters were concerned.
Q. Was Amtsgruppe A in a position to exercise any influence on the arrest, release, and treatment of the inmates?
A. No.
Q. How about you personally?
A. You mean the person who represented me, because as Chief of the Amtsgruppe it was quite clear. However, even when I deputized for Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, I could not represent him in concentration camp matters, because that was not in my own field of tasks and they constituted decisions in labor assignment questions which had to be so important that the Chief of Amt-D-II could not carry them out himself. Therefore, I couldn't do it either, because otherwise I would have had to continuously present at those conferences. I would have had to be in contact with all the things which were in connection with labor assignment and then, possibly, I would have been able to intervene while representing Pohl.
Q. Witness, do you wish to say by that that you had nothing to do with the question of arrect and the further treatment of the inmates and that your opinion which you expressed to this Tribunal bout the political arrests, ets., really is nothing but an opinion and could not possibly have been evidenced on your part?
A. What I told the Tribunal was my own personal humane interpretation of those facts which had nothing to do with my position as Chief of an Amtsgruppe. As far as the arrests, were concerned, Pohl couldn't have arrested anybody either. He did not have any more power than I did in having people arrested. A small secretary of the Gestapo, a criminal secretary of the Gestapo, had much more to say in those matters than an SS-Obergruppenfuehrer in the WVHA.
Q. However, as SS Obergruppenfuehrer, didn't you have any influence on the organization of the system? That is to say that you in some way, together with the other leading personalities of the SS, could sort of change this system, the shape of the system of the arrest of political prisoners--could't you possibly change it?
A. In order to exercise some sort of an influence in this particular point on Himmler, in order to be able to have such an influence over him, it would have been necessary that Himmler with his Obergruppenfuehrer should have had a conference periodically, during which conference an open criticism and an open discussion could be possible.
However no such thing ever happened as long as I was a Gruppenfuehrer and Obergruppenfuehrer. Acriticism at that time would have meant the same thing as certain death. However, that Himmler during individual conferences was highly influenced by many of his generals and that in an good sense, particularly in 1944, can be concluded from the fact that he, in September 1944, finally gave the order, to cease the killing of Jews. I heard this through Oberstrumbannfuehrer Becher who had that particular order in his hands. This Oberstrumbannfuehrer Hecher had the order to exchanbe Jews for vital raw materials. As crazy as this deal night possibly sound, it was true and was put into effect. I knew that this was the reason why Becker came to see me several times. As one says, he was attacked many times, because he did that. He kept on writing to Himmler. He transferred one prominent Jew after another to Switzerland and hundreds of Jews with their families and brought nothing back in return. Becher's life was in danger at the time because he did that.
Q. Witness, that is sufficient about this subject. I applied for Obersturmbannfuehrer Becher as a witness some time ago. However, I have not received any answer as yet from the Tribunal. I wanted to call Becher as a witness in this trial.
THB PRESIDENT: All applications for defense witnesses have been passed on by the Tribunal. They are always passed on within at the most within 1/2 day after I receive them. It is wandering around Defense Information Center somewhere. I can't tell you what the decision was. I think it was granted.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Thank you very much, Your Honor. I shall inquire about it.
Q. Witness, you said that Himmler had no common conferences with the Higher SS leaders.
Would it be correct to say that he tried to separate all his main offices and all his unterfuehrers and not to let the one know that the other one was doing?
A. Yes, as a matter of fact, he incited then against each other. I know that through my own personal experience, that he incited one against the other by telling him something that the other one didn't like. That was one of Himmler's systems, which I myself recongized during the last few years when I held and important and high grade.
Q. In other words, he did not tolerate any conspiracy against hinself and he did not tolerate any conspiracies against one of the SS systems. Is that the way we can put it?
A. That is a very, very difficult question.
Q. I am asking you if he let every Higher SS Leader work in his own field of tasks and did he avoid a close connection between these various offices in order to separate the activities and secrets of the RSHA were?
A. No, that was impossible. Not even Pohl knew that. It was absolutely impossible, for instance, that the Chief of the Operational Main Office, knew what Himmler had told Pohl, and SS Main Office Chief Berger, did not know what Himmler said to Juettner, who was Chief of the Operational Main Office. I believe that Himmler during the last year and a half in particular understood very clearly that his position as Chief of the Gestapo brought him into an absolute contradiction with his generals of the units, because it was apparent to us all that things were going on during the last year, which were not worthy of the Waffen SS and Himmler could only carry out those things because he incited his Higher Leaders against each other and as I said before, and because he never had a common commanders conference where everybody could have voiced hes complaints and his misgivings as it is done in a democratic system It could not be thought of at any time. One could not think. One just had to obey or perish. There was nothing else.
DR. RAUSCENBACH: Thank you; that is sufficient, Witness, I have completed the direct examination of the Defendant Frank. Would it be convenient to have a recess at the present moment?
THE PRESIDENT: In this the N S DAP here, where no one trusted anybody else?
WITNESS: Your Honor, the NS DAP is not Himmler, Himmler is nothing but a part of the N SDAP.
THE PRESIDENT: O, but what a part.
WITNESS: A very beautiful part indeed. Himmler had the entire Waffen-SS behind him and therefore, he was a rather important part of the Reich, of the State machinery, because after all there were approximately three to four million determined men behind him.
THE PRESIDENT: Hoe many ahead of him, two, perhaps three?
THE WITNESS: Above him? The Fuehrer only, just Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: I still stand by what I said.
We will take a recess.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.
( A recess was taken )
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Had you finished your examination, Dr. Rauschenbach?
******USCHENBACH: I have concluded the direct examination of the defendant Frank.
THE PRESIDENT: Cross-examination by other counsel?
EXAMINATION BY DR. VON STA**LBERG (Counsel for the defendant Fanslau):
Q Witness, when did the defendant Fanslau enter the WVHA?
A On the 1st of February 1942, when the main office was established.
Q Was he ordered to do so?
A Yes, he was given orders to join the WVHA.
Q Did the defendant Fanslau play any part in the preliminary work for the establishment of the WVHA?
A I suppose he was unable to do that because he was not even there.
Q What office did the defendant Fanslau obtain?
A He was given Amt A-V, the personnel office. That was the most important office in Amtsgruppe A, and it required a person with special humane characteristics because it was the office which dealt with the administration of people.
Q Did you discuss the reasons with the defendant Fanslau which caused the WVHA to be established?
A No. This question surprises me to some extent; I believe none of us knew the exact reasons. I believe the main reason was that we wanted to clarify this confusion which existed in the Main Office of Economy and Administration, the Main Office of Construction and Buildings, and the Administrative Office of the Waffen SS. We finally wanted to stop all this confusion and establish some sort of a clearly organized system.
Q. Was the WVHA based on any political plan which you could recognize?
A. No, there were only the reasons for this establishment which I have already mentioned just now.
Q. Did you have a plan come to your knowledge later on or did you recognize any such plan?
A. No.
Q. According to your opinion, was the WVHA a state authority or was it a Party political agency?
A. I cannot answer this question in the affirmative or in the negative. Amtsgruppe A, B, C, and later on the Amtsgruppe D, were part of clear Reich system. Amtsgruppe W dealt with economic matters. Amtsgruppe A also dealt with the Party finances which however during the war reached a lower and lower extent.
Q. You said that the tasks and the orders which were turned over to the defendant Fanslau were limited to working on personnel matters. Financial questions were dealt with in other offices.
A. Yes, that is quite correct. Fanslau only dealt with personnel matters of the administrative officers of the Waffen-SS.
Q. Were these assignments of a purely military nature?
A. Yes, they were 100 per cent of a military nature.
Q. You were later on chief of the army administrative office. You therefore are able to make a comparison between the tasks of the personnel chief of the army administrative office. Did this work correspond to the task of the defendant Franslau in the Waffen-SS?
A. Yes. Fundamentally, of course, with regard to the size, Fanslau had to take care of 4,000 administrative offices in the Waffen-SS; in the Army, he had to take care of 40,000.
Q. However, the type of the work was the same?
A. Yes, it was exactly the same.
Q. Did the incorporation of the inspectorate of the concentration camps change anything in the work of the Office A-V?
A. The personnel files of the offices in the concentration camps had already been previously handled by a personnel expert and the same procedure was followed afterwards.
Q. You said the personnel expert with the inspector for the concentration camps. Did that office have its own personnel department?
A. Yes. As far as I know, this was a personal union with the adjutant of the inspector; that is to say, this adjutant at the same time carried out personnel policies.
Q. From the documents which have been presented by the prosecution, in particular the organizational chart which has been submitted, it becomes evident that this department had a file mark A-V-4. Does this file not establish any contact with the office A-V?
A. I don't know that. I didn't know that the personnel expert with the inspector of the concentration camps used the reference mark A-V-4.
Q. Do you mean by that you did not have any contact at all with this personnel office?
A. Yes, I must say that because otherwise as chief of the Amtsgruppe I would have been informed about the fact if this had been a part of Amtsgruppe A. If he had belonged to Amtsgruppe A, of course he would have been part of Amtsgruppe A.
Q. In this case he did not have that position?
A. No.
Q. What task did the defendant Fanslau have as deputy chief of the Amtsgruppe?
A. Well, these tasks were very small and of minor nature. It was more of an honorary title to be the deputy chief of the Amtsgruppe. I cannot remember that Fanslau in this capacity ever made his appearance at all. It was the usual procedure that the chief of the offices used to come and see me whenever I was not there, and they either waited until I returned or they made their own decisions, because, after all the decisions of Amtstgruppe A concerned only money or other economic matters, and it did not hurt to postpone them for several days.
Q. Therefore the defendant Fanslau did not have any special authority?
A. No. On this occasion, I would like to say something briefly with regard to the question of the deputizing. In the WVHA, the deputizing from the highest to the lowest level was not regulated like, for example, in the Reich Ministries. There, for example, the State Secretary was the deputy of the minister. The ministerial director was the deputy of the state secretary, and the ministerial dirigent was the deputy of the ministerial director. Thus every one of the deputies knew all the tasks of his superiors. That was a completely different situation than existed with us. This already becomes evident from the position of the person concerned. There was only one state secretary or there were at the most two of them who knew exactly of the tasks of the ministry and divided these tasks amongst each other. In that field of work, they had exactly as much knowledge as the minister himself. The same thing applied to the ministerial dirigent and that is why these were special positions, their importance ranged with their responsibility and they were paid accordingly.
While in the WVHA, all the chiefs of the Amtsgruppe had the same grade or could reach that grade. The chiefs of the offices could reach a maximum grade. Therefore, no special grade was provided for a deputy. I believe it was necessary for me to point out this fact.
Q. Therefore, it is a fact that the deputizing did not mean that the deputy would be completely informed of the tasks and the field of work of his chief?
A. No, he did not have that knowledge. That is something which an outsider cannot understand without a further explanation. However, since during the war we had such an overload of work it was not possible to constantly consult a deputy for all the conferences because I can only consider a deputy to be a man who reads every letter which his chief receives for whom he has to deputize and who attends all conferences and who is informed about all things, and that was not the case in the WVHA.
Q. Therefore it seems to me that the deputizing in your office was only of a normal nature?
A. Yes, it was only of a formal and representative nature.
Q. In your affidavit of the 17th of January 1947, Exhibit 4, you stated that the defendant Fanslau until the 31st of August 1943 was your deputy and chief of the Amtsgruppe. You further stated that on the 9th of November 1944, he was appointed chief of the Amtsgruppe. Just what was his status in the meantime? Was there a vacancy in the position or was the defendant Fanslau already at an earlier period of time entrusted with the direction of the office?