The manager told him what he had in store and they came to an agreement that on the basis of his vouchers of 20,000 kilos of string beans what he could supply him and what he could put at the disposal of the administrative leader. The supply was carried out by the firm to the camp and the firm also sent the bill. The camp paid the bill and booked it in its cash book. The food then reached the food storeroom of the concentration camp and it was only then that the administrative leader knew what he had. He drew up his menu for each day and on the basis of that menu the food warehouse supplied daily such food as was available to the kitchen for cooking. That was how things went as far as I can see.
Q. The Pohl question now has been answered. Now, did you have to officially supervise that food supply in accordance with the rations for the various concentration camps?
A. No, that wasn't our task.
Q. You spoke of "our task"; let us be more precise. Let us talk about your task.
A. I always speak of "our" as Chief of Group B.
Q. You speak of yourself or only your people?
A. Yes, only B.
Q. The prosecution has submitted a document in Volume 5 on page 133, Exhibit 143. This is a report by the administration of Concentration Camp Auschwitz of 25 March 1942 and I would like to ask Herr Loerner to give us his comment briefly on that document.
A. This is a letter by the administration of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp addressed to the SS-WVHA Office D-IV Administration, Oranienburg near Berlin. This is written by the expert for food supplies who apparently was not in a position to do things as he should have done.
The whole letter proves only what I have just said, that Office Group B had nothing to do with the supplying of food to concentration camps and that the supervising agency was Office Group D in Oranienburg.
Q. Can you recall any complaints which reached you or might have reached you because in the camps food supplies were not distributed as it should have been done?
A. Such complaints never reached me or B-I.
Q. And you also are of the opinion that it couldn't have reached you at all?
A. If such complaints had reached any agency at all, it would have been Office Group D, which exercised the supervision over the concentration camps.
Q. Who decided the food supply rations for the Waffen-SS which you had to look after?
A. That wasn't our task either. Such rations were decided on by the OKH. Here we see how these things were divided, in the military sector and the civilian sector. The whole of the military sector as all of the supplies consisted of altogether food, and it was up to the OKH, where the civilian sector again in all fields was administered by the Reich ministry concerned and competent. Concentration camp inmates in this case were part of the civilian sector.
Q. Now, how was it in the military sector, that is, with the Waffen-SS, as far as the supervision of the distribution of foods within the unit was concerned, and was that part of your duties?
A. No, that again was not our task. That was a task of the SS Main Operational Office (SS-Fuehrungshauptamt).
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. I would like to ask the witness a question, please. You testified that Office B-I did not furnish the inmates of the concentration camps with food or the front-line troops for the Waffen-SS. That's correct?
A. The Waffen-SS, the front - yes, that's correct.
Q. Well, now, where did the guards of the concentration camps eat their meals?
A. Do you mean, Your Honor, where the food came from?
Q. No. Where did they eat their meals? Did they live at the camp and eat there? The guards?
A. I assume that they had their meals in the barracks where the kitchens were.
Q. Now, you testified that B-I furnished the food for the guards in the concentration camps.
A. Yes.
Q. Well, now, why was it that they were in the camp there - why was it they were not furnished food by the same source that furnished the inmates?
A. That's quite simple, Your Honor. The guard personnel were part of the Waffen-SS and therefore they are part of the military sector. They received their rations as decided on by the OKH for the Waffen-SS and they were supplied by the Troop Administrative Warehouses which were competent in this case.
Q. Although they were right there in the same place as the inmates and ate their food in the camp, their food was furnished from a different source and furnished by your office?
A. Yes, that's quite correct.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. May I ask you in this connection - was the guard personnel in a camp separated from the actual camp where the inmates were?
A. Yes.
Q. Give us a picture of this.
A. The barracks were outside the camp. The guards themselves, as far as I know, never went into the actual protective custody camp. The guards were standing outside the protective custody camps and were billeted in barracks which were outside the concentration camp.
Q. I believe in order to understand this we should very briefly discuss the difference between personnel in the commandant's office and the guards, even including figures.
A. My dear doctor, I am unable to tell you anything about this. I am unable to do so - what the proportion of numbers was between those two types.
Q. Don't think that you have to make a statement of these figures under oath but it's my impression that this Tribunal should be told in one brief sentence that a camp is sub-divided into, first, the actual inmates, two, the guard personnel which is thrown around the inmates and never went into the actual camp and, thirdly, a small number of men which looked after law and order in the camp itself.
A. The actual protective custody camp, as far as I know, was visited only by the personnel working in the commandant's office. The sentries and such were outside the protective custody camp and they were used to guard the working detachments.
Q. Can one never conceive it from an organizational/viewpoint that the guard personnel had their meals outside the camp in completely different rooms from the small number of men who were in the camp itself?
A. Yes, that's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: One question, Dr. Haensel.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Were the guards who were inside the actual camp and who mingled with the inmates - were they military or civilian guards?
A. That was personnel working in the commandant's office and they were military personnel.
Q. Well, the guards who supervised the barracks and the prisoners when they were in the camp itself - were they military or civilian?
A. As far as I know they were military personnel.
Q. Were they SS men?
A. They were SS men. They were also, especially in 1943 and 1944, they were men from the Luftwaffe, Army, and the League of War Veterans, but I cannot give you a very precise picture of this.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q. Did you hear anything about self-administrations of the camp?
A. I know nothing about this, really. "Self-administration" of the camp is a term which I came across here in this court.
Q. You, therefore, could not confirm by hearsay or by any other knowledge that the term "guards" in the inside camp was such a very correct one because the guards were outside and the people who were in the camp were administrative officials and not actual guards?
A. Yes, that's quite correct. In the camp there were no guards at all or there were only those men there who looked after the administrative side of the camps, that is to say, personnel in the commandant's office, administrative personnel, but not in the sense as we understand administration but in a larger sense.
Q. In this trial a case was mentioned once that in Dora Nordhausen food had been used allegedly which had come from your stock. Do you recall that case?
A. Yes, I do. I recall that very well.
Q. Can you tell us something about it?
A. That was a special assignment by Pohl at the agency of Taschentscher.
Q. You say a "special assignment". Did you wish to say that apart from that case the feeding of inmates from your stores was not carried out?
A. There were two or three cases where we helped out Office Group D with food.
Q. What was your motive when you helped them out on these occasions? Were you under obligation to do so or what was your reason?
A. The motive was, as we always referred to it, that we would help anywhere where we could help.
Q. How about the extra rations for heavy and very heavy workers - additional food and supplies of tobacco and alcohol? Were you perhaps competent for the camps in these things?
A. No. Here again we had nothing to do with it at all. All of this came from what we called the "civilian sector".
Q. Did you know anything at the time of the extra rations for heavy or very heavy workers?
A. No. For the first time I heard of this Pohl order here in Nuernberg, according to which 90 percent of all heavy workers - all of concentration workers were to be given extra food rations.
Q. The prosecution has submitted a chart of Office Group B. This is in Document Book 2, page 81, Exhibit 43, and it is on page 75 of the English book. Have you got that chart?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. In this plan it says in the second line, "Food Inspectorate of the Waffen-SS, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Schenk", Is that plan correct?
A. I would like to say this about the plan. We have here a list which certainly did not originate with Office Group B, which becomes clear from these points: the first letter headed SS-WUVH is something so unusual that it could never have come from the Office Group B. The WVHA was the usual thing with us that we could hardly write anything else. The Food Inspector of the Waffen-SS, Professor Dr. Schenk, is made part of Office Group B. The Food Inspector of the Waffen-SS was never Office Group B. He may have had his office divided but Office Group B in order to have somewhere a man in the Food Inspectorate but he wasn't under my orders. He was immediately under Pohl and Himmler. They even were entitled to report directly to Himmler, which I wasn't. Otherwise, the document shows in Document Book 8, which is Exhibit 260, that Schenk was immediately under Pohl. Pohl says here in the letter to the Reichsfuehrer, "Schenk is immediately under me and is not tied to any office." Under I, food, the last task mentioned is "foreign exchange" and "transfer of assignments". That task was part of Office B-IV, as long as it existed, but Office B-IV is mentioned on this chart. This chart should be under B-IV. As far as B-IV is concerned, after the name Schenk it says, in brackets, Obersturmbannfuehrer Weckel, the author of this chart, therefore had to know that Schenk had turned over the main warehouse in Vienna but that did not happen until 1 November 1944 at a time that Office A-4 had already been dissolved.
I said already that Office A-IV was dissolved in 1944; wherefore it should not have been part of this chart at all. It also shows that this chart was drawn up, at the earliest, after 1 November 1944. I am therefore compelled to say that this plan is wrong and probably was drawn up after the collapse.
THE PRESIDENT: Recess, please, Dr. Haensel.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q Mr. Loerner, you have just started with the chart of Amtsgruppe B, and did you finish it?
A Yes.
Q We can proceed now. You also spoke of Professor Schenk who had nothing to do with your Amtsgruppe, and I would like to ask you now, did you at any time have anything to do with food experiments on concentration camp inmates, and particularly with poisonous food?
A No, at no time did I have anything to do with that.
Q Did you ever hear anything about such experiments?
A I never did hear anything about experiments concerning food and poisonous food and experiments with poisonous food. I did hear about Mycene-Albumch which was given inmates. However, those were not experiments really, but rather an additional food to the inmates. All those albumen products which were gained in the manufacture of cellulose and also when breeding yeast, that was tried out. The only thing was they had different names depending on the firm which manufactured them. I know the names, Mizin albumen, Biozin, Albumen Frick's yeast, etcetera, et cetera. All these yeast products were also used in the food issued to the German Wehrmacht members and particularly the manufacture of the so-called Wehrmacht coup cans.
Q In conclusion I would like to ask you to please tell us if you ever received a special order concerning the food of the concentration camp inmates? Did you ever have any order of any kind and if you were interpolated in the framework of responsibility?
AAt no time during my entire activity in the WVHA did I receive an order from Pohl or from Himmler that I should deal with the food for the inmates. I never did feel responsible for the food for the inmates, and that is the reason why I never did deal with that, nor did I ever receive any complaints possibly for the simple reason that I had nothing to do with those things.
Q May I remind you, witness, of the fact or particularly of Document NO-2736 which is in the last document book, number 22, page 16. It is an affidavit by Pohl. Pohl states in that affidavit -- first of all, may I ask you, do you have that affidavit?
A No, I don't have it, but I can recall it.
Q Very well then, I shall give it to you, 18 and 19, and will you look at that short passage there please? Just one moment please. Will you wait until the Tribunal has a copy.
THE PRESIDENT: The number of the document is 1923?
DR. HAENSEL: No, the number 2736, your Honor, 2736.
MR. ROBBINS: It is on page 11.
THE WITNESS: It is Exhibit Number 525.
DR. HAENSEL: I assume that it is the third page, paragraphs 18 and 19.
A Pohl states: "As I was very interested in the fact that the inmates be kept alive in order to use them in large numbers as workers, I often had discussions with Loerner in order to make sure that the concentration camp inmates were properly fed and clothed." I would like to add that I never did have any such conferences about the food with Pohl. I did have conferences and that very often about the clothing. However, not about the food. He either gets me mixed up with Schenk or then he is wrong.
Q: Office B-I which we have mentioned here all the time. Did that remain in Amtsgruppe B until the end of the war?
A: B-1? Due to the simplification of the administration procedure in 1945, after long preparations on the 31st of March 1945, the entire food problem of the Waffen-SS was turned over to the OKH, to the high command of the army. All ware-houses were placed under an administrative office of the army. That is how the task of Office B-1 was completed, and after a few weeks it was to be dissolved. This official dissolution did not take place due to the collapse of the German Reich. However, on the 31st of March, 1945, the entire food question and problem had been transferred from the WVHA to the high command of the a army, OKH.
Q: By this transfer of the tasks of B-1 to the OKH, the high command of the army, did anything at all change in the food of the concentration camps?
A: No, nothing at all, because B-1 had nothing to do with it, and therefore nothing had to change when the transfer was carried out to the OKH.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the date in 1945 that the food administration was transferred to the OKH?
THE WITNESS: It was the 31st of March, 1945, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation came through that the reorganization was 1940. I think that was a mistake in translation.
THE WITNESS: I said 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you said '44, but the translator said 1940. That correction should appear.
Q: (By Dr. Haensel) Thus the food complex which we have been dealing with here all the time is finished, and I shall now speak about the clothing. Would you tell us in a few brief terms how the development of the clothing department in the SS was? That is, your particular field of task?
A: Yes, that was my special task in the SS. As I already stated at the beginning of my interrogation, in December, 1933, I was ordered to set up a clothing department.
The establishment of that clothing department was necessary first of all in order to clothe the so-called political reserve group, and those were the predecessors of the SS Special Task Group. That particular clothing department at the time, which in 1935 became a main office, had the task to clothe the SS Special Task Group. Also in '34 and '33 it had the task to clothe the auxiliary forces. They were members of the General SS who were used to reenforce the individual custom offices. That is the reason why under V/3, organizational chart, it says that V/3 had to carry out the clothing of the General-SS. That is not correct. The clothing of the General-SS was exclusively carried out by the Reich QM office of the NSDAP. That had been contained in the law for the protection of the party and the state, which appeared in 1934. Even the black parade uniform of the SS Special Task Group had to be drawn from the Reich Quartermaster Office, because the Reich Treasury was of the opinion that the black uniform was a party uniform. In 1936 we received the additional task to clothe the SS Death-Head Units, and also to deliver the clothes to the inmates. Apart from that we had to set up the clothing treasury of the SS in that particular department, and in 1938 the clothing factory was established, and from the 1st of May, 1939 the main department 1/3 in Office I of the Main Office Budget and Construction took over everything.
At the beginning of the war the centralization of all the raw material administration took place, and requisitions could only be carried out in agreement with the OKH for the Waffen-SS and with the Reich Economy Ministry for the concentration camps.
On the 1st of February, 1942, when the WVHA was established, Amt. or Office B-II received the procurement of clothing, while Office B-IV had to secure the raw material and had to supervise the manufacture of the clothes. That, in a few brief details, was the establishment of the clothing department of the SS.
Q: In other words, we have now proceeded with Amt or Office B-II. Please tell us the field of task of B-II.
A: Office B-II had to secure, procure and please at the disposal of whoever was concerned the clothing and equipment of the Waffen-SS, including the field units, and also the clothing for the inmates. When I say equipment for the Waffen-SS I mean the personal equipment of the man, that is to say, for instance, musette bag, bottle, mess kit, and various other things. The equipment of the army as such, that is to say guns, etc., was not the task of Office B-II.
Q. Let us now try to explain this clearly as we did with the example of beans the clothing question. Let me ask you now, first of all, where was it that the raw material that was needed for the clothing and the equipment of the Waffen-SS, were procured?
A. The raw material was requisitioned with the OKH. That was the Military Sector for the raw material administration.
Q. That was Waffen-SS. The second question: Where was it the raw material was requisitioned for the clothing for the concentration camp?
A. That raw material was requisitioned with the Reich Economy Ministry and as of the end of 1943 or 1944 with the Armament Ministry which at the time took over these tasks from the Reich Economy Ministry.
Q. If I understand you correctly you have to differentiate between the two sectors?
A. Yes, the Military and the civilian.
Q. And the concentration camps?
A. They belonged to the civilian sector.
Q. Well Cassio in Othello said ----. Did you see the cloth? Let me ask you if the request was made for the raw material. What do you mean by raw material and how did it originate from B2?
A. Office 4 of the SS-Operational main office in D-IV, Amtsgruppe D every six months filed applications for the requests concerning clothing to office B-II. The entire clothing that was necessary for such months was written up and that according to number; for instance -- 10,000 jackets and 20,000 trousers, etc. Office B-II allocates that demand and calculates the raw material needed in order to fill that request, separated according to cotton, wool, synthetic fibre, and others. That requisition slip was sent to the OKH or high command of the Army or respectively to the Reich Economy Ministry, the Reich Economy Ministry or OKH on the basis of the total requisition slip and on the basis of the total raw materials stocks fixed the amounts according to percentages. This raw material was not put at the disposal of the B-II but rather B-IV which supervised the half finished material was informed that for the period of six months you have received so many hundreds of cloth, raw material, wool, cotton, etc.
, based on your requisition slip and you can buy it with that and that firm in order to manufacture those and those cloth. You get so much material for shirts etc. B-II, at the beginning of the war, gave to those firms that had been designated by OKH or the Reich Economy Ministry the orders to make the cloth. As of the first of January, 1943 the procurement was done by the Wehrmacht supply office and centrally and that for the Waffen-SS. It remained as it was so far, as far as the inmates were concerned. And now, I shall come to the task of the clothing factory. The clothing factory was a purely Reich institution and was the same with the Waffen-SS as the clothing office was with the Army. In other words it was that institution which was responsible for the procurement, stocking and delivering of the cloth, as distinct from the clothing office of the Army which was administered certrally the clothing factory was based on a commercial basis by special permission of the Reich Finance Ministry. That was done so that goods were better utilised and that we could use the money available much better and that we could produce more. The clothing factory , upon orders of B-II to which it was directly subordinated, supervised the execution of those orders which they had received. Then it directed the cloth or half-finished cloth or rather the material or half-finished material to those firms which were supposed to make the clothes who received the order from the clothing factory for the manufacture of the clothes. That in agreement with the SS Bezieksausgleichstellen which again is a certain district office of the Reich Economy Ministry. The firms which carried out the manufacture of the clothes then furnished the completed uniforms to the quartermaster departments which had been assigned them by the clothing factory, or, towards the end of the war the material went directly from the factory to the Army and to the troops and I believe I told you about the procurement of clothing.
Q. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. In order to clarify matters I would like you to think about the Bean example. I know you can tell us in one sentence. Need in a concentration camp for clothing was dealt with in the following manner: Would you start with the concentration camp which needed a thousand coats and a thousand jackets, rather.
A. The concentration camp needed a thousand coats -- let's start with Amtsgruppe D. D-4 dealt with those coats and delivered them if they still had some goods on their stocks. However, if their stocks were exhausted then D-4 either had to wait for the deliveries which were coming in in the current requisitions and then deliver the coats out of that last delivery. However, if the matter was very urgent,in other words they had got to be procured, then a special request was sent to B-II. B-II then requisitioned those thousand yards or meters from the current deliveries and ordered the clothing factory to deliver to the concentration camp those one thousand coats. Payment on part of the concentration camp to the clothing factory or to Amtsgruppe B didn't take place at all. The clothing was paid for only once: from the clothing factory to the factory where it had been procured. The delivery firms, that is where the payment took place, in the treasury of the factory. That is, however, payment had been effected from that moment on, -- the forwarding of the clothing only took place with the delivery slip and with the receipt. There was no payment by the concentration camp.
Q. Let's come back to the clothing factory now. There was a clothing factory at Dachau?
A. Yes. It was subordinated to office B.
Q. This particular clothing factory in Dachau, -- did it have anything to do with Amtsgruppe W? Or the DWB?
A. No, it had nothing to do with that. I stated before that it was purely a Reich institution which was financed by the Reich up to a 100 percent and had exactly the same functions as a clothing office with the Army.
Q. Now, let's go back to the clothing factory in Dachau again. What was the relationship between the clothing factory in Dachau and the camp itself?
A. The clothing factory was located in the SS-training camp, Dachau which has been mentioned several times and the camp has been described several times so I really don't have to repeat anything.
Q. Were the concentration camp inmates employed in that clothing factory?
A. No, I would like to describe here briefly what work shops the clothing factory had. The clothing factory was established in 1938. In the years 1938 and 1939 the plans for the new construction of a real clothing factory were completed. Due to the war, the outbreak of the war, the clothing factory itself was not established. In 1938 and 1939 in order to test various methods of manufacture and also in order to train a certain basic group of workers, experimental stations were installed. 200 to 300 civilian workers, that is male and female workers, were employed. These male and female workers were employed there until the end of the war. I believe it was early in 1944 that a second shift was introduced which was fully manned by Concentration camp inmates.
Q Were these concentration camp inmates used on the same machines as the civilian workers?
A This shift of the inmates had to change with the shift of the civilian workers and they worked on the same machine; they had the same pace of work, and one couldn't possibly expect faster work than was expected from the civilian workers.
Q A document was introduced by the Prosecution which is in Book No. XIII on page 134, NO-1974 -- I am afraid I haven't got the exhibit number. It is on page 134 of Document Book No. XIII introduced by the Prosecution. It is a list entitled "Re: Labor Assignment of Jewish Inmates." Underneath you have a series of those...D, A, B, S-3, and so on. All those abbreviations here. Then you have: "B II, 200 inmates -two hundred Jewish inmates."
Are those the 200 inmates which you mentioned?
A No; that particular list dealt with construction work. I explained before that Kammler in his special task was constructing certain construction projects which were considered as "A" constructions, and "B" measures. "B" II was such a thing that had nothing to do with Office B-2.
Q If in the labor statistics a certain term like B-2 was used, then would you understand from that, that is Office B-2?
A No.
Q Were you ever in the clothing factory in Dachau?
A Yes, I visited the clothing factory perhaps every six months.
Q How did you find the labor conditions there, the working conditions of the inmates who were employed by you, and with you?
A That labor conditions -- working conditions -- as I have already described, were the same as the ones that applied to the civilian workers.
Q I already asked you a few days ago, and I would like to come back to that in order to clarify matters. What about the clothing treasury of the Waffen-SS? Was that subordinated to you?
A Yes, the clothing treasury of the Waffen SS was subordinated to me from its establishment until the first of May 1939 -- and then again when the WVHA was established -- that is, from the first of February 1942 -- until the end.
Q What was the task of that clothing treasury; that was the question?
A The task of the clothing treasury was the procurement and delivery of the clothes of the SS officers.
Q Can you recall that Lublin was being discussed, and also that did it have a branch of Office in Lublin?
AAs far as I can recall, it had a sales store in Lublin, although it never did have a procurement office; the procurement office was in Berlin.
Q Witness, we shall now touch a particularly important point. You just told us that the economic ministry fixed the raw material which you applied for according to percentages. From that I would like to deduce that you didn't always receive everything you asked for, and not up to a hundred percent.
A Up until the beginning of 1942, the allocation did take place up to a hundred percent. It was only as of 1942 that certain restrictions took place. And the allotments up to 1945 became smaller and smaller.
Q Did you have to decide -- or at least did you do everything you could in order to receive as much raw material as possible from the competent offices?
A The decision about the amount of raw materials that were to be delivered. I didn't have; nor did I have any influence on it. In spite of that fact, we always endeavored and tried our very best to receive as large a quota as possible. We bothered all the time the Reich Economy, and, later on, the Reich Finance Ministry, with both our written and oral applications. I still believe up to this very date that I and my colleagues did everything we could in our power in order to receive and to deliver as much clothing that had been applied for as possible. I believe that chief counsellor, Dr. Kanape, can still be found, and I am sure that ho will confirm that.
In all those questions of my activity in the clothing field I never was blamed by one of my supervisors. I therefore assume that I worked to their fullest satisfaction.
Q Can you still recall certain measures which you took in order to somehow eliminate the lack of raw material which also influenced the clothing for the inmates?
A Well, I believe in 1943, from our own accord, we gave the concentration camps the permission to permit the inmates to wear civilian clothing -- although Amtsgruppe D was against it. Secondly, with repeated applications to the Reich Economy Ministry, and with both written and oral applications, we tried again and again to receive raw material allocations. I gave to Pohl several reports which he passed on to the Reichs Leader wherein the difficulties of the procurement of raw material and of the procurement of these clothes for the Waffen SS, and for the inmates was described. I can recall one such report in August or September 1944. On the basis of a request for Amtsgruppe D -- which we will deal with later on in greater detail.... that we reported to the Reichsfuehrer that the delivery of the clothing asked for no longer was possible to be delivered at the date of delivery which had been proposed, and in the quantities necessary. And that, therefore, it would be suggested to stop all the transports to the camps. Then we had conferences and negotiations with the competent agencies in order to possibly receive something for the inmates from the clothing collection which was carried out by the German people. I know that we received quite a few things for the concentration camps out of those collections. Finally, fifth, we took from the stocks of the Waffen-SS for the concentration camps, clothing, and particularly blankets and underwear.
Q You just stated in short that the textile situation, up to 1941, was more or less good -- up to '43. 1942 there was a lack of wool, cotton. In 1944 there was a lack of cellulose. How was it with the leather, anyway?
A In the field of leather the difficulties existed ever since the beginning of the war. Since 1939 we didn't have the leather at our disposal which we needed in order to equip the army and the concentration camp guards.
On that particular field the difficulty was even bigger than that in the field of textiles -
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Haensel, being the excellent lawyer that you are, what I am about to state seems undoubtedly superfluous. But let me suggest this: that while we are interested in knowing just what he did in various duties, it is not necessary, it appears to me, speaking for myself, that we go into such detail regarding all the minute of his work. If he is going to give us long, detailed accounts of everything he did in five years, the wools that he dealt with, the various types of materials, it wouldn't help us very much in the actual decision which we must make.
You know what he is charged with...so it would be a very happy program to follow if your questions would direct him to such features which are associated with the charges that he must answer.
DR. HAENSEL: I understand you very well, and, therefore, I shall endeavor to do so. However, the questions are only asked here from that particular point of view that it is important to decide, not only what was done but what one could not do.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Well, to learn how much leather there was, and how much wool was on hand seems to me -- while interesting -- not very determinative of any particular issue.
DR. HAENSEL: Yes, well please don't forget that if I charge somebody with something, namely, that he didn't have enough shoes in the camps, then, of course, I have to be able to prove if he was in a position to receive the necessary leather for the shoes -- and that is the point I am trying to prove. Namely, the fact that there were not enough shoes in the concentration camps is known to me. The question is: was he responsible for that? And that is the reason why I asked him about the lack of raw materials. However, I shall proceed a little bit faster and, of course, I shall comply with your wish.