A. Obersturmbannfuehrer Karius. He was factually in charge of the administrative school.
EXAMINATION BY THE TRIBUNAL (JUDGE MUSMANNO):
Q. Did he submit this lecture to you?
A. Yes, he gave me knowledge of this lecture. I read its contents.
Q. What did you do with it then?
A. Well, I returned it to him, and then subsequently he gave the lecture.
Q. I see. You approved it and sent it back?
A. Yes, that is correct, your Honor.
Q. That's all, thank you.
A. I beg your pardon, your Honor. May I point out that this was a public lecture and this was not classified as secret at all; it was not classified as a secret matter when it was read either.
Q. Very well.
BY DR. SCHMIDT. (For the defendant Joseph Vogt):
Q. Witness, in your affidavit, which is located in Document Book 1, you have stated with regard to the defendant Joseph Vogt, and I quote, that "the office A IV had to deal with all the expenses by the Amtsgruppen C and W, and that they had to examine and make spot-checks in these cases, and that the Chief of Amtsgruppe B, that is Georg Loerner, submitted his accounts to Vogt in order to carry out a spot-check auditing and he had to furnish the files for that purpose."
Can your statement be understood to mean that Vogt had to spot-check the payments before the expenses were actually paid?
A. Before I can answer this question I must describe to you some other things as far as auditing was concerned, the Amtsgruppen did not have the whole treasury. You cannot understand it that way at all.
There was only one house treasury in the WVHA. By that I mean the treasury of the WVHA. I was also referring to the treasuries which were with the Main Economic Camps, for example, which carried out the procurement of food for the troops, and these treasuries belonged to the sphere of authority of the Chief of Amtsgruppe B; but he did pot have his own treasury in his Amtsgruppe. As far as the auditing is concerned, I believe that I have clarified the point that his auditing was not carried out before the expenses were paid but the bills and accounts were examined after the payments had already been made.
Q. Then I can understand your statement to mean that the bills of expenses which had already been paid were submitted to Vogt with the auditing of the bills in the WVHA or the treasury of some other agency about the cash payments that had already been made and Vogt had to carry out a subsequent auditing of these expenses?
A. Yes, that was the formal procedure. Well, I as an administrator can recall it as having been carried out that way. From my own knowledge in 1944 I can only say that this procedure wasn't followed anymore at that time.
Q. Did Vogt have any official right of supervision over the Chiefs of the Offices A and B or over other Chiefs of other Office Groups or did he have some sort of an administrative control over them in a financial respect?
A. No, I have already stated that the auditing was carried out subsequently, and if he drew some conclusions, then this was the same everywhere, and these were the complaints of a factual kind.
Q. Witness, you have already described to us in detail today just how the simplification of the administration was carried out during the war and how this limited the activity of the auditing office, A-IV. Did this also affect the personnel in the office? What I mean to say is, do you know anything about the fact that the office, toward the end of the war, finally had to discontinue all its activities?
A. Well, they were not discontinued. However, there was an order to that effect. I believe that this was in effect February.
Q. What year?
A. 1945. However, the closing out of that office took up some more time.
Q. And the dissolving of this office was therefore connected with the gradual paralysis of the activities of Office A-IV?
A. I can say that it was a result of the conditions caused by the war and because we were already approaching the end of the war. All this had to be audited.
Q. Therefore, in view of the necessities caused by the war, the activities of the Office A-IV were considered dispensable?
A. Yes, as a result of the military situation.
Q. Now, I have one brief question. From your activity as chief of the Personnel Office did it come to your knowledge that it was customary, in the case of transfers from a Reich agency to another agency, and in particular from a civilian agency to an administrative agency of the SS, to make retroactive promotions in order to increase the pay which was given in the agency and to assimilate it to the pay that was received in the old agency?
A. This was not a direct personnel matter, but an indirect personnel matter. This was necessary, and it was carried out by virtue of the Reich Wage Scale, which set the salary, according to which no official or employee of the Reich should receive less pay as a result of a transfer.
In this connection, from the military point of view, the person would receive his appropriate rating which corresponded in pay to the salary which had been paid to him previously.
Q. Now, I have only the following question: When did you make the acquaintance of Vogt, witness?
A. That must have been in the spring of 1938.
Q. On what occasion?
A. When I took over the budgetary system of the Special Duties Squad.
Q. In the course of your later activity did you ever make an official trip together with Vogt?
A. No.
Q. After you became Chief of Amtsgruppe A, did you ever consult Vogt in official discussions?
A. That may have happened on three or four occasions. We were dealing with the reduction of personnel in line with the simplification of the administration, and finally I saw him because of the dissolution of his office.
DR. SCHMIDT: I have no further questions.
BY DR. HAENSEL (For Georg Loerner):
Q. I want to refer to the affidavit by the defendant and witness Fanslau. It is in Document Book 1, page 37 of the German text. It was submitted by the prosecution. Now, I would like to ask the following in connection with the previous questions: We were discussing the treasury, and I understood you to say that you, Fanslau, as chief of Amtsgruppe A, had to furnish the funds which, for example, Amtsgruppe B required in order to make a purchase which it considered necessary.
A. There was no such thing at my time. Nothing was placed at the disposal of Amtsgruppe B by Amtsgruppe A. It was done in such a way that the treasury, which was in the office of the House Commander, paid all the debts that had accumulated automatically, whether this was for B or anybody else.
It (the treasury) had to pay all the debts which had accumulated. If we were talking about food from the outside, then the payment was made directly to the outside, but no allotments were made in a budgetary sense, and in 1944 this procedure was not followed anymore. This was stated quite clearly by the defendant Frank. The allotment of funds was discontinued completely.
Q. But in any case the money passed through your hands?
A. No, that is a mistake on your part. The money did not pass through my hands. The money went automatically from the competent army Main Treasury or from the Reichsbank directly to any Reich Treasury of the Waffen SS, to all Reich Treasuries.
Q. Excuse me, witness, we must try to clarify this matter to some extent. If Georg Loerner received his salary, who paid it?
A. Well, there was no order to that effect. There was a central payment agency, and his bank received his pay automatically every month. No special orders had to be issued to that effect. This applied to the whole military army.
Q. And to whom was this payment office subordinated?
A. The finance office as such was an outside agency which regulated the payments for all soldiers in the Waffen-SS from a central office. We paid the troops at home as well as in the field.
Q. And who was responsible for it?
A. The man in charge of these funds.
Q. And you were not responsible for it in any respect?
A Of course I was responsible for all matters pertaining to money and to Amtsgruppe A. If something had gone wrong there then I or the competent office chief would have to check up on it.
Q. Were you responsible at the top level?
A. Yes.
Q. What is the difference between being responsible and responsibility at the top level?
A. Either I am responsible or I am not responsible.
Q. That's a "golden word", yes. In your affidavit you stated that Georg Loerner was responsible from the top level for the procurement of food and clothing for inmates. Now I understood you to say that either a person is responsible or a person is not responsible, and I can see the point. Now, what brought you to say that he was responsible on the top level? Is this a mistake in writing perhaps, or what caused you to use this word?
A. If I was to clarify it here then I would have to tell you about the whole interrogation. I would have to tell about all the connections in the interrogation.
Q. Those words, "responsible on the top level," do they belong to your daily vocabulary, and do you always use such expressions? or how was it?
A. No. I want to describe it to you very briefly. The affidavit was given and it was submitted to me, and the following was stated in it. "Gruppenfuehrer Loerner was responsible for clothing and food for inmates," and then I said, "With regard to clothing, yes," and I really had knowledge of that.
"With respect to food I am not quite certain. I, on my part, cannot make a statement to that effect," and I expressly stated that I could not claim that under oath. In reply to this we discussed it, and the following discussion took place. I was asked: "A colleague would know what the other colleague was doing?" Then I replied, "Yes, on the whole, yes. Of course, I know what their tasks were according to the organizational chart." Well then, I would have to know how the food was turned over to the concentration camps. Then I replied, "Well, I only know that this was in the civilian sector with regard to the procurement." Who was responsible." Now comes the top level of responsibility. Who was responsible on the top level?" The again we had a discussion which went on for a while. Finally I Said, "I cannot say with certainty from my own knowledge." And the interrogator asked me, "Well, somebody must have negotiated on the top level. Every agency could not have negotiated about the procurement itself." Finally I was against that opinion, and I assumed this had been the top level.
Q. But, my dear Mr. Fanslau, I am not trying to attack you, I am only referring to the top level which has been mentioned here. What I mean to say is we should explain this quite concretely, and we will have an explanation. In the next sentence you stated, "Standartenfuehrer Tschentscher had to deal with the food system for the entire Waffen SS, and also for the guards in the concentration camps.
A. He had to deal with these questions. Yes, the guards were part of the Waffen-SS.
Q. Well, he dealt with these questions. That is very clear description. And Tschentscher was one of the people who were subordinate to Georg Loerner and worked under him?
A. Yes.
Q. And therefore you told us you were of the opinion that the food system for the entire Waffen-SS and for the concentration camps was located in Department 5, and that these matters were dealt with there or then, how was it?
A. No, I knew that Tschentscher had nothing to do with it, and that did not come from my own knowledge. Afterwards I asked Tschentscher about that, after the collapse, because I myself appeared here as a witness and was unable to give any information, and I stated in my testimony that I was not informed about the details, but I didn't ask Tschentscher to what extent Loerner had anything to do with it.
Q. Well now, you are getting more unclear about the top-level than before, because Loerner was the superior of Tschentscher?
A. Yes.
Q. You knew that witness?
A. Yes.
Q. And you knew also that Amtsgruppe B dealt with clothing and food questions of the Waffen-SS?
A. Yes.
Q. And nobody makes any objections about that? The difficulties for us here consist of the fact, to what extent are these tasks connected with the administration of the concentration camps? Is that clear to you?
A. Yes. I have already stated that I could not say that from my own knowledge, and that is what I emphasized in my testimony. That is only an assumption on my part. That is what I expressly told the interrogator repeatedly.
Q. Therefore I am to understand you to say that this formulation on the top level has certain catches to it, that is to say, it is not quite correct?
A. That was a result of the discussion that we had on the top level; that is what brought about this expression. The interrogator said, "That is probably the way it was," and I shared his assumption.
Q. And today you are not of that opinion any more?
A. I know just as little today as I knew then. I could not say it then from my own knowledge, and I could not say it now.
Q. But I think the top has been broken off the subject then. May I ask you something else, very briefly? Georg Loerner temporarily, and also in the formal sense was the deputy of Pohl, and in the last years of the war you were Chief of Amtsgruppe A?
A. Yes.
Q. During this period of time did Georg Loerner ever issue any orders to you as the deputy of Pohl?
A. No.
DR. HAENSEL: No further questions.
BY DR. BELZER (For Defendant Sommer):
Q. Witness, did you know the Defendant Sommer while he was a member of the WVHA, that is to say while he was in Amtsgruppe D, did you know him personally?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell us today when, where, and for what reasons and on what occasions you made the acquaintance of the Defendant Soccer?
A. That was on the occasion when I reported to Pohl. That was the 20th of April, 1944, or it was the 21st of April, but it must have been around that time, after he had been appointed a Hauptsturmfuehrer, that is to say, Captain of the Reserve.
Q. Was the grade of the Defendant Sommer known to you, and in what form?
A. I only knew that he was a collaborator, or a member of Amtsgruppe D, and he worked in the allocation of labor. That is Amt D-11.
Q. What do you have to say with regard to the claim of the Prosecution, one, that Sommer had been a Sturmbannfuehrer; and, two, that he had been the Deputy Chief of Office D-II
A. It is practically impossible that he was a Sturmbannfuehrer, because it is highly improbable that he achieved that grade after he only reported to the WVHA in April, 1944, and became Hsuptsturmfuehrer.
At that time it is impossible that he had already become Sturmbannfuehrer in 1945, or that he achieved that grade. I have never heard anything at all about that.
Q. And that he was Deputy Chief of the Office D-II?
A. That did not come to my knowledge.
Q. Was it customary in the WVHA that deputies of office chiefs were appointed?
A. No. Otherwise I would have received the appointment. The appointment as deputy of an office chief was never carried out, and it never occurred within the offices of the WVHA.
Q. Witness-
A. I have not yet finished my answer. Amtsgruppe D, in this case an exception might be made among the other Amtsgruppen. However I also consider this to be highly improbable.
Q. On the 30th of January, 1934, Sommer became a member of the SS. On the 1st of April, 1936, Sommer was conscripted into the Reich Labor Service, and afterwards, on the 2nd of November, 1937, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Sommer left the active service in the Wehrmacht because he was wounded, on the 26th of March, 1941, although he was still able to work. I now ask you, Witness, one, what effect would the conscription of Sommer to the Reich Labor Service, and his conscription into the Wehrmacht have on his membership, that is the membership of Sommer in the General-SS?
A. As far as I know from my own membership and my own activity, the membership to the General-SS was not maintained while the person was serving with the armed forces.
Q. What was the importance of the discontinuance of the membership? In other words, how did it express itself?
A. Well, he was inactive; that is to say, he did not perform any service and he was not doing any duty during that period of time; that is to say, during the period of time he was completely inactive.
DR. BELZER: Your Honor, may I use this opportunity in this connection to point out a mistake in the translation and to point out a mistake which has slipped into the English transcript. I stated in my opening statement that I wanted to prove that the membership of the defendant Sommer in the SS was inactive in the years 1936 until the 1st of September, 1939. This statement which I made was translated by the Translation Division to the following and it was stated in the translation that "the defendant Sommer was a member of the SS." That is exactly the contrary of what I wanted to say. I was trying to express the fact that the membership of Sommer was inactive during the period of time, that is to say, his "membership in the SS was interrupted". He was inactive. This translation was accepted in the English transcript and it is a completely false interpretation of my actual expression and now I wanted to use this opportunity when the defendant Fanslau was testifying in order to point out this mistake in the translation.
THE PRESIDENT: Your correction is now on the record, Dr. Belzer, so that your statement will not be misunderstood.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, I then want to continue my question. After the defendant Sommer left the Wehrmacht, was the defendant Sommer again forced to serve in the General SS?
A. Yes, normally, if his service had continued in the SS, yes, he would have been requested to perform the service. That is to say, he could have been conscripted again.
Q. I conclude from your answer that this, however, was not the case anymore in the year 1941?
A. I can only tell it to you in the way in which I heard of it at the time.
I cannot say that from my own knowledge because in 1941 I was not active in the General SS.
Q. Did the General SS have any importance at all in the year 1941?
A. Well, how this was with the individual garrisons I cannot say. From the point of view of the administration I only heard in 1942. I only heard it in the course of a conversation, that everything had been discontinued with regard to the administration. I know that insofar because all the administrative leaders and administrative officials who were employed there had all been conscripted for military service.
Q. Then, on the 1st of April, 1936, Sommer was conscripted into the Reich Labor Service and his membership in the SS became inactive as you have previously said. Sommer was an SS Rottenfuehrer at that time, that is, commandant officer. When he served in the Wehrmacht, Sommer, beginning the 1st of June, 1940, became lieutenant in the Reserve. In the assimilation of this grade in the Wehrmacht Sommer, in August 1941, was promoted from SS Rottenfuehrer to SS Untersturmfuehrer. I now ask you who could carry out and who could request this assimilation of rank.
A. Only the Personnel Main Office could carry it out and as far as I know this was still carried out after 1941. Every superior could request such a promotion; only the person concerned could not do that himself; it was not according to military procedure.
Q. What effect did this assimilation of rank have on Sommer's relationship with the SS?
A. In the SS - well, he was promoted from an SS man to Untersturmfuehrer.
Q. You know the order for leaders in the service?
A. Yes, but I don't know that by heart. I have seen so many military regulations.
Q. You know it?
A. Yes, I know it, generally speaking.
Q. According to this the uniform of SS leaders while on duty was pants tucked into boots and high boots?
A. Yes, that was the regular duty uniform.
Q. On the 14th of April of this year the witness Bielsky was examined here. This witness Bielsky testified in answering my question he made the following statement during the cross examination about the uniform of the SS officers on duty: "For the most part they were wearing boots. I only saw the non-commissioned officers in long trousers." Did this observation of the witness Bielsky correspond to the facts?
A. That is exactly what I said. I didn't mention the difference between non-commissioned officers and other ranks. I only made a difference between officers and enlisted men.
Q. Was it possible that a leader in the SS on duty did not wear the high boots but that he wore long trousers?
A. Yes, that was quite possible but it was not customary; from the military point of view he would have been out of uniform and in order to do that he would have to have a special reason or some previous commission and that must have been a special occasion but as I say when he went to a party in the evening he would be wearing long trousers.
Q. Do you know whether the defendant Sommer had permission to wear long trousers on duty?
A. He did not have that permission from me. I can't give you any information about it.
Q. Now, witness, if I tell you that the defendant Sommer actually had permission to wear his trousers without tucking them into high boots because of an injury which he had sustained in the war, then I ask you, would this call any special attention if an SS officer on duty constantly wore his long trousers without tucking them into his high boots?
A. Yes, he could receive this permission from a superior because he had been injured.
THE PRESIDENT: I have just read the indictment again and I don't find that he is charged with wearing long trousers without permission. Is this important?
DR. BELZER: Your Honor, I asked him whether the fact would draw any particular attention if an SS officer was constantly performing his duty while wearing long trousers, not tucked in.
THE PRESIDENT: What difference does it make whether it would have or not?
DR. BELZER: Well, Your Honor, there is a difference. The witness Bielsky has alleged that he had seen the defendant Sommer constantly in the camp at Auschwitz, at least on 20 to 30 occasions. I have crossexamined the witness Bielsky and I asked him at the time--
THE PRESIDENT: You asked him whether Sommers wore boots and he said yes.
DR. BELZER: He said that he had seen the SS officers only when they were wearing high boots; that is what the witness Bielsky stated, and I continued to ask him whether he could remember ever having seen the defendant Sommer in his long trousers without having them tucked in and the witness Bielsky answered the question to the effect: "It is possible but I cannot say it exactly."
THE PRESIDENT: We'll resume tomorrow morning at 0930.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 12 June 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 12 June 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
HEINZ KARL FANSLAU - Resumed Cross Examination (continued).
DR. BELZER: Dr. Belzer for the defendant, Karl Sommer. Mr. President, one more question if you please to the defendant Fanslau.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, in connection with the question of what happened to Sommer's membership in the SS while he was with the Wehrmacht, I wish to put the final question. If the defendant Sommer while serving as Lieutenant of the Reserves in the armed forces was drafted into the Waffen-SS, what was the basic condition of his being drafted into the Waffen-SS?
A. The first condition was that, in order to be re-drafted into the military service, he had to make an application for it, and, that otherwise, which was usual with any soldier, his being drafted would be done by the Army District Command concerned, and on the basis of the application by the Waffen-SS, his transfer from the Army to the Waffen-SS would be carried out.
DR. BELZER: Thank you very much. No further questions.
DR. RATZ: Dr. Ratz for the defendant Hermann Pook.
BY DR. RATZ:
Q. Witness, when did you meet Dr. Pook?
A. I met Dr. Pook in October, or November or December of last year, here in Nurnberg.
Q. Did you know his name in the WVHA?
A. No, it was entirely unknown to me.
Q. Did you know that there was a chief dentist in the office of D-III?
A. No.
Q. Was the medical personnel of the WVHA, that is to say, the doctors, the dentists, and other medical personnel, including medical personnel of the concentration camps, subordinated to the Personnel Office of the WVHA?
A. No, I knew nothing about that, neither by names, nor did I see any lists. I think the medical office itself, or some other medical agency would be responsible in the Operational Main Office.
DR. RATZ: Thank you.
BY DR. HEIM (Counsel for Defendant Hans Hohberg):
Q. Witness, was co-defendant Hohberg over concerned with personnel affairs, and did he apply to you in any sense of the word?
A. No, I had no contact with Hohberg in personnel matters or in any other way. I had no conferences with him, nor can I remember that he at any time entered my office in order to have an official conference with me.
Q. Did Hohberg, therefore, have neither social nor official contacts with you?
A. No, nor do I know anything about his family life or his personal affairs. I had no contact with him outside office hours.
DR. HEIM: Thank you.
BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for Defendant Baier):
Q. Witness, you, as Chief of A-V, were Baier's immediate superior when he was still in the School?
A. Yes, he was an active soldier.
Q. When Baier was transferred to the WVHA in 1943, did this happen because he was an active soldier and was ordered to go there, or was it a case of his becoming an employee suddenly?
A. No, he remained an active soldier. An active soldier could never be an employee. He would have had to be dismissed from the armed forces.
Q. And that, so far as you know, did not happen?
A. No, he was ordered to go into the armament enterprises.
Q. An other question, and it concerns Exhibit 471, Document No. 2182, which is in Document Book 18, page 106 in the German version. Unhappily I do not know the English page.
Mr. President, I had asked to submit to the witness the photostatic copy of this, and that has been done in the meantime.
Witness, witness Stein has testified here, when he was asked, that this personnel file was not a file sheet from your personnel office. He assumed that it might possibly be a personnel sheet from one of the W offices.
I would like to ask you whether you know anything about this sheet or that type of sheet and where the sheets belong; that is to say, what agency would keep them.
A. It seems to me that we have here not a personnel sheet for the personnel file as such, but some kind of survey, or some such thing. Unhappily, I cannot see. It is possible that it is either a personnel sheet from the Personnel Main Office or, perhaps, one from the Higher SS and Police Leader or his personnel department.
DR. FRITSCH: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that this was not a record such as you kept in your office?
A. No. I said I was struck by the fact just now that it is not a sheet from the personnel office.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you ever see one like it before?
A. No, I don't recall any such sheet.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for defendants Volk and Bobermin):
Q. Witness, was Dr. Volk a full-time leader of the Allgemeine SS?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Was Dr. Volk an active leader of the Waffen SS?
A. No.
Q. Was Dr. Bobermin a full-time leader of the Allgemeine SS?
A. I don't know anything about it. Both of them were there before my time, in the WVHA's predecessor and from tho files, it showed only that they had been drafted into the Waffen SS in wartime.
Q. Dr. Bobermin, therefore, was not an active leader of the Waffen SS either?
A. No, not so far as I know. He was a member of the reserve.
Q. Your knowledge is based on the files, is it?
A. Yes.
Q. Did the contract negotiated by Dr. Volk with the German economic enterprises have any effect on his relations with the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS?
A. No. That contract became known to me only here. It was not contained in my personal files, which contained purely military matters. It was not contained therein.
Q. Can you tell the Court whether that contract would have been made part of the files if it had any influence on the relationship between Dr. Volk and the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS?
A. Yes, because if these were things that made a certain amount of difference in personnel questions or ranks and positions, either for the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS, then it would have been kept in the files.
Q. Does the same apply to the contract which Dr. Bobermin concluded?
A. Yes, that applies for any civilian contract or private contracts which were concluded on a military basis.
Q. Were the German Economic Enterprises part of the SS?
A. I regarded those enterprises as economic enterprises which were based on some private economic laws and decrees and principles. On details of an economic nature I am unable to form a judgment.
Q. Therefore, you answer my question with "No", do you not?
A. Yes, as I said before, from the point of view of the SS and our services, I knew nothing about these things.
DR. GAWLIK: Thank you very much. No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are all Defense Counsel finished with their examination? Mr. Robbins, you may cross examine.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Witness, did you have any knowledge of the program to imprison the clergy of Germany in the concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Do you know whether or not that was done generally?
A. I did not hear about it as a religious affair. I heard from newspapers that whenever some clergymen had said something against the government in wartime, made remarks of some sort or acted in some way against military decrees, or things of that nature, those persons would be arrested by the police and put into custody.