Of course, we also belonged to the various professional organizations as a firm.
Q. Witness, are you informed about the fact as to what enterprises made up a work group in Auschwitz?
A. There were some stone works in Auschwitz with four automatically working dredging machines and they produced stones from the quarry. I also know that near Auschwitz there was a small stone processing works situated near Kielce. In 1943 Rupprecht, who was then the works manager, told us that he had to deliver large amounts of gravel to the Government General and he was therefore given a gravel pit near Treblinka where gravel was found. This enterprise had to be discontinued extremely soon because in Treblinka water conditions were so unfavorable that the engines could not be fed with water any more. Rupprecht therefore made an application, but the answer was negative, and therefore this enterprise having worked for three or four months was discontinued.
Q. Was there another works connected with the Auschwitz group?
A. Yes. I beg your pardon.
Q. Witschin?
A. Witschin? Yes, that was a small quarry also which was in operation for only a short period of time.
Q. In these works which you just mentioned - were there inmates employed?
A. Well, in the gravel pits in Auschwitz, but only from time to time a small special detachment of about 30 or 40 people was used. They were free workers, but in Kielce and the other works you just mentioned, as far as I know, a small number of inmates were employed.
Q. From what camps did these inmates come?
A. I don't know. I never visited these enterprises. I only went to Auschwitz once.
Q. Do you know, on the other hand, whether or not the DEST pur chased a clay pit or a sand pit in Auschwitz?
A. We never had anything of the sort in Auschwitz, not even a sand pit.
Q. You said something before about a question which I only wanted to put to you now. Do you know that the concentration camps in some cases had quarries in the camps or that at least they used quarries for their own purposes?
A. Yes, I know about that in the case of Flossenburg. I don't know anything about other enterprises.
Q. Witness, in the course of this trial reference has been made to a diamond cutting works in Herzogenbusch in Holland. Can you tell the Court anything about that plant, particularly as regards the fact whether the DEST had Herzogenbusch and inmate workers were alleged to be Jewish inmates.
A. I could give you a brief description. Roughly in 1943 Mummenthey received a letter and he was told in it that in Herzogenbusch there was a diamond cutting works. Since 1938 and 1940 the Reichsfuehrer Himmler had the intention of having war invalids working there in order to be trained as diamond cutters. The attempt was to be made to have these 38 or 40 machines set up in Herzogenbusch and to use them. In June of 1943 I was given the order to go to Bergen with Sommer and a man called Maier. I arrived there on a Sunday together with those two. We looked at the machines, as well as the workshop where the machines were to be set up. The machines were not actually put up in these halls. They were operated because we did not have sufficient raw material. Therefore, the whole matter amounted to nothing at all.
Q. Witness, towards the end of the war the DEST had about 20 or 22 plants under its orders, together with Bohemia and Allach which had become part of the organization. It was a small concern, so to speak, with wide dimensions. Did you ever hear of certain tendencies to expand the concern still further or do you know that Mummenthey opposed such tendencies of expansion, especially in the East?
A. As far as I know, no reference was made to further expansion. I, at least when I worked together with Mummenthey, discovered that he always disliked the East, or to put it more precisely, he never liked dealing with enterprises which were situated in the East.
Q. Before speaking about the chapter with which this Court is most concerned - labor conditions under which the inmates had to do their work - I should like to put one brief question to you, which again has acquired an unpleasant taste in this trial. That is the term "Reinhardt Fund". During your activity with the DEST did you come across that term?
A. The term is completely unknown to me. I don't know what it is supposed to mean.
Q. Witness, the prosecution has alleged that the DEST had as its purpose the extermination of inmates by working them to death. And the prosecution has particularly charged Mummenthey with this. I shall now, therefore, enter into the important complex of the case of how inmates were treated, how they worked, and what personal attitude Mummenthey took toward these things. Will you please tell the Court what sort of work the inmates did, the conditions under which they worked, and the conditions with regard to food, clothes, billets, etc., as far as you know from your own knowledge.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Froeschmann, this opens up a new subject which I think we can start tomorrow morning at 9:30. Court will recess until that time.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal will recess until 0930 tomorrow morning.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
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 31 July 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Robert M. Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will indicate that the Defendants Bobermin and Klein are absent from this session of Court by leave of Court. The trial will proceed in their absence.
HEINZ GERHARD FRANZ SCHWARZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. FROESCHMANN: (For Defendant Mummenthey):
Q Witness, I remind you that you are still under oath. We stopped yesterday discussing the chapter, the work done by the inmates and the conditions under which they worked. I now want to ask you about the labor they did, the type of work they did, and please give the Court a brief but detailed picture about that. I shall now ask you to tell the Court what type of work these inmates did, (a) in the quarry, and (b) in the granite works.
THE PRESIDENT: This was at Flossenbuerg?
DR. FROESCHMANN: I wanted to have a general answer from the witness what type of work they did in all the plants, quite generally.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh.
A While I was a prisoner for about three-quarters of a year I worked in an American ammunition depot and did very heavy work. I can therefore judge what it means to a man who is unused to physical work to do heavy work. I myself find it more pleasant if I am interned and imprisoned and can do work rather than sit around without doing anything, because that demoralizes physically and mentally. I can, therefore, judge what effect the work had which was done in concentration camps or Court No. II, Case No. 4.the plants to which the inmates were transferred.
I need hardly say that for a man who formerly was unused to doing manual work, it is not easy to work in a granite plant, but I should like to emphasize briefly that the work in the quarry itself needed relatively few workers, whereas the work done in the processing shops needed more workers. I should like to point out briefly what was done in the DEST works and what they produced. These plants mainly processed stones for bridges, mainly for the Reichsautobahnen, the official highways. These processed stones were extremely valuable material, and the processing was done by hand. The work there is not strenuous as it is done only with a small hammer. The other building material such as stones for railroads and roads was always produced by mechanical processes. No manual work was carried out there. The work later on for the armament industries was also easy in my opinion.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Witness, we shall discuss that later on. You have not yet told us everything. I asked you what type of work did the inmates do in the quarries themselves, what manual work did they have to do?
A First, they had to uncover the quarry. That work, of course, had to -
Q Will you please repeat? What type of work was it that inmates did in the quarries?
A First of all they uncovered the earth layer above the stone. That was done by hand. Secondly, the stones were processed in order to be used for construction purposes in the processing work shops. Thirdly, the loading had to be done, and that on the whole finished the work of the inmates.
Q Witness, after the detonation, the material was lying around in the quarry. That is as I see it as a layman, and now the material had first of all to be shifted somewhere, is that correct?
A Yes, I assumed that I didn't have to give you the details there because I spoke in some detail yesterday, but if you wish me to, I can repeat it.
Q No, no, I don't want you to repeat anything. All that I wanted you to tell us was what the inmates actually did. In this case, they uncovered the stones and loaded the stones on the little trucks, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q And then the material was shifted over to the actual processing work shops?
A Yes.
Q Now, I want you to tell us under what conditions the inmates did that work. Will you please tell us, first, about your impression of the physical conditions of the inmates, and you can tell the Court in which quarries and stone processing works you made your observations.
A Well, I worked in some and went to them once or twice a week, to the granite works and quarries, and on those occasions I formed an impression of the physical and mental condition of the workers. I need Court No. II, Case No. 4.hardly say that in war-time, the physical state and condition of the workers as well as those inmates working in the plants was not like it used to be in peace-time.
That was generally known because food was scarce everywhere. In summing up, I can say with a good conscience that I did not see that there was any radical or marked difference in the conditions. Of course, there was a small percentage everywhere of people who were not entirely in the full possession of their physical strength as they should have been; but that was a very small percentage which will be the case every where. There are people who do not stand up to physical work.
Q Witness, the Prosecution has asserted that the DEST used sick inmates in its quarries and granite works. I am not going to ask you now about whether you saw sick inmates at work, but I want to ask you first if the DEST in its managements issued orders about the employment of sick inmates who were not capable of doing work?
A The Defendant Mummenthey to my knowledge did, both in writing and orally, point out that the plants must only employ sound and healthy workers as you could not produce anything with sick inmates. This is entirely logical because the management of the DEST had to pay for its workers, and we could not have used sick inmates.
Q Did the managers give you any reports that perhaps by order of the local camp commandants, sick inmates were to be employed and that you sent back those sick inmates?
A The management frequently did not find it easy to send back sick inmates to the camp. Such cases came to my knowledge.
Q Witness, you said the general state of health in which you found the inmates was fairly normal, if you take war conditions into consideration, but you also admit that a certain percentage was below par, perhaps, physically. Did you ever have any experiences about the food and clothing of inmates?
A Yes. As a matter of principle, feeding and clothing and accommodation of inmates was not our task. Nevertheless, the managers continued to make efforts to obtain additional food as well as post-exchange Court No. II, Case No. 4.items, clothing, shoes and other goods which were extremely scarce towards the end, and they were issued to the workers at the expense of the management.
Q Could the plants do that so easily? I mean, get additional food and clothing during war-time?
A Certainly not. In war-time all such facilities were rationed, and only by virtue of their personal influence and under extreme difficulties it became possible to acquire these commodities. The people, of course, had made themselves punishable under the laws applying at the time.
Q Did Mummenthey know about that?
A Yes, of course, he endeavored himself to order these things.
Q If I understand you correctly, Mummenthey contrary to wartime regulations, and risking legal proceedings, made false statements for obtaining additional food and clothing and issued them to the inmates?
A Yes.
Q May I ask you in this connection, witness, what principle was followed in the quarries by the labor allocation of inmates? Was the position, as the Prosecution has asserted, that the inmates were to be worked to death, or were the other principles important, and if so, which ones?
A Extermination by working to death of inmates is out of the question because it wouldn't have made sense. The plants had to rely on their workers and concentrated their efforts mainly to have healthy and strong workers and not workers who would be dissipated by too much work.
Q Witness, do you know anything about the value attached to work done by inmates?
A Yes.
Q Did the work done by inmates reach the level of the work done by civilian workers?
A Certainly not, not by far.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q What is your explanation for that?
A Partly for mental reasons. They were separated from their families, and that is a hardship. Anybody who is a prisoner is depressed.
Q Are there perhaps also other factors, such as food, which the inmates received in their camps?
A Quite possibly.
Q Is it a fact of importance that inmates came from other professions and now had to do unaccustomed work?
A That also is entirely possible.
Q And may I in this connection put this question to you: Do you know whether this idea of efficient work done by inmates started the DEST to think about future allocation of inmates?
A The DEST had the plan that once some of the inmates were completely trained as skilled stone processing workers these people should, after their release, be employed in our enterprises as civilian workers.
Q How was that to be achieved?
A I don't know what you mean by that question. Could you put it another way?
Q What I want to know is, what method did the DEST think was suitable to have these workers later on become free workers, or to become more clear, the inmates came from a variety of professions, did they not? Now, they suddenly were used as stone masons and were trained as such. Did the DEST have the idea to train these workers as skilled workers in order to make them later on real skilled stone masons?
A Yes. I have stated before that, for instance, in the granite works of Gross-Rosen over one thousand inmates had graduated their course and could be regarded as real stone masons. Those inmates were to be released after the war and re-employed in the enterprises as civilian stone masons. We even toyed with the idea of transferring these inmates to other enterprises. May I point out in this connection that in the GrossRosen plant there was a current complement of 250 or 300 young men who were being trained as stone masons, who later on were sent to schools, Court No. II, Case No. 4.and then re-employed by the enterprises of the DEST as civilian foremen, engineers, technicians, and so forth.
The plan was after the war to have individual granite works which would switch over to civilian production.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
Q Witness, you said it was planned. Who had the plan? Who did the planning?
A The management of the firm.
Q And who were the people?
A In this case the Defendant Mummenthey.
Q Is it therefore correct to say, if I understood you correctly, that, as it were, the DEST wanted to create an apprentice department within its enterprise in order to train the inmates as stone masons and apprentices?
A They did not only wish to do so--they actually trained them for years, somebody called Herr Kaiser who, in hard and painful work, explained the work and carried it out himself theoretically and practically in all the enterprises.
Q Witness, I don't understand one point. Now, we are talking about allocation of inmates in concentration camps. From what categories of inmates were these workers recruited?
A They were also people who were locked up in protective custody or inmates who were in concentration camps on the basis of a regular trial. Their professional backgrounds were of a great variety.
Q Let us be more precise. Did these inmates include criminals?
AAs far as I know, yes.
Q Were they also what was known as anti-social elements, elements which shy away from the community because they did not wish to work: tramsp, drunkards, beggars, and so forth? Were they included?
A Yes.
Q Was there yet another category among them? I mean those people who, for their political opinions or for their political behavior, had been committed to a concentration camp. Is that also correct?
A Yes; certainly.
Q Very well, I can imagine that the criminals and the antisocial inmates from the beginning were to remain in concentration camps for some nominal period of time until you could state an improvement in their status. The political prisoners, on the other hand, were committed Court No. II, Case No. 4.to concentration camps only for a limited period of time; and my question is:
Did this training program of the DEST apply to all those inmates, or only to a certain category of inmates?
A We thought it was important, first of all, that the antisocial elements--that is, those who were not used to a definite type of work, or had not learned anything--should do useful work so that after their release they would have a profession in which they could work.
QQuite so. In other words, these anti-social elements who had never done anything in their lives would be trained to become useful workers?
A Yes.
Q Is it true that Mummenthey also had the idea expressed it, and stood up for it, to have those inmates--I mean the criminals and the anti-socials--later on settling down near the plant in order to revive their joy of living?
A Yes. Our architect, Fuerth, had worked out that plan to the last detail.
Q For what works?
A Flossenbuerg, St. Georgen-
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q Just a minute, Doctor.
Witness, have you named all of the categories that comprised the inmates of the concentration camps?
A Yes.
Q Three ?
A Please?
Q You have named three?
A Yes.
Q There were no prisoners of war among them?
A No, we had no prisoners of war.
Q In any of the concentration camps that worked inmates of the DEST industries, there were no prisoners of war? You make that statement?
A No, not that I know of.
Q Were there any Jews from the East?
A Not that I know of.
Q So you have named all of the various categories that comprised the inmates of the concentration camps that worked for the DEST industries?
A Yes.
Q All right.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for Defendant Mummenthey): Your Honor, following your question, may I perhaps put something to the witness?
Q Witness, we have a document here where reference is made to Soviet Russian prisoners of war being trained in stone masonry. I give you this document, NO-1049, Exhibit 436, and I would like you to add something to your testimony, should there be a misunderstanding between your answers and what Judge Phillips has asked you. I do not wish to have any misunderstanding simply because your testimony was incomplete.
AAs I see it, this can only refer to prisoners who, as Free Workers, worked in the Reich during wartime and then, for some offense or other, were taken into protective custody and committed to a concentration camp. I can think of no other way to explain this matter.
Q Will you please read this sentence to the Court which is important here, about the two hundred prisoners of war?
MR. MC HANEY: Just a minute, witness. If the Tribunal please, I think I have been quite patient with the examination of this witness. His questions have been extremely leading. He has tended to sum up the answers to some length after they have been given, all of which is unnecessary.
It now appears to me that he is intending to impeach his own witness. He very clearly stated to Judge Phillips' question that he did not know that any prisoners of war or any Jews were used in the DEST industries. I think that is a clear and unequivocal statement; and now he is putting a document to him which tends to contradict his statement, and asking him to explain it. I don't think that is proper.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
THE PRESIDENT: It is quite proper to refresh the recollection of your own witness. This isn't impeachment. I think it is also proper to call to the witness's attention anything he may have forgotten. So on either one ground or the other I think this questioning is proper.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Witness, I wanted to ask you something else. In view of Judge Phillips' question, don't forget what you said yesterday afternoon about the diamond cutting works. You told us yesterday afternoon-I don't know whether Mr. McHaney was present at the time--that this diamond cutting work in Herzogenbusch employed Jews, and we also know that in Auschwitz there were also some female Jewish workers working there.
In order to have your testimony clear and exhaustive, I would like to ask you, did you know--and this is what Judge Phillips asked you, too--or did you not know at the time that the DEST enterprises at any time employed Jews from the East?
A When I talked about the diamond works in Herzogenbusch I said quite clearly and definitely that in the plant which was to be established not a single person worked for the DEST. It was only a plan--no work was actually done. Then I also know that in Auschwitz, with Herr Rupprecht, there were two or three Jewesses working as office clerks.
This I only heard after the evacuation of the Auschwitz agency. I did not know it before then.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, do you still say that neither in Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Flossenbuerg there were any Jews from the East employed by the DEST?
WITNESS: I know nothing about that. Apart from those two cases which I have just explained, I know nothing about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you were right in the plants where you could see the workers, weren't you?
WITNESS: No, I was never in the plants; I was working in Berlin all these years.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q Witness, perhaps you haven't understood His Honor's questions. You went to the enterprises from Berlin at least once or twice as year, and then you looked at them?
A Yes, of course I visited them.
Q But that is exactly what the Presiding Judge asked you.
A Oh, I am sorry.
Q You must pay attention to the questions which are put to you, and then give your answer.
A Certainly.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q You actually saw the workers while they were performing their tasks?
A I didn't understand... Of course, during the day when I had to do some official business in the enterprises I walked through the plants, and I saw the workers doing their work.
Q But you didn't see any Jews from the East on any occasion?
A I don't know anything about it. I did not notice anything.
Q Well, just answer my question please, yes or no. You never saw any Jews from the East working in the DEST plants?
A No.
BY DR. FROESCHMANN:
Q What sort of clothes did the inmates wear in the enterprises?
A The usual striped uniform.
Q Will you please give us a brief description of it?
A Long blue-white slacks, and a jacket of the same color. In winter, overcoats of the same color scheme and a hat of the same color.
Q Did they wear any triangles on their uniforms?
A Yes.
Q Did they have any letters attached to their uniforms?
AA triangle of a certain color, and then a number.
Q. At the back of the uniform were there the initials of a country, perhaps, from where the inmate might come, for instance, as "U" for "Soviet Union"?
A. I never noticed anything of that sort.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you ever notice a uniform with the letter "0"?
THE WITNESS: No.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Counsel, I did not recall if the witness ever explained why he first said there were no prisoners of war employed in the DEST industries and then you confronted him with a document which showed that some prisoners of war were so employed. Did he explain that? I know there was an objection made and a discussion of the objection.
Q. (By Dr. Froeschmann) Witness, did you understand what His Honor said just now?
A. Yes.
Q. You were asked whether the DEST employed prisoners of war in its enterprises and you answered in the negative. I then gave you a document where reference is made to the fact that for training purposes 200 Soviet prisoners of war were to be used. His Honor now wishes you to tell him how it happened that you said, first of all, "no" to my question and then only when I gave you the document recalled this matter. How can you explain that contradiction in your testimony?
A. In this document which has just been handed to me, I am bound to assume that these 200 prisoners were people who formerly worked as free workers in Germany, had become guilty of some offense or other, and then were committed to a concentration camp, and they were used for training purposes.
Q. Witness, that information might be correct if it wouldn't say expressly in the document 200 Soviet prisoners of war. Please read it very carefully. They cannot be people who once upon a time were free workers in Germany because free workers could not be Russian prisoners of war.
A. Then in my opinion they must be prisoners of war who would be stationed in a prisoner of war camp.
Anyway, I don't know that prisoners of war were ever sent to plants from concentration camps.
Q. You want to say that when you gave your first answer you were thinking of real prisoners of war stationed and working in prisoner of war camps and you did not know or did not remember or did not know anything at all that such prisoners of war were being employed by the DEST?
A. Yes.
Q. But after the document is now put to you, then you reach a conclusion that they must be special people who were sent to a concentration camp on the basis of some special method?
A. Yes.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Mr. McHaney, would you call that "leading" or "dragging" a witness?
MR. MC HANEY: Testifying, Your Honor.
DR. FROESCHMANN: I am endeavoring, if Your Honors please, to disentangle this small confusion. It is my feeling that the witness in his endeavor to tell the truth mis-expressed himself at first and I do not wish that a suspicion arises as to his veracity.
THE PRESIDENT: You are a very good witness, Dr. Froeschmann.
DR. FROESCHMANN: But totally unprepared, if Your Honor please.
Q. Witness, to discuss another matter: What hours of work did the inmates keep?
A. That depended entirely on the time of the year and on the climate. As a rule, they worked nine or ten hours, in addition to a one hour break for lunch. In wartime, when armament tasks became acute, there was another break of twenty minutes to half an hour for breakfast. In summer they worked always nine to ten hours and winter, according to the weather, the time was shorter.
Q. Witness, can you remember that once an order was issued by the defendant Pohl to the effect that hours of work were to be eleven hours in all enterprises of the DWB?
A. Yes, I can recall that, but that order was not really carried out.
It was ignored silently by all the plants, because it was quite impossible to work for longer than ten hours.
Q. Witness, in the war, were there any other disturbing elements, as far as hours of work were concerned?
A. Yes, of course, we wanted to save electricity, for instance, and as a result of air raids the plants very frequently had to interrupt their production, because raw materials, electric power, and other facilities were very short. I know of instances where in the enterprises no work was done for as long as a fortnight at a time.
Q. Who decided the hours of work?
A. That was decided by the work managers.
Q. Was there shift work?
A. Yes, we had three eight hour shifts, and later on two shifts which worked from nine to ten hours, exclusive of the lunch break.
Q. Witness, I put it to you that on the basis of a number of affidavits and witnesses' testimony the working hours in the DEST amounted to twelve to fourteen hours, it is alleged, although it has not been made quite clear whether this applied to the quarries or brick yards. What do you have to say about that?
A. Both in the quarries and in the brick works no such working hours were observed, neither by the civilians nor by the inmates.
Q. Witness, I shall now hand you Document NO-2126, which is Exhibit 298. This is the affidavit by Phillipp Grimm. In this affidavit Grimm says that he had been working in Office D-II and he drew up statistics, and statistics of fatalities. I would like you, witness, to read the first sentence of the second paragraph to the Court and give us your comments about it clearly and definitely.
A. I shall read this sentence: "I estimate that the number of fatalities which became clear from the statistics in D-II amounted to 10 percent per month."
Q. And the next sentence?
A. "The figures of fatalities for the W enterprises were in my opinion at least the same, if not higher."
Q. Thank you. What do you have to say about that?
A. This is completely out of the question because, as I said in answer to a different question, the DEST enterprises had to rely on healthy workers and they never did piece work. No impossible work was ever expected of an inmate. Therefore, any dissemination cannot be taken for granted here.
Q. Do you know anything, witness, that inmates died because they had been overworked in quarries at all?
A. No, I know nothing about that.
Q. Another point. How were the inmates treated by the other employees of the plant?
A. The inmates were treated just as were any other civilian workers whom we employed.
Q. Do you know anything about the fact that the inmates were being driven by the other employees of the plants -- were mistreated or sent on punitive details if they hadn't done their proper share?
A. I pointed out before that we never insisted that everything was done at once. We only insisted that that was done what an unskilled worker could do in his place of work. Any driving by the civilian foreman I know nothing about.
Q. Witness, but you must have learned since the surrender by things you read in the newspapers and magazines that it is alleged that in the DEST enterprises and particularly in the quarries inhumane acts occurred. For instance, we have a document here according to which in Mauthausen Jews were thrown down a quarry and atrocities of that sort occurred. My question to you is: While you were employed by the DEST, did you come across, either personally or from reports by the managers, any information that the guards mistreated or committed inhumane acts towards the inmates?
A. I never heard anything about that. I did not receive any reports about that nor did any of the managers, when they came to Berlin or when I visited a plant.
Q. My question was, witness, whether you had heard of the guards committing such acts, the guards, mind you.
A. No, I don't know anything about that. All I know is that in the early years in 1938 or 1939 the guards in some cases when roads were being built for the works insisted that the workers do more work than was expected later by the managers. When Mummenthey heard about that, he got the local commandant of the damp that was driving them and told him that this should be discontinued because it did not matter whether a road was completed today or a few days later.
Q. That is exactly what I meant. I did not speak about any particular year. At the beginning you heard of certain incidents whereby the guards did not treat the inmates in the same manner as the managers and other reports.
A. Quite.
Q. That is what I wanted to know. Then you say that Mummenthey, when he heard about that, immediately opposed this?
A. Yes.
Q. In this connection I would like you, witness, to answer this question: How were relations between the local managers and the local camp commandants? Do you know anything about that?
A. Yes. Relations were in every case very tense. The work managers and the commandants were never on very good terms. This is quite natural. In the works the managers were experts, technicians, whereas the commandants of camps were soldiers. The manager of a plant could not, of course, expect a man who was not a trained expert to tell him anything about his business. For that reason the quarrels very frequently arose. I recall one instance in Flossenburg where the then commandant of the camp, Kuenstler, interfered so often with the business of the works, the manager quarreled with him to such an extent that the defendant Mummenthey referred this to the defendant Pohl to have Kuenstler removed and another commandant appointed in his place.