The Reich Ministry of Finance was interested in this only because these buildings survived the war, whereas the Reich Building Office or the Reich Ministry of Finance were not interested in barracks-and ninety-nine per cent of all buildings were barracks in wartime--or in smaller buildings below half a million.
Q During your period of office some large construction projects were carried out at Dachau in the form of construction of crematoriums and gas chambers. Did you know anything about this?
A I did not know that there was a gas chamber in Dachau. I say that with the best conscience. That a crematorium existed I did not know. Had I known it, I should not have been surprised because a camp of the size of Dachau - where was it to have sent its dead--and in a city of forty or fifty thousand men there are always some dead. The city or town of Dachau is a very small little place inhabited by about two thousand men.
Q That is enough. Also during your period of office, large construction projects were carried out at Nordhausen and Bergen-Belsen. Did you know anything about this?
A Nordhausen was at a time when I was no longer with the WVHA; but I am quite convinced that construction was not financed by the WVHA. It must have been financed by the special budget at the disposal of Kammler on the basis of a special order from the Fuehrer directly.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess, Mr. Robbins.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Witness, did you know anything about the construction projects that were being carried out at Bergen-Belsen in 1943?
A. I saw in the papers in 1945 for the first time that the concentration camp by the name of Bergen-Belsen existed.
Q. And you didn't know about it while you were chief of Amtsgruppe A?
A. No, I never heard anything about Bergen-Belsen.
Q. Did you ever talk to the defendant Pohl about medical experiments?
A. I can't recall that at all.
Q. Will you tell us if you ever, while you were a member of the WVHA, visited a concentration camp?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you tell us when and where?
A. I visited the concentration camp Auschwitz in the spring of 1942. The occasion for my doing this was the following: A letter came from Auschwitz stating that the agricultural expert from Auschwitz was going to deduct large amounts of money from Reich funds and that the administration maintained the point of view that the agricultural special assignments and tasks had nothing whatsoever to do with the concentration camp. Since I was taking a trip to Cracow anyhow, I also passed through Auschwitz. I arrived there around noontime and I had a discussion there. At five o'clock in the evening I continued my trip to Cracow. I can still remember all the details so precisely because I had a bad flat tire with my car between Auschwitz and Cracow and I was on the road until twelve o'clock at night.
Q. Were you taken on a tour of the concentration camp?
A. Are you now referring to this particular case or do you mean in general?
Q. There at Auschwitz.
A. No, I didn't have the time to do that. I had to inspect the agricultural facilities there. My special task was caused by the fact that Himmler had ordered that in Auschwitz a so-called Russian rubberproducing plant, Kok Radis, was to be cultivated. The agricultural expert there told me that this project required an amount of at least two and a half million marks.
Q. Is that the only time you have ever visited a concentration camp?
A. No, I visited the concentration camp Oranienburg. I have to say that in order to comply with the truth. I visited Oranienburg together with Reichsfuehrer Himmler in person. It was on a special occasion.
THE PRESIDENT: Let's get him in or out of Auschwitz. Did he ever see it? We left him with a flat tire on the street. I don't know whether he ever got in the camp or not.
MR. ROBBINS: I am sorry, Your Honor. Will you answer?
THE WITNESS: The agricultural facilities, Your Honor, consisted of a big farm, and there was also a big laboratory for these rubberproducing plants. I inspected the laboratory as well as the farm. Both of them were located outside of the actual concentration camp.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Did you get in the concentration camp?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you go in where the men slept, where the inmates slept?
A. No, not there. This had nothing to do with me and I didn't see that. I was in the administration and above all I visited the administrative offices of the agriculture. They were located within the concentration camp. However, they were not within the area where the barracks were located where the inmates slept. That part was completely separated.
Q. Did you see any of the inmates?
A. Certainly, yes.
Q. What were they doing?
A. When I left the place at five o'clock in the evening, I saw how the working detachments were coming back from the fields in columns and they were also returning from the work on the roads. They marched in big columns and there were several thousand men in them.
Q. How long were you there?
A. I have already stated, Your Honor, that I arrived there at noon. I left Berlin at seven o'clock in the morning by car, arrived at Auschwitz towards noon. I ate in the officers mess. Then I held my conferences there. I inspected the places which I have just described and at five o'clock in the afternoon I continued my trip to Cracow.
Q. Then you were there from noon until five o'clock.
A. Quite correct.
Q. You had one meal there at the officers mess?
A. Yes.
Q. But you were not taken on a tour of inspection of the camp proper where the men lived?
A. There was no time to do that.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, now. On to Oranienburg.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. While you were at Auschwitz did you make any inspection at all of the food or the clothing which the inmates received?
A. No, that was none of my business at all.
Q. Well, excuse me. You say that was none of your business at all. You were the deputy of Pohl, the deputy of the chief of the WVHA, and it was Pohl's business. Did it ever occur to you to look into these matters?
A. Mr. Prosecutor, if throughout the year I had nothing to do with clothing and food supplies as far as concentration camps were concerned, then of course it would be absurd for me if in this case I came to a camp and if I looked after food and clothing there. After all, I didn't have the slightest idea what was going on with regard to these subjects. If, for example, the administrative officer had asked me, "We have too little clothing," then I would have to tell him, "Well, my friend, I can't help it.
I don't know anything about it."
Q. You could have reported it to Pohl as his deputy, couldn't you? Couldn't you have done that if he had told you that?
A. If he had expressly requested that I should tell Pohl that there was insufficient clothing there, then of course I would have done it. However, I want to emphasize that at the time I did not go by myself. I was behind Pohl's car because my driver didn't know the way. Pohl remained at Auschwitz and I continued my trip to Cracow. Why should I have worried about all these matters if Pohl himself was there?
Q. On any of these tours of concentration camps, if it had come to your attention by any way that the food or the clothing was insufficient, without a special request from the camp commandant would you have made any report to Pohl?
A. This question is very theoretical. In the military service it is not customary that an administrative officer complain, to me, for example. In this case he would not have gone through his regular channels. He knew exactly that if he told me something of that sort and if I had told Pohl about it, then he certainly would have been told off by his administrative chief, that is Amtsgruppe D, and his superior would have been justified in saying, "Why do you tell these things to Gruppenfuehrer Frank and not to me first if you have any complaints to make?"
Q. Then your answer is no, you would not have made a report to Pohl?
A. No, I'm not saying that at all. Excuse me. If the administrative leader, in spite of all this, had pointed out the fact to me and had told me, "Gruppenfuehrer, I ask you to tell Pohl that there is not sufficient food here," then of course I would have told Pohl about it just like I promised, but not in my capacity as his deputy but because the administrative officer had requested me to do this. Of course, I would have told Pohl about it, and as far as I was concerned that would have been the end of the matter.
Q. So if there were no requests on the part of the administrative officer, if he told you about it or if you saw it from your own personal observation, would you have reported it to Pohl?
A. This could only have been the case if on the occasion of this visit the inmates would have drawn my attention because the food conditions were particularly bad. However, I did not have that impression. To the contrary, the inmates whom I saw at work in agriculture looked well-nourished.
Q. Excuse me. I am just trying to establish what the usual procedure of reporting things to Pohl was. I am asking you if the administrative officer of the camp told you that food and clothing were insufficient but did not make a request that you pass on the information to Pohl, or if from your own observation you saw that inmates were inadequately cared for, would you have passed this information on to Pohl? Now, that is a question you can answer yes or no.
A. Yes.
Q. You would have. Now tell us about your visit to Oranienburg; when and where and under what conditions.
A In the summer--I must make a correction here. Approximately toward the end of April 1943, my adjutant called me to the telephone. He was very excited. He told me that Himmler's chancellery was calling me on the phone. I went to the phone myself and an adjutant of Himmler was calling and he told me, "Gruppenfuehrer, you are to report to Oranienburg immediately." I asked him what I supposed to be doing there and he told me, I don't know. Himmler has just ordered Pohl to come to Oranienburg and Pohl is not at his office. I cannot find him anywhere. Please go to Oranienburg personally." I told the adjutant that this was nonsense. I said that I had no knowledge at all about Oranienburg and that I was of no use at all to Himmler in this case. I really didn't know what I was supposed to be doing there. The adjutant implored me to go there and he told me that he didn't have any other opportunity to tell Himmler that I would have to go instead of Pohl. I told him, "Very well. I shall go out there and I shall personally apologize to Himmler that the matter didn't work out the way it was desired."
I went to Oranienburg as quickly as I could, at full speed. The Reichsfuehrer was already standing before the gates with a very angry expression on his face when I arrived there. I reported to him. He looked at me and asked me, "What are you doing here."? I told him, "Excuse me Reichsfuehrer, your adjutant called me and he told me to report to you here." "Well, he answered, "what am I supposed to be doing with you? You are of no use to me. Well, since you are here you may as well come along." So I went along behind him.
I must say that the inspection was extremely interesting for me. It was an inspection of the entire camp and it lasted for about two hours. The inmates had found out in no time at all that Himmler was in the camp and it spread like a wildfire. It was a sensation as far as the camp was concerned. If I had not seen it myself, I would not have believed it: just how the inmates crowded around Himmler and how they showed him around every workshop and every office and every barracks.
They crowded around him and they begged him, "Reichsfuehrer release us from this camp. I have done nothing. I don't even know why I am here.
The Reichsfuehrer had some of the most striking prisoners taken before him and he had them introduced to him. The commander who was walking at the right of the Reichsfuehrer, it was Standartenfuehrer Kaindl, had to get the files immediately from the administrative office. I, myself, have heard with my own ears how in at least ten cases, Himmler told his adjutant, "Write down the names, Prisoners such and such. Put the files on my table." And to some prisoners he said: "You are going to be released, if what you have told me is correct. "He talked to the prisoners in the familiar form. He asked the prisoners how they were getting along and he inspected the kitchen. He, himself tried the food there. He actually threatened the cook if he had given anything else than was given to the inmates. The cook actually was hiding behind the stove for fear. I don't think that he was lying to the Reichsfuehrer. It was an inspection the like of which I have never seen before in my life. I don't have the impression that anything was kept from sight.
When he had completed the inspection of the camp, after approximately two hours, the Reichsfuehrer told Standartenfuehrer Kaindl, "Now, take me to the solitary confinement building." After we had arrived there, we saw that it was a building of 150 to 180 meters in length. Himmler told me, "Wait outside," and he himself, entered the building together with the first adjutant and the camp commander. O know exactly that this latest for about an hour and a half because my feet became ice-cold while I was waiting outside. Kaindl came outside at one time and I asked him just how long this was going to take, and he answered me, "Himmler is going to one cell to another, and he is talking to every one of the inmates, and therefore it would last at least for another hour," and that is exactly what happened. Around eleven o'clock, Himmler came outside again and I asked him if he still needed me. He said, "No, you can go away again." I then went to my car and drove home.
That was the inspection which I had made with him, the only time in my life. I have given a true description of it now.
Q About how many inmates were in Oranienburg at this time in April '43?.
A It's very difficult for me to say that from my personal impression; however I think there were approximately 2,500 inmates in the camp at the time but the majority of them had gone out for work.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Do you know whether any of these prisoners whose names Himmler took were released afterwards?
A I asked Kaindl about it, because this had aroused my interest, after approximately eight days had passed. And he told me that up to that time he had only been ordered to release two prisoners. I then didn't follow up this matter any further. I assumed that the files were first being examined. But what is interesting from the human point of view is that Himmler showed a very fatherly interest and attitude towards the inmates, and that the inmates were not afraid of him at all, but they were actually crowding around him.
Q. What was the date of this visit?
A. I can't remember the exact date any more. I think it was in the first days of the month of April.
Q. What year?
A. It was 1943.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Did you make any observations as to the nationality of the prisoners in Oranienburg?
A. Yes, according to their languages, they must have consisted of several nationalities. I saw several Poles-at least, I think they talked Polish--and there were also Jews among them who identified themselves immediately. That was in the workshop. However, I cannot exactly recall where this workshop was located. After all, I had absorbed so many impressions from that one inspection that I actually was tired to death after it was completed.
Q. And Himmler took a fatherly attitude toward the Jews and the Poles in Oranienburg in April 1943?
A. I want to confirm explicitly that I was simply surprised about how Himmler acted there. I cannot say anything but that he was actually merciful to them. I am not interested in telling a different story. I could have said that he was very tough with them, but he was not though with them. He was actually very soft. I can assure you that under oath. I was, myself, very much surprised by it.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. These inmates who were brought before him, were they selected or did they just happen to be there close to him -- those whom he interviewed?
A. They were actually running at him and they surrounded him.
Q. Then it was just a casual contact. There were ten taken at random?
A. Yes, absolutely.
Q. So that out of these ten casual persons that he spoke with, two were released so far as you know?
A. I said, Your Honor, that they were people who came to the special attention of Himmler because, for example, they looked very intelligent or because they had particularly striking features or because they had an outstanding face.
Q. And you say out of ten names, so far as you know, two were released?
A. Yes.
Q. That would mean that of those with whom he spoke, 20 per cent Himmler declared to be unjustly in the concentration camp?
A. That cannot be said, Your Honor, because this may have been something in the form of pardon. A pardon could have been granted to these inmates. After all, these men did not have to be innocent, Your Honor, because according to them they were all innocent. All of them said that they hadn't done anything.
Q. Do you think they were all innocent?
A. No. But Standarenfuehrer Kaindl told me, "The man who said that he was innocent has a very big record.
He has to be confined to jail, for 35 years." There were people amongst them who felt themselves to be innocently confined, but there were also people there-
Q. If two people were released--and there may have been more---you only know of two--was there any attempt made following that to screen the rest of the inmates to determine if there were others who could or should be released?
A. I don't know the technical procedure. I know much too little about it, and therefore I can't give you any information.
Q. Well so far as you know, that ended the matter of determining whether innocents were there in that camp?
A. I haven't quite understood your question, Your Honor.
Q. So far as you know, this fatherly visit on the part of Himmler, as the result of which inmates were released, was the only time that you were aware that any attempt was made to release innocents from any concentration camp?
A I don't know whether these people were innocent. However, I have seen that with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. I can't draw any conclusions whether there were any other possibilities. In order to do that I do not dispose over sufficient information.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Did you know that at that time in April 1943 Himmler had for many months been engaged upon a wholesale program of slaughtering Jews and Poles?
A I know that today.
Q You know today that in April of 1943 he was carrying out that program?
A Whether this was in April, I don't know. I only know that these murders were carried out, but I don't know when.
Q Did you happen to hear anything about Himmler's speech at Cracow in that same month of April, 1943?
A No, I was not at Cracow. I never heard of this speech.
Q In that same month that you were with Himmler at Oranienburg -- when he showed such a fatherly interest in the Jews - he made this statement at Cracow to a meeting of Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS:
"Anti-semitism is exactly the same as delousing. Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology; it is a matter of cleanliness. In just the same way, anti-semitism for us has not been a question of ideology, but a matter of cleanliness which now will soon have to be dealt with. We shall soon be deloused. We have only 20,000 lice left, and then the matter is finished with the whole of Germany."
Did you hear about that speech at the time?
A I must leave it to the Tribunal to judge the psychology of Himmler.
Q Well, did you visit any other concentration camps?
A I can't recall having visited any other ones during the war. Before the war I visited Dachau, and I saw it when it was in an outstanding condition.
Q What date was that?
A It must have been in 1938. It was a big inspection, and at least fifty people carried out the inspection - that included officers of the Wehrmacht.
Q. And from the time you joined the SS in 1933 to the end of the war you visited only three concentration camps: Auschwitz, Oranienburg and Dachau. Is that right?
A. I visited Dachau more frequently but I didn't enter the camp. I was in Dachau at least twenty or thirty times because, after all, the school was located there and I had to inspect that school. However, this school was about two kilometers away from the camp.
Q While we are on that subject, do you know that, as a matter of fact, it was a regular course of business for the instructors at the SS school to take their classes on a tour of the concentration camps or rather the concentration camp at Dachau?
A I haven't quite understood the question. I have already described it, and I have already stated that the administrative school for the administrative officers of the Waffen-SS was located at Dachau.
Q I am asking you if it isn't a fact that the instructor at the school took their classes of SS-men on a tour of the Dachau concentration camp.
A I don't know anything about that. Baier would have to know that but I don't know anything about it at all. I never participated in such an inspection.
Q You are not saying that it didn't happen; you are just saying that you don't know about it. Is that right?
A I have no knowledge of it whatsoever.
Q Now, were there any other concentration camps that you visited? Either before or after the war... during the war?
A I can not recall any additional ones at the moment. I have made one hundred official trips during the war. Whether I have seen any other concentration camps, I don't know. I certainly have never in my life been at Buchenwald, and I have never visited Flossenburg; I haven't seen Gusen.
Of the many concentration camps, I only read about them in the papers after the war. I didn't even know that so many of them existed. I can't remember ever having visited any additional ones. I have described the visits exactly as they happened, and which have remained precisely in my memory. I can't remember any other visits.
Q Did you visit any of the camps at Lublin, the labor camps, the concentration camps?
A I was in Lublin in the summer of 1942 when in the course of a big trip through Poland I visited the entire Waffen SS, and I visited approximately 17 or 18 garrisons. One of them was Lublin. After all, many Waffen SS units were located and stationed at Lublin - not in Lublin itself but in the vicinity. On this occasion I also came to Lublin. In Lublin I saw Gruppenfuehrer Globocnik because, according to military regulations, I had to report to him, and he welcomed me and then he invited me to have a cup of coffee with him.
Q Did you visit the concentration camp there?
A No. As far as I can remember, I didn't know that a concentration camp was located there, in 1942. It must have been far outside of Lublin.
Q Well, did you visit any of the labor camps there, in Lublin?
A Yes, Globocnik took me into the carpenters' shop at Lublin. It was a very interesting plant, and approximately 500 Jewish carpenters were working there. They furnished their own guards and they administered themselves, and in the whole camp, which was located in the city, there was not a single SS-man - only at the entrance two men were stationed.
Q Why didn't you tell me about visiting the labor camp in Lublin when I asked you the first time? Why was it necessary for me to ask you three times?
A Well, it wasn't a concentration camp.
Q I asked you the first time if you visited a labor camp. You gave us a long description; you didn't say yes or no. But you certainly didn't say that you had visited one.
I suggest in the future you give a complete answer to the question. What about Ravensbrueck. Did you ever visit Ravensbrueck?
A Yes, I visited Ravensbrueck on one occasion. However, I didn't go into the camp, but I saw the camp from the outside. At Ravensbrueck we had a branch office of the WVHA and that is why I came to Ravensbrueck.
Q What about Bergen-Belsen. Were you ever there?
A No, I have never entered Bergen-Belsen.
Q What about Nordhausen?
A No.
Q Were you ever at Stutthof?
A I have said that I was at Dachau.
Q Stutthof?
A No, I never have been at Stutthof.
Q Do you know whether your colleague, Hans Loerner, ever visited concentration camps?
A I can't give you any information about that. I don't know.
Q Do you know whether Fanslau ever visited a concentration camp?
A I don't know that either.
Q Do you know whether the defendant Vogt visited a concentration camp?
A I can't give you any information at all about it.
Q On any occasion, while you were working with the defendant Pohl, did you have quarrels or clashes with Pohl?
A What do you mean by clashes? Well, if you mean that he was my superior, and, of course, that is always a one-sided affair - I have had differences with Pohl in official matters, where we couldn't agree. However, I think that this happens in every enterprise or in every organization. Furthermore, he was the man with the senior service, and he was one grade higher. And, after all, I had to do whatever he ordered me to do. Aside from that, I had a very comradely relationship to Pohl, and I got along with him very well.
Q Did you have any clashes with him before the Reichsfuehrer SS, in June -A-BK-23-5-Schwab (Int.
Garand) Himmler's presence?
A Well, it couldn't be described as a clash, but we did have a difference of opinion. That was in the year 1944, when we were dealing with the question of who was to take over the office of the army administrative chief; if it was to be Pohl or myself. And since Pohl himself wanted to take over that position, and since Himmler was actually playing a very strange game in this respect by having assured Pohl that he would become chief of the administration, and since he told me, "Don't worry about what I have told Pohl; you will be the army administrative chief." And thus, naturally, a difference of opinion existed between Pohl and me. However, it did not have any consequences. We had a discussion about it, and that settled the matter.
Q Did you at any time ever try to influence Pohl on the administration of the concentration camps? Did you ever express your views about concentration camps to Pohl?
A I told him quite openly that I couldn't understand what the WVHAhad to do with the concentration camps. He replied, "Frank, I can't help it. The Reichsfuehrer has given an order to this effect, and you know that I can't oppose any orders from the Reichsfuehrer."
Q Did you ever tell him that you were opposed to concentration camps as a moral principle - as you have told us here in this courtroom?
A I can't say that any more today. I can't say that I ever discussed the question in the manner which you have just described.
Q You have told us you had differences of opinion, you even had clashes with him, you even had minor quarrels in the presence of the Reichsfuehrer SS. Why didn't you express to him your attitude about locking up people and mention destroying of the Jews?
A To Himmler?
Q No, to Pohl.
A Pohl? Pohl? What could he have changed if I had told him. I knew that he was acting on orders also and that my opinion wouldn't change anything in that. I believe that Pohl knew perfectly clearly that my comrades in Amtsgruppe A, as well as I personally, never tried to hide the fact that we were not very pleased about the incorporation of Amtsgruppe D into the WVHA.
Q But you never told him that you objected to it on moral grounds?
A I can't say that any more today. I can't remember that point at all.
Q Witness, it is true that there is a rather lackadaisical attitude about these big moral questions that were confronting you. You told us yesterday that you saw no reason to object to the concentration camps being financed at a very early date before the war, because von Krosick made no objection, the Reich Minister of Finance. You told us that you saw no reason to raise an objection to the confiscation of goods from the East because Funk and von Krosick made no objection. How is that you can explain such a lackadaisical attitude on these large questions, when today you take such a positive stand ** on them.
A lackadaisical attitude? In the years 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943, if I had expressed such an opinion, it would have meant disaster for me. My personal contacts with Pohl were not sufficiently close so that I knew exactly that he wouldn't discuss these things with the Reichsfuehrer himself. Furthermore I had to assume that Pohl wouldn't have done it, but that wouldn't have guaranteed me that Himmler wouldn't find out that I maintained a negative attitude towards his orders and that I was criticizing him and that would have meant certain death for me and my family.
That couldn't have been asked for me, because my knowledge of these matters wasn't complete enough at that time for me to sacrifice my family.
Q Are you telling us, to raise any criticism of the system of concentration camps and slave labor as of that time would have meant your death, that is, criticism on a moral ground?
A It definitely would have meant my death. This was an open criticism of the measures which the Reichsfuehrer Himmler had ordered and he never would have pardoned me for doing that and if he had not removed me on this occasion, he certainly would have done away with me at another time.
Q You told us yesterday, Witness, that you and Fanslau were disappointed at the end of your climb in the SS, because you did not see in the SS what you had expected to see. Will you explain that statement, please?
A Yes, I still maintain that now. Fanslau and I, both of us, were old members of the SS and when we entered the SS we visualized other goals and we had in mind another solution of the so-called Third Reich. A man in my position could actually see quite clearly already in 1943 and 1942 that the procedure we followed would not lead us to the goal which we had once visualized. I believe it would be going too far to give a political speech here, just how I and thousands of my old SS comrades had imagined the Third Reich to develop and just what happened in reality.
Q Did that disappointment have anything to do with the fact that any criticism that you made of any of the systems would result in your death? Was that a disappointment to you, or did you envisage that as a part of the system when you pledged yourself to the SS?
A No, this was in larger aspects. Here we are not only dealing with the maintenance of the concentration camps. I want to emphasize that at the time I could think that if they were administered humanely they would be a legal matter in times of war.
I don't think there is any modern state which has to lead difficult wars and which from time to time does not have to remove the enemies of the State. However, today, I am of the opinion that this system was completely wrong. That is to say, the concentration camps in themselves were not the main center of disappointment, but the solution on the whole of the whole European question and the German question, and I certainly disapproved of the ways in which it was done.
Q When you joined the Nazi Party you knew about that solution, did you not? You knew Jews could not become a member of the race and that all Jews who were citizens of Germany - their citizenship would have to be taken away?
A In 1932, when I entered the SS, this subject wasn't even mentioned.
Q You didn't know that was the principle in the party platform in 1932?
A The Party program, according to the view of my comrades and according to my own views with respect to the Jews, had one aim to exclude the Jews in Germany from economy, from art, from commerce, and from thousands of other things, and to reduce their number in these fields to a reasonable amount, according to the number of Jews in Germany, which was 1% to 100%. I have discussed this matter very often with my brother-in-law and he had agreed that I was right that 90% of the German trade in toys and the major part of the trade in old metals was in Jewish hands and nobody but the German statesman Walther Rathenau who himself was a Jew has warned his comrades in this development. At the time, it wasn't even mentioned that the Jews would have to be killed and none of us could have assumed it. Otherwise, I certainly wouldn't have agreed to my sister marrying a Jew after I had become a member of the SS.
Q Did it come as a surprise to you shortly after you joined the Nazi Party that Jews were put in concentration camps as enemies of the State, just because they were Jews?