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.
BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q Would you like to tell me, the clothes which were necessary for every man, who was it that fixed those for the army?
A The SS Operational Office did that.
Q In other words, not "you but the SS Operational Office?
A Yes.
Q Who was it with the concentration camps? Did you fix that, or did you receive the request? Who was it that fixed the clothing quota for the inmates?
A The Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps or Amtsgruppe D was the one that fixed it.
Q How was it that those particular pieces of clothing came to the camp for the inmates? Did they get a preview? Or how was it?
AAmtsgruppe D gave the order to B-2 how the clothes had to be distributed to the camps. The delivery took place directly from the clothing factory to the individual camps.
Q Bureaucratically, is that correct?
A Bureaucratically would be correct to send the clothes to Amtsgruppe D who should have done the distribution.
Q Why was this not done?
A Due to the lack of transportation.
Q Who was it that was responsible now that the individual inmates in the concentration camp received his clothes from the total amount of clothes delivered?
A The commander of the concentration camp and his administrative leaders were responsible for that.
Q And if he didn't do it properly and correctly, who was it that had to tell him what to do?
A The office in charge of the concentration camps, that is, Amtsgruppe D.
Q Now who was responsible that the clothes in the stocks were in good condition, in other words, the condition which was in accordance with the expenditure?
A It was also the concentration commandant and his administrative leaders.
Q We heard much about complaints here. I refer now to the witness Dr. Kogon, who spoke of wooden shoes in Buchenwald, that is to say, that the inmates received wooden shoes. What do you know about that?
AAt the beginning of the war Himmler had ordered that such wooden shoes be procured for the concentration camps. However, as several complaints were received soon afterwards that these wooden shoes were not the proper thing that procurement was ceased by us on our own accord and as can be seen from the document and as we said before, the individual concentration camps, however, still issued such wooden shoes on their own accord.
Q Do you know that sabotage acts occurred in the concentration camps, in other words, in order to destroy wooden shoes and clothing.
A Yes, I heard about it.
Q Did you have a possibility to interfere or do something about it?
A No.
Q Why not?
A Because that was the task of Amtsgruppe D.
Q Did you at any time put any clothes at the disposal of Dachau for clothing experiments?
A Yes, we did deliver several times certain experimental clothes for the Army which were to be tried out by the Army. As far as placing clothing at the disposal of Dr. Rascher for his experiments, as can be seen from the document, I know nothing.
Q In other words, your experiments dealt with experiments on the clothing itself?
A Yes.
Q However, I think Rascher's deal with experiments on human beings. The documents which was introduced by the Prosecution in Document Book 7 on page 99, Exhibit 212, NO-287, Document No. 7, page 9 of the German. I have 250 of the English text, but that couldn't be correct, could it? Then I would like to introduce Document 428, which was presented by the Prosecution, Document Book No. 7, page 57, Exhibit 209. Those are the Rascher documents.
A The first document is a letter of Dr. Rudolf Brandt to Pohl.
Q Just a moment, please.
THE PRESIDENT: The document number, please.
WITNESS:NO-287, Exhibit number 212.
Q Yes, please continue. I believe that the Tribunal has the copy.
A In this letter in the last paragraph Brandt asks for help for the clothing factory. I would like to quote. "Please issue the order that the clothing factory in Dachau be of some help to SSHauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Rascher when he is carrying out those experiments on clothing of the inmates." I don't have any knowledge about that letter nor can I recall that the clothing factory ever did manufacture such experimental clothing.
Q May I ask you, is the letter addressed to you at all?
A No, the letter is addressed to Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl.
THE PRESIDENTL: Dr. Haensel, please, the interpreters request that you slow down your program just a little and give more interval between the question and answer. They are quite frantic about it.
A However, if one takes a look at the second paragraph of this document and I shall quote. "Rascher proposed to the Reichsfuehrer SS to distribute in the clothing the heat bottles in both pockets of the coat and also to place two more in the pouches of the trousers, because those soldiers who are standing guard needed one of those warm water bottles around their knees. I don't believe I have to go into detail here." From this statement it can be seen that according to my opinion, this does not deal with experimental clothing for the human experiments or Dr. Rascher, but rather Army experiment clothing.
THE PRESIDENT: That's perfectly plain to ask Dr. Haensel, that this refers to the experiments on the clothing and not on the inmates.
Q Perhaps I can say that a little bit more briefly. Did you know anything about the medical experiments or cold experiments, freezing experiments, etc. at Dachau and if you did hear anything about it, did you ever deliver anything in order to aid those experiments?
A No, I at that time heard anything about those experiments and the first time I heard about them was here in this Trial and never prior to that.
Q Whatever is said in the document, namely, concerning those warm water bottles, which are mentioned and which are to be placed on their knee, don't you think that the idea was not to cool off a person, but to warm him up, rather? Is that how it was?
A Yes, I would like to draw your attention here to Document NO-428. It is stated here on page 25 of the German text the foam suit and the development of that foam suit was carried out by the German Textile Institute in Munich, Munich-Glattbach.
I believe it can be seen from that that the experimental suit was delivered by the institute in Munich and not by the clothing factory.
Q And no other agency that was under your supervision?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q I will complete this particular clothing complex with one concluding question. How is it that you delivered the clothing for the inmates and not the food?
A That can be explained only by the peace time development of those supply fields. The procurement of clothing and equipment at all times, even during the peace time, was carried out centrally, that particularly in order to use the money much better and to find faster means to produce those things. In peace time the only man in charge responsible for food was the commander or the commandant of a concentration camp respectively. The Army received a certain amount of money per day and per man and was responsible that the necessary food was purchased for that amount. One called that the self-administration or independent fund. At the beginning of the war this procedure was eliminated and the Quartermaster issue was introduced. The Waffen SS was still being supplied by the Army up until Spring 1940 when we assumed that task ourselves and took it over on the civilian sector with the first day of the war. The food rations for the civilian population and for the inmates was fixed by the Reichs Ministry of Food and the allotment of rations was carried out by both the civilian and local food sources. It can be understood therefore that we were responsible for the delivery of clothing, but not for the delivery of food, for the feeding of inmates.
DR. HAENSEL: Your Honor, I shall now proceed to Amtsgruppe B-III. Perhaps it would be an opportune moment to call the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: I think so, recess until 1:45.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1:45.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 18 June 1947.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
GEORG LOERNER (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:
Q Mr. Loerner, I should like to ask you to speak a little more slowly so that the translation really comes through properly. I shall also try to do the same thing because I promised it to the interpreters. I should like to come back to Judge Musmanno's suggestion. I thought about the whole suggestion and I can just recall something about Othello where Othello says that "I'm worried because everything is so beautiful today that I can forget all my worries." I believe that the Prosecution actually has quite a few document books over there which would actually darken the sun you see.
So I shall start from your point of view, Witness: and I'd appreciate it if you would throw an illuminating light on the various offices. We shall come now to that particular office which we call B-III. I should like you to tell us first of all what B-III was in charge of; what their competencies were; but then, on the other hand, your personal competencies with reference to B-III. What was B-III competent for, Witness?
A Office B-III was competent for the delivery of the equipment for the barracks of the Waffen SS and the concentration camps.
Q Did you organize that Office B-III?
A No, Office B-III resulted from the Main Department I/4, the Main Office Budget and Construction; and that one again came from the Main Office V-IV, the Administrative Office of the SS. I myself did not carry out the construction of that organization. All I did was to have the supervisory capacity over it.
Q The chief of that office was Koeberlein. I should like to introduce an affidavit by Koeberlein which will explain in detail what his activity was. I should like to clarify one more point, however. In your field of supervision through B-III did you also have to supervise repair work on buildings in the concentration camps?
A No, that was not the task of B-III. That was the task of the local construction agency.
Q B-III, in other words, only had to supply the equipment, the accommodation equipment?
A Well, perhaps it would be better to say that they had to supply the equipment for the billets and lodgings.
Q Wasn't that equipment for the greatest part manufactured in the camp itself?
A Yes, partly, yes. However, some of it was requisitioned from BIII.
Q Is that procurement different from the kind of procurement we hear from other offices?
A No. Office B-III also received its raw material from the OKH, that is, the High Command of the Army; and from January 1943 all procurement also for the concentration camps was carried out by the Wehrmacht or Army Supply Office, and that centrally. So from that particular moment on B-III was nothing but a distribution agency.
Q What did you have to do in your daily routine? Did all the mail addressed to B-III come to your desk?
A. No, the mail went to B III directly. Koeberlein was an experienced expert in that field, and he worked rather independently. He came to see me every week or every two weeks and reported to me about the most important things. As far as the rest was concerned, we worked rather independently.
Q. When there were complaints about the procurement of construction material and construction tools, did you ever receive any such complaints?
A. No, I didn't. Particularly after 1943 or 1944, there were shortages. However, these shortages were not limited to concentration camps only but to all the fields of activities.
Q. I believe that we can conclude your sector B III by that and transfer to B IV. How long did that office exist?
A. This office existed since the 1st of February 1942 up to January 1944.
Q. Who was in charge of it?
A. The ex Obersturmbannfuehrer Weckel.
Q. What was the main task of that office?
A. The main task of that office was the securing of raw material and the supervision of the procurement of manufactured goods.
Q. In the organizational chart which my colleague Rauschenbach submitted, Office B IV had been omitted entirely. Do you think that this is significant of the importance of that office which only lasted for a short time?
A. Since the concentration of the procurement of raw material and towards the end of 1942 or 1943, the importance of that office had become less and less great; and I believe that that was the reason for the omission.
Q. We shall now transfer to speak about Office B V. How long did it exist?
A. Office B V was established on the 1st of October 1942.
The reason for its establishment was that the procurement of transportation did not work properly. At the time I asked our personnel Chief Fanslau to give me an expert, a technical expert. That really occured in the Operational Main Office, the defendant Scheide was employed for that particular purpose. He built up his office according to expert knowledge, and he also led it in an expert way.
Q. You are not an expert on the motor transportation system?
A. No, I'm not, no.
Q. Did you leave it up to Scheide to lead that office?
A. Scheide's tasks were purely of a technical nature of which I did not understand too much. As Scheide was an expert in his field, I left it up to him actually to direct that organization. He had to report to me about the most important things. However, as far as the rest was concerned, he did it himself.
Q. Do you recall that at any time transports or deportations of human beings took place through those offices?
A. No, that never did occur. It was not the task of Office V to carry out such transports.
Q. Did you ever receive any complaints about the activities of the employees of that office?
A. No.