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USA v. Pohl et. al - Opening Statements of the Prosecution and DefenseIII. Opening Statements of the Prosecution and Defense:A. Extracts From the Opening Statement of the Prosecution:MR. MCHANEY: May it please the Tribunal, today marks the opening of the first proceeding in Nuernberg devoted exclusively to the trial of persons active in the SS. On 30 September 1946, the International Military Tribunal found the SS to have been a criminal organization. Since that date, four indictments, other than the one in this case, have been filed with the Military Tribunals by the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes acting on behalf of the United States of America. The defendants range from doctors and officials in the German medical services to a field marshal in the Luftwaffe, from officials of the judicial system of the Third Reich to the directors of an industrial combine. Yet without exception each of these cases deal in large measure with crimes to which the SS was a party. In all but one of these cases, the SS is represented among the defendants. Indeed, in the trial before the International Military Tribunal no less than eleven of the defendants were members of the SS. This points up the tremendous power and influence wielded by the SS in the Third Reich. Even now, nearly two years after the termination of hostilities, the SS is too often regarded as a mere collection of racial fanatics, well-drilled fighting men, or concentration camp thugs. Let there be no mistake about that Himmler was eminently successful in making the SS an all-powerful elite. Its members were represented in the personal entourage of Hitler in the Reich ministries, in the Wehrmacht, in the provincial and municipal governments, in industry and finance, in the press, in occupied territories, and in the spheres of education and culture. It has been said with considerable truth that the SS was a state within a state. It is therefore a matter of importance to investigate the workings of this SS state and to fix the responsibility for its manifold crimes on those men in high positions who kept the monstrous machinery running. Justice could not tolerate the trial of sadistic concentration camp commanders and guards, or even industrialists who ran their factories with slave labor, without bringing to account those men of the SS who made such things possible. In this dock sit the principal surviving leaders of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt), commonly called the WVHA. It was they who procured the material, money, and slaves to support the SS state. It was they who supervised the lawless jungles which were concentration camps. It was they who were the greatest users of slave labor. As Eugen Kogon has said, "No super-Jew of Streicher's ever accomplished what SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl succeeded in doing the rationalization of turning corpses into money on a mass basis." The crimes which are the subject of this trial run the gamut of "man's inhumanity to man" the systematic commission of atrocities in concentration camps; the utilization of slave labor under brutal and inhumane conditions; the extermination of the Jews, and so-called "useless eaters"; criminal medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates; the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto; and the confiscation of property on a gigantic scale. The defendant Pohl and his collaborators in the WVHA were parties to all of these crimes and many more. Since this case is concerned with the criminal activities of one of the Main Offices of the SS, it is necessary to understand something of the history and organization of the SS in general and the WVHA in particular. To assist the Tribunal in this regard, the prosecution has prepared and delivered to the Tribunal a brief containing basic information on the SS and the WVHA. This has also been made available to defense counsel in both German and English. It includes a glossary of German words and expressions which will be used frequently in the course of the trial, a table of equivalent ranks of the American Army and the German Wehrmacht and the SS, and two charts showing the organization of the SS and the WVHA. The Schutzstaffeln or SS was the protective guard of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP). It was formed in 1925 to protect leaders and speakers at Party meetings and above all to protect the person of the Fuehrer. As the "Fuehrer" or leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler was the "Oberst Fuehrer" or Supreme Leader of the SS. In January 1929 Heinrich Himmler was appointed Reich Leader SS. As such, he was the commander of the SS and subordinated directly to Hitler as head of the Nazi Party. At that time, the SS numbered only about 280 men and was much less important than the Sturmabteilung or SA, which was a Nazi pari-military unit under the ambitious Captain Ernst Roehm. Patiently and unobtrusively, Himmler set about creating out of the SS an aristocracy within the Nazi Party. He called this aristocracy the German Order of Men (Deutscher Maennerorden). Selection for membership in the SS was based on the doctrine of "race and blood. Himmler once said:
At the time of the seizure of power by the Nazi Party in January 1933, this self-proclaimed "racial elite" was 52,000 strong. Not, however, until the Roehm purge of 30 June 1934 did the SS become the ruling caste within the Party. On that bloody "Night of the Long Knives," it was the brutalized and ever obedient SS which murdered Roehm and his important collaborators in the SA who were said to be dissident elements in the Party. Thenceforth, the SS assumed the duty of ensuring the continued power of the Nazi regime or, as it was officially stated, of "protecting the internal security of the Reich." The subsequent development of the SS was based primarily upon the tremendous increase in power of Himmler. Wherever Himmler went, the SS went with him. In June 1936, he was appointed chief of the German police in the Ministry of Interior with authority over the regular uniformed police as well as the Security Police, which was defined to include both the criminal police and the notorious Gestapo or Secret State Police. In this connection, mention should also be made of the Sicherheitsdienst of Reich Leader SS or SD which worked closely with the Gestapo. The SD was the espionage agency, first of the SS, and after June 1934 of the whole Nazi Party. Reinhard, or as he was known abroad, Hangman" Heydrich, was the chief of the SD. Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Leader SS and Chief of the German Police, appointed Heydrich as chief of the Security Police on 26 June 1936. This amalgamated the Security Police, a State organization with the SD, a Party organization. By a decree of 27 September 1939, the various State and Party offices under Heydrich as chief of the Security Police and SD were united into one administrative unit, the Reich Security Main Office or RSHA, which was at the same time both one of the Main Offices of the SS Supreme Command under Himmler as Reich Leader SS and an office in the Ministry of Interior under Himmler as chief of the German police. On a regional level, Himmler appointed a Higher SS and Police Leader for each Wehrkreis [SS Oberabschnitt SS Main Sector] who coordinated the activities of the Security Police and SD, Order Police, and Allgemeine SS within their jurisdictions. In 1939 the SS and police systems were amalgamated by taking into the SS all police officials at equivalent ranks. This unification of the SS and police greatly enhanced the power of the SS. Its power and influence was further increased by the appointment of Himmler in August 1943 as Reich Minister of the Interior, a position which controlled the greater part of the vast German bureaucracy. Finally, in July 1944, he succeeded General Fromm as Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army and Chief of Military Armament [army equipment]. He then controlled all forces on the home front. Parallel with this development of the SS its influence was increased by the practice of appointing important State officials and other public figures to high rank in the SS. Industrialists, bankers, and business men were prevailed upon to contribute substantial sums of money to the SS in order to stand in well with the Party aristocracy. Through infiltration the SS gained influence in every branch of German life. By 1939, the Allgemeine SS, the original formation of the SS, numbered approximately 240,000 men. In addition, there were two other SS formations the Special Service Troops and the Death Head Formations which together had a strength of about 40,000 men. The Special Service Troops constituted a force of SS men who volunteered for four years' military service in lieu of compulsory service with the army. It was organized as an armed unit to be employed with the army in the event of mobilization. The Death Head Formations were selected from SS volunteers and were used to guard concentration camps. After the outbreak of war, units from both the Special Service Troops and the Death Head Formations were used in the Polish campaign. These troops came to be known as the Waffen or armed [Combat] SS. By 1940 the Waffen SS contained 100,000 men, 56,000 coming from the Special Service Troops and the rest from the Allgemeine SS and the Death Head Troops. Concentration camp guard duties came to be performed primarily by members of the Allgemeine SS. The Waffen SS fought in every campaign with the exception of those in Norway and Africa By the end of the war it is estimated to have comprised about 580,000 men. Thus, it was numerically by far the larger branch of the SS, the Allgemeine SS having declined in strength to less The Waffen SS, including the Death Head Formations, was in effect a part of the Wehrmacht and its expenses were a charge on the State. The Allgemeine SS, on the other hand, was an independent branch of the Party and its finances were ultimately controlled by the Party treasurer. Subject to the controlling authority of the Reich Leader SS, the work of directing, organizing, and administering the whole body of the SS was carried out by what may be loosely called the Supreme Command of the SS. This Supreme Command consisted of twelve Main Offices. The most important of the Main Offices were the Reich Security Main Office or RSHA; the Operational Headquarters; and the Economic and Administrative Main Office, the WVHA. I have already described the amalgamation of the SD and the Gestapo and criminal police under Heydrich as chief of the RSHA. After the assassination of Heydrich in 1942, Kaltenbrunner was made chief of the RSHA. For his criminal activities in that position, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal. The Gestapo, among other things, was responsible for the commitment of political prisoners to concentration camps. Our proof in this case will show the close cooperation between the Security Police and SD and the WVHA not only in matters concerning concentration camps, but also in the extermination of the Jews, the spoliation of property on a gigantic scale, and the utilization of slave labor under inhumane conditions. The SS operational headquarters was the main office of the SS which was responsible for the training, organization and, to a certain extent, the operational employment of the Waffen SS and the Allgemeine SS. Other important Main Offices were the SS Central Office which handled recruiting for the Waffen SS, propaganda, education, physical training, and so-called Germanic affairs; the SS Race and Settlement Office which was concerned with matters of "race", genealogy, and marriage permits within the SS, and the settlement of SS men in occupied territory bounding on the Reich; and the Personal Staff of the Reich Leader SS which was an advisory and coordinating body responsible for all matters not within the province of the other Main Offices and for liaison with Government and Party officials. The WVHAI turn now to a description of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office and to the position of these defendants in that organization. Prior to the end of the war, little was known of the activities of the WVHA. In order to appreciate the organization and influence of this office, it is necessary to consider the three original offices which were later united to form the WVHA. These were the administrative department (Verwaltungsamt) in the SS central office, the Department of Budget and Buildings and the office of the Inspector of Concentration Camps. The administrative department was for many years located in Munich. The defendant Pohl became chief of that department in February, 1934. He was at the same time, Plenipotentiary of the treasurer of the Nazi Party. The administrative department handled the financial and administrative matters of the Special Service Troops, the Death Head units, the concentration camps and the Allgemeine SS. The defendants Frank, Georg and Hans Loerner, Vogt, Tschentscher, Eirenschmalz, and Baier were early collaborators of Pohl in various phases of this work. In addition to administrative tasks, the administrative department soon concerned itself with business and industrial undertakings on behalf of the SS and Party. Prominent among these economic enterprises was the German Earth and Stone Works with granite quarries in the concentration camps of Flossenbuerg, Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen, and Natzweiler. In 1940 the German Economic Enterprises [Deutsche Wirtschafts-Betriebe] was formed by Pohl and Georg Loerner as a holding company. It was commonly known as the DWB Combine, and it controlled many of the business enterprises run by the administrative department, or as it was then known, the Administrative and Economic Main Office [Main Office Administration and Economy]. It had a capitalization in excess of 46 million Reichsmarks. The defendants Hohberg, Volk, Mummenthey, Bobermin, and Klein were active in developing and managing these economic enterprises. Concentration camp inmates were used as laborers on a vast scale. By an order of 20 April 1939, Himmler raised the administrative office of Pohl to the rank of a Main Office of the SS. It was called the Administrative and Economic Main Office and abbreviated "WVHA". At the same time Pohl was appointed chief of the newly created Budget and Buildings Main Office. Thus, after this reorganization, there were three departments under Pohl's Jurisdiction, Amt I-Budget, Amt II-Buildings, and Amt III-Economic Enterprises. Amt I and II were said to be identical with the Department for Budget and Buildings in the Ministry of Interior, of which Pohl was a Ministerialdirektor All three of these departments had a very substantial relationship to the concentration camps. Amt I (budget) was in charge of the allocation and control of prison labor; Amt II (buildings) was in charge of actual building and construction work; and Amt III (economic enterprises) controlled various plants using prisoners. All of these Aemter had representatives in every concentration camp. The third precursor of the WVHA which I have mentioned was the office of the Inspector of Concentration Camps, first under Eicke and then Gluecks. This office was responsible for the control of the SS Death Head guards and the entire internal administration of the camps. I have already briefly indicated the strong interest of Pohl's organization in the concentration camps. In December 1939, Himmler said that: "The supervision of the economic matters of these institutions (concentration camps) and their application to work is the responsibility of SS Gruppenfuehrer Pohl". This problem of divided authority was finally resolved in March 1942 and the office of the Inspector of Concentration Camps was subordinated to Pohl. At about the same time, a final reorganization took place which created the WVHA with the defendant Pohl as its chief. The WVHA was divided into five branches, Amtsgruppen A, B, C, D, and W. Amtsgruppe A was the supreme authority for the finance and administration of the whole of the SS. This department negotiated with the Reich Ministry of Finance for funds to support the Waffen SS and other SS activities carried out for the State. It handled the budgets, payments, and audits for all the SS, including the concentration camps. It was responsible for the general supervision and coordination of all SS administration, and for the training and appointment of administrative personnel. The defendant Frank was chief of Amtsgruppe A and deputy chief of the WVHA until September 1943. He was succeeded as chief of Amtsgruppe A by the defendant Fanslau who had previously been in charge of the personnel office. The defendant Hans Loerner was in charge of the office for budgets while the defendant Vogt was head of the auditing office. Amtsgruppe B controlled food supply, uniforms, billeting, raw materials, and equipment for the SS. As far as the Waffen SS was concerned, responsibility for supply was divided between the SS Operational Headquarters and the WVHA. Broadly speaking, the operational headquarters supplied arms, ammunition, and other technical equipment, while the WVHA was responsible for rations, clothing, fuel, and personal items of equipment. Among other things, Amtsgruppe B was responsible for the supply of food and clothing to concentration camps. The defendant Georg Loerner was chief of Amtsgruppe B and after 1 September 1943, was deputy chief of the WVHA. The defendant Tschentscher was deputy to Loerner and head of the office for food supplies. The defendant Scheide was in charge of the office for supply of transport, machinery, and weapons. Amtsgruppe C was charged with construction tasks of the SS and Police. This included the building and maintenance of barracks, camps and training grounds, field works, and fortifications, and roadmaking. All construction work in connection with concentration camps, such as gas chambers and crematoriums, was handled by this department. Amtsgruppe C was the greatest user of concentration camp labor in all of Germany, far outstripping such industries as I.G. Farben and the Hermann Goering Works. For the year 1942 alone, over forty-four thousand concentration camp inmates were requested for a total of sixty-one building projects. Two such projects were the installation and extension of crematoriums in the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps. Later in the war, Amtsgruppe C undertook such large-scale construction as the erection of V-2 plants and the movement of the aircraft and other war industries underground. This work was carried out under such atrocious conditions that literally tens of thousands of human beings were sacrificed. Chief of this department was the fabulous SS Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler, rumored as the successor to Speer (1). His chief deputy was the defendant Eirenschmalz and the office for special construction tasks was under the defendant Amtsgruppe D was in direct charge of the administration of concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz extermination camp. Apart from the actual imprisonment of prisoners, which was a function of the Reich Security Main Office, the WVHA and Amtsgruppe D were entirely responsible for this branch of SS activity. There are only two defendants in this dock who were members of Amtsgruppe D, Sommer and Pook. The defendant Sommer was deputy chief of Amt D II which handled the commitment of inmates for labor. The defendant Pook was chief dentist in Amt D III and had supervisory control over all dentists in concentration camps. It was their task, among others, to remove gold teeth from deceased inmates. However, substantially all of Amtsgruppe D has been accounted for. Gluecks, chief of the department, is dead as is Dr. Lolling, chief of the medical office. Liebehenschel, Hoess, and Kaindl were surrendered by the United States for trial by other countries. The notorious Hoess was camp commander of Auschwitz until December 1943. He confessed to having supervised the extermination in Auschwitz of two and one half million persons, while at least an additional half million succumbed to starvation and disease. Pohl was impressed with his ability that he was recalled to become chief of Amt D I. Gerhard Maurer, chief of Amt D II and the immediate superior of the defendant Sommer, is now in custody but his apprehension came after the indictment in this case had been filed. The same is true of Wilhelm Burger who was chief of Amt D IV. Amtsgruppe W managed the economic enterprises run by the WVHA. At the top was the DWB Combine, a holding company through which the various industries were controlled. The defendants Pohl and Georg Loerner were the managing directors of the DWB, assisted by the defendants Baier, Volk, and Hohberg, who were members of the so-called staff W. The offices or Aemter of Amtsgruppe W managed the industries controlled by the DWVB. Amt W I under the defendant Mummenthey supervised primarily the German Earth and Stone Works, Ltd. which was abbreviated DEST. It controlled granite quarries at Flossenberg, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, and Natzweiler; brick factories at Neuengamme, Stutthof, and Buchenwald; and two porcelain manufacturing plants. The commander Franz Ziereiss of Mauthausen has related how 1,000 Dutch Jews were worked and tortured into committing suicide in the quarry there. In 1943, it was decided to employ more prison labor in armament work by the German Equipment Works Ltd. which was under the supervision of Amt W IV. However, since Amt W IV was not represented in all camps, Amt W I took over payment and accounts and put large underground stone quarries at the disposal of armament factories where the prisoners could carry out work without danger from air attacks. In this way, Amt W IV, using the facilities of Amt W I, worked as subcontractors to the armament factories. For example, aircraft assembly of the Messerschmitt 109 [Me-109] and Messerschmitt 262 for Messerschmitt was carried out at Mauthausen. After the defeat of Poland in 1939, spoliation of property, especially that of Jews, occurred on a large scale. Under the direction of staff W and particularly of the defendants Pohl, Georg Loerner, Baier, Hohberg, and Volk a company called Eastern Industry Ltd., or Osti, was used to exploit Jewish property and manpower in Poland. A report states that this concern had to be liquidated because in November 1943 it was "deprived" of the Jewish workers. Of course, the truth of the matter is that these Jews were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz or Treblinka. In addition to the Osti action, Pohl took over in 1940 some 292 brick and tile factories which were managed by the East German Building Materials Works Ltd. under the defendant Bobermin in Amt W II. Bobermin also controlled a cement factory using inmates from Auschwitz. The defendant Klein was chief of Amt W VIII, an office with the anomalous title "Special Tasks". There were several sections in Amt W VIII, one of which was called "Society for the Improvement and Upkeep of German Monuments". But even this high sounding society involved itself in concentration camp crimes with the assistance of Klein. He supervised the financing and construction of an SS school at Wewelsburg near the Buchenwald concentration camp [sic]. Approximately 500 prisoners were detained in a small camp at Wewelsburg to assist in the construction of the school. A number of these prisoners died due to under nourishment and overwork. The WVHA controlled many other economic enterprises which used concentration camp labor as well as supplied slave labor to such private industries as I.G. Farben and the Hermann Goering Works. These matters will be dealt with somewhat more fully at a later point. Concentration CampsMR. HART: Substantially all of the crimes charged in the indictment against these defendants were committed in concentration camps upon inmates forcibly detained there. Therefore, it will perhaps be helpful to consider this institution of terror, mass crime, and human degradation. According to German law, a concentration camp provided protective custody for persons who were not legally sentenced to imprisonment by a court of law, and those who, having served a term of imprisonment, were then committed for further detention by the Security Police and SD. Protective custody orders were issued by the Reich Security Main Office. There were two general categories of protective custody, namely, political custody and police custody. Persons placed in political custody were those considered to be enemies of the Nazi State or otherwise undesirable, but who could not be convicted of any crime. This type of custody was theoretically not enforced as a punitive measure Included among political custody prisoners were members of parties opposed to National Socialism as well as non-Party individuals of the same mind; Nazis guilty of some party crime; persons who listened to foreign broadcasts or expressed a "defeatist attitude"; and those whose general outlook on life was considered undesirable, such as church opponents of the regime and Jehovah's Witnesses. Habitual criminals who had served their term of imprisonment could be placed in preventive custody as well as less serious offenders such as drunkards, vagrants, and persons who changed positions without consent of the Labor Office all of whom were regarded as ''asocials." Another large group of inmates were the Nazi described "racial inferiors" which included Jews, Poles, Slavs, and gypsies. The extermination policies of the SS were particularly directed against this group. Prisoners of war were also committed to concentration camps in great numbers, especially the Russians. A special category of prisoners were "Nacht und Nebel" or night and fog inmates (2). These were persons alleged to have committed offenses against the Reich or the German forces in occupied countries. The offenders were punished in the occupied territory only if the death penalty could be executed without delay. If this could not be done within one week of apprehension, the accused were taken secretly to Germany and handed over to the Security Police and SD for punishment. No word of the prisoners was permitted to reach their relatives or the country from which they came. In 1941, concentration camps were graded according to the type of prisoners to be committed there. Grade I was for persons who had committed minor offenses. Grade II for persons who had committed major offenses but were thought subject to correction, while those beyond the pale were sent to grade III camps, the "bone mills" which one rarely left alive. This classification was of course, a relative concept; a former inmate of Dachau would regard it a gruesome joke to be told he had resided in a grade I concentration camp. The best that can be said is that his catastrophe might have been worse in Mauthausen, which was for grade III prisoners. In any event, later developments apparently necessitated deviations from the classification plan. Inmates were transferred from one camp to another solely according to their working capabilities and the needs of the economic enterprises run by the WVHA. As to the number of concentration camps and inmates during the war period, it is only possible to give approximate figures. In April 1944 the defendant Pohl informed Himmler that there were 20 concentration camps and 165 labor camps in the Reich and German occupied territory. A postscript to this letter in Pohl's handwriting boastfully states that: "In Eicke's time there were altogether six camps. Now: 185!" But even those figures are apt to be misleading as there were dozens of outside camps surrounding the so-called "mother camp". In the case of Mauthausen, for example, Camp Commander Ziereiss estimated that there were 45 outside camps. Among the large camps centrally administered by the WVHA were Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Lublin, Mauthausen, Natzweiler, Neuengamme, Ravensbrueck, and Stutthof. It is interesting to note that war crimes trials have been held with respect to most of those camps. Figures on the number of concentration camp inmates are even more difficult. Here one must distinguish between the total number of prisoners present in the camps at a given date and the total number delivered to the camps during the Nazi regime. It is known that in August 1944 there were approximately 524,000 inmates of whom 145,000 were women. But the same document shows that an additional 610,000 persons were on their way to concentration camps. Some 400,000 of these were Poles from Warsaw, which shortly before had risen in arms against the German occupation force. Another 150,000 were Jews from Hungary and the Lodz ghetto, and 15,000 Poles from the Government General, 10,000 "convicts" from the Eastern territories, 17,000 Polish officers, and 20,000 Frenchmen. As to the total number of prisoners delivered to the camps, only a reasonable estimate can be made. If the number of dead at Auschwitz alone is considered, amounting to at least 3.5 million, it is safe to assume that no less than 10 million human beings were at one time or another incarcerated in a concentration camp. Much could be said about the horrible living conditions of concentration camps and the proof of the prosecution will leave no doubt that the prisoners were subjected to systematic cruelty. One former inmate has stated that there stood invisible over the camp gate, the inscription from Dante's inferno:
The cold statistics of death rates in concentration camps show an utter lack of hygienic conditions. In September 1943 the defendant Pohl reported to Himmler that the natural death rate for the last 6 months of 1942 averaged 9.89 percent per month. Such figures of course, in no way reflect the agonies of slow death through starvation and overwork. In April 1945, a committee of the Congress of the United States made an official investigation of the conditions in concentration camps of Buchenwald, Nordhausen, and Dachau shortly after they had been overrun by the American armies. The report submitted by the committee contained the following conclusions:
The International Military Tribunal in Case No. 1, made the following findings of fact in its judgment on pages 16896-7 of the English transcript (3):
Medical ExperimentsI come now to a very special group of crimes committed in concentration camps under the guise of medical science. Throughout the whole period of the war, medical experiments were performed on thousands of inmates with a wanton disregard for human life. It is an impossible task for the prosecution adequately to portray the tortures to which those helpless human beings were subjected. In these crimes, the WVHA was an essential party of the conspiracy, a conspiracy which embraced leaders of the military and civilian medical services of the German Reich. It was only through the SS, the WVHA with its control over concentration camps, that the human experimental material could be obtained. A number of the doctors who performed these criminal experiments are now on trial before Military Tribunal I, but in this dock sits the man and his confederates who made the human guinea pigs available, to be kept naked for 14 hours in freezing weather, infected with typhus, and the like. (4) Euthanasia (Action "14 f 13")I pass now to a phase of mass extermination implemented by the concentration camp structure, the so-called euthanasia program. On the opening day of the invasion of Poland, 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler charged Professor Karl Brandt, at that time his escort physician, and Philipp Bouhler, the chief of the Private Chancellery of the Fuehrer, with the task of organizing and executing a program for the extermination of persons considered incurably ill. The timing of the program with the initiation of a war of aggression was, of course, not a coincidence. By the elimination of insane, aged, and incurable persons, as well as deformed children, it was hoped to make more medical personnel and hospital facilities available for war casualties. It is equally clear that this program implemented the basic Nazi doctrines of race, blood, and State; only those persons who could strengthen the Nordic race and the Third Reich were considered worthy of life. Hence, those who were weak in mind or body, who were unable to work, who were "useless eaters" were systematically and ruthlessly killed. As a result of the Fuehrer order, a large and somewhat complicated organization was established to carry out the euthanasia program. Since we are here concerned with euthanasia only insofar as it touches the concentration camps and the jurisdiction of the WVHA, the over-all operation of the program can be sketched in broad strokes. Questionnaires were sent to the Ministry of Interior purporting to report the condition of each patient in the various mental institutions. These questionnaires were submitted to socalled experts in the euthanasia organization who (without so much as having seen the patient) passed sentence on life or death. Then a list was made up of the patients who were judged as "positive" cases and these patients were removed from the asylum to collecting centers and from there were transferred to euthanasia stations and killed. The executions were carried out without the consent of the relatives and, of course, without the consent of the victim. Falsified death notices with stereotype wording were sent to the relatives. The entire procedure was carried out under elaborate code names in an effort to insure secrecy. However, this proved to be quite impossible and the program was common knowledge throughout Germany. Indeed, public opinion and particularly that of the church was effective enough to bring about a temporary stop in the general program in the autumn of 1941. The heartful protest by thousands of decent Germans against this wholesale murder is exemplified in a letter written by the Bishop of Limburg to the Ministry of Justice in 1941, when he said:
This case is concerned with the euthanasia program because thousands of prisoners of all nationalities were transported from the concentration camps to euthanasia stations and murdered there. It is also true that camp doctors systematically killed inmates who were no longer able to work under the pretense that they were insane. These killings were usually accomplished by injections of phenol or gasoline. The executions were carried out under the code name "14 f 13" which apparently was derived from a file number in Amtsgruppe D of the WVHA. That office played an essential role in the operation of the program. Thus, on 10 December 1941, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps sent a letter to the camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenberg, Gross-Rosen, Neuengamme and Niederhagen advising them that the doctors' commission would visit the concentration camps in the near future to select prisoners for "special treatment 14 f 13" and enclosing the usual form of questionnaire used in the euthanasia program. The camp doctors were directed to complete questionaires on eligible prisoners in order to shorten the work of the doctors commission. Exactly five days later, the camp doctors at Gross-Rosen had selected 293 inmates as eligible for screening by the doctors' commission. These unfortunate people were carefully listed under such headings as "Poles or Czechs in Protective Custody," "Shirkers," "Jews in Protective Custody," "Jews who were Habitual Criminals," "Jews who were shirkers," "Jews who Defiled the Race." A Jew who defiled the race was one who had married or had sexual intercourse with an Aryan. This list was sent to the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, which in turn wrote Gross-Rosen to expect a Dr. Mennecke on 16 January 1942 who would make the final selection. Dr. Mennecke was one of the so-called experts in the euthanasia program who was commissioned to visit concentration camps. He was recently tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by a German court for his part in the program. He was brought to Nuernberg and testified for the prosecution in the case against Karl Brandt et al. Of the 293 inmates listed as eligible by the camp management at Gross-Rosen, 214 were selected for extermination by Dr. Mennecke and no less than 51 of those were of Polish or Czech nationality. A further substantial number were Jews of non-German nationality. Our proof will show that 127 of those prisoners were sent to the Bernburg euthanasia station and exterminated, 36 died before the transport left Gross-Posen, and of the remainder, 42 were not transported because as a result of a thirty-day rest, they were again able to work. This speedy recovery of the 42 inmates selected for extermination brought forth a reprimand from the WVHA. On 26 March 1942, Liebehenschel, chief of Amt D I, wrote to the camp commanders as follows:
It is thus apparent that the euthanasia program had as its main purpose the execution of those no longer able to work. However, it was also used as a means for the extermination of Jews. This is clearly shown in the method of selecting Jews. The physical examination of Aryan inmates was certainly no more than perfunctory but as to Jewish inmates there was no examination whatever. In November 1941, Dr. Mennecke wrote to his wife concerning the euthanasia examinations in Buchenwald as follows:
The reasons for arrest which were considered as sufficient to justify exterminating Jews are also illuminating. We will present to the Tribunal a series of pictures of 63 Jews who were selected in Buchenwald. Dr. Mennecke wrote the reasons for arrest on the back of each of these pictures. One Jewess was noted as having a "derogatory attitude toward the Reich; continuous race defilement by keeping her Jewish descent a secret and rendering the Hitler salute." Another had made "incredibly impudent and spiteful remarks toward Germans; on the train made acquaintance of soldiers coming from the front, introducing herself as Jewess, gave them bread for coffee and cocoa, then insulted the soldiers in the meanest possible way." A third was said to be an "anti-German eastern Jew agitator; in the camp, lazy, impudent, recalcitrant." This murderous program continued long after the WVHA had assumed jurisdiction over the concentration camps. From the middle of 1943 the selections were supposed to be limited to insane inmates unable to work. On 27 April 1943 Gluecks, chief of Amtsgruppe D, sent the following order to the concentration camps:
The prosecution will present evidence on the operation of the euthanasia program in the Buchenwald, Dachau, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen and Natzweiler concentration camps. These invalid transports were a thing of terror to all inmates as they were frequently used by the camp management as a means of disposing of prisoners considered to be undesirable. It appears that the extermination stations of Bernburg and Hartheim were the principle centers for killing prisoners. Frank Ziereiss, former commander of Mauthausen, estimated that at least 20,000 prisoners were executed at Hartheim over a period of one and one-half years. The criminality of the euthanasia program as it operated in the Third Reich presents no novel question of law. The International Military Tribunal found that it involved the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity and I quote from the judgment, pages 169117 of the English transcript (5):
Slave LaborMR. ROBBINS: A primary phase of National Socialist policy which permeated every level of Party and government, from the highest to the lowest, was that of enslaving peoples and exploiting their labors and energies. This policy of labor exploitation was emphasized in many of Hitler's speeches. His declaration on 9 November 1941 - quoted in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal - is typical. There he boasted that 250 million men lived in the territory which worked solely for Germany, and that the territory which worked indirectly for Germany contained 350 million men. "It is not doubtful," Hitler said, "that we shall succeed in harnessing the very last man to our work." In Himmler's now infamous Poznan speech on 4 October 1943 the attitude of the SS toward Germany's slave laborers was strikingly related, and I quote:
It was appropriate that the most unmerciful and satanic part of the slave labor program that carried out in the concentration camps should have been entrusted to Oswald Pohl and the members of the WVHA. The various precursors of the WVHA, with the help of Pohl and others of the defendants, had proved their ability to exploit the inmates of concentration camps. As early as 1939 Himmler ordered that supervision over economic matters and use of inmate labor should be under Pohl, although administration of camps at that time was still under the Concentration Camp Inspectorate. In 1939 also, the defendant Mummenthey was made business manager of the DEST industry which was one of the most lethal employers of concentration camp inmates. In 1940 he argued vigorously, on the basis of his experience, that the DEST industry should remain an enterprise operated with inmate labor only. Volk, too, as well as others of the defendants, had thoroughly mastered the economics of slave labor. By the time Pohl's group was reorganized in February 1942, they had developed a science of exhausting the last effort of those whose productive capacity was so pitifully small from malnutrition and mistreatment. When the WVHA assumed complete jurisdiction over the concentration camps, Pohl wrote to Himmler explaining his plans for the utilization of inmate labor:
The order by Pohl referred to in the letter to Himmler, was addressed to all concentration camp commanders and work managers and contained the following provisions:
Every means, except humane treatment, was employed by the defendants to extract every effort to the last gasp of the workers before they died, as they did by the thousands, from overwork; "employment must be in the true sense of the word exhaustive," "there is no limit to working hours," "sentries on horseback and watchdogs are to be used." In the SS industries, in stone quarries gravel pits, coal mines, underground armament plants, construction brigades, and camp workshops the laborers weltered in their bloody misery. The labor economics of the defendants was not, however, designed simply to produce work, for had it been, far more could have been achieved by decent treatment of the workers. But an equally important purpose of the SS, as a criminal organization, and of the WVHA, as an essential element of the SS, was the annihilation of so-called inferior peoples. Thousands were marked as subhuman and thereby slated for death for being Jews and poles. But before they were to die they were to be driven, degraded, and damnified until death was a merciful delivery. Under the WVHA the typical concentration camp was not actually an extermination camp nor a labor camp, for either purposes could have been carried out quicker and much more efficiently. But they were the cruelest and most fiendish combination both of which could be devised by these defendants. Impossible physical exertion extracted under the whip of a mounted guard provided torture and ultimately death. This dichotomy in purpose of the slave labor program is also shown by the fact that senseless and useless labor, without any constructive purpose, was carried out continuously in the camps. Walls and even entire buildings were erected only to be torn down the following day, again to be rebuilt on the next. Prisoners were forced to carry huge rocks from one place to another, and on the following day to carry them back again. Contradictory purposes - profit and production, on the one hand, and torture and murder, on the other - made the search for manpower one of the most important parts of the concentration camp labor program. In the work details both inside and outside the concentration camps, every inmate was utilized political and criminal prisoners, the sick, the lame, those who had already been exhausted from overwork, clergymen, prisoners of war, women, and children. As an illustration, the fact that one-third of the workers in the SS industries were sick was put forward by one of the WVHA officials as an objection to a proposed increase in the charges for concentration camp labor. A file memorandum of 24 April 1944 on this subject stated:
Priests of Polish and Lithuanian nationality were worked and used on all kinds of labor pursuant to an order of Himmler. However, the order mercifully provided that German, Dutch, and Norwegian priests were to be employed only in gardening work. But, even gardening work in the concentration camps was deadly and consisted primarily of carrying stone and earth. Workers were forced to carry tremendous loads, on the double, under the constant scrutiny of guards. Dogs were set upon those who fell behind. Many were shot while working; many others died from beatings and attacks by the dogs. Nevertheless, gardening was considered one of the better assignments. Simply to obtain another source of slave labor, prisoners of war were placed in concentration camps upon the slightest pretext. An order of Mueller of 30 March 1943 provided that escaped Russian prisoners of war were to be sent to concentration camps if they stole bread at night while making their escape. By 1944 no reason whatever was given in many cases for transferring prisoners of war into the custody of the WVHA other than that workers were needed. As an example, Himmler sent the following telegram to SS Gruppenfuehrer Fegelein on 6 August 1944:
Under the most inhumane conditions prisoners of war were used in munitions factories, coal mines, and stone quarries. On 30 September 1944, Himmler officially recognized the extensive use of prisoners of war by the WVHA and ordered that their mobilization would be coordinated with Pohl and Berger in joint action with the then existing labor mobilization offices. The work of women and children was also a part of the labor program of the WVHA. On 6 January 1943, Himmler wrote to Pohl as follows:
Women were used in the most exacting labor, and even in the deadly construction commandos, pursuant to Pohl's request. On 4 May 1944 Pohl sent the following telegram to Himmler:
Himmler replied:
The ever-present problem for the WVHA was to obtain replacements as fast as the inmates were killed or disabled in the work program. It is an almost unbelievable fact that workers were killed by overwork, mistreatment, and malnutrition at such a rate that it was impossible for the apprehension agencies to replenish the workers as fast as they died. Rudolf Hoess, chief of Amt D I, has estimated that in the industries with particularly severe working conditions, as in the mines, 20 percent of the workers each month either died at their work or were sent back for extermination because of inability to work. The dilemma became so acute that the chief of the Security Police and SD made the following complaint to Pohl in December 1942:
Similarly, in the same month, the medical office of the WVHA, Amt D III, complained in a letter to the camp doctors of all the concentration camps:
On 20 August 1942, the camp physician at Buchenwald made the following request in the interest of saving paper:
One source of concentration camp inmates was the Reich Ministry of Justice. On 18 September 1942 Himmler and the Minister of Justice conferred at Himmler's field command post. A captured file memorandum by the minister records that one of the items of agreement was that certain prisoners should be delivered by the Ministry of Justice to the SS to be worked to death. On this point, the memorandum reads:
Shortly after this conference the minister wrote to Reichsleiter Bormann:
Theoretically, the RSHA had jurisdiction over internment of inmates, length of sentence, and release from the camp. In practice, however, the economic purposes of the WVHA prevailed over the punitive objectives of the RSHA. Release of workers who were employed at so-called "important work locations" was first cleared with the WVHA. SS victims were sent to the camps by the thousands without any regard for penal consideration and for no other purpose than increasing the number of slave laborers. Socalled inferior races were herded into the camps by the thousands without any pretext of charges. As an example, Himmler wrote to Gluecks, in January 1942, as follows:
In the summer of 1942, Russian workers were transferred to concentration camps in such numbers that the WVHA, with all of its bookkeeping facilities, was unable to keep a record even by serial number of their arrival or transfer. On 1 August 1942, the chief of Amtsgruppe D sent the following order to the commanders of concentration camps:
It is obvious that the absence of individual records of the prisoners made administration of any penal policy impossible whether the end be reformation, deterrence, or even incapacitation. * * * * * * * The WVHA was connected intimately in a variety of ways with the cruelty, torture, and murders which particularly characterized the slave labor program in the building of armaments Both Amtsgruppe C, in charge of construction, and Amtsgruppe W, in charge of the SS industries, were engaged in the actual construction of armaments, and each had its own munitions program, using inmate labor supplied by Amtsgruppe D on a gigantic scale. In addition, the WVHA supplied thousands of workers to private industries engaged in the manufacturing of armaments Finally, the WVHA worked in close cooperation with the highest Reich officials in the armament program Goering, Speer, Sauckel, (6) Saur, and Waeger. I shall briefly refer to each of these phases of armament construction. Amtsgruppe C, under Kammler and his deputies, Eirenschmalz, Kiefer and Busching, not only constructed plants for other agencies on a gigantic scale but in addition Kammler was given overall authority for producing V-1 and V-2 weapons at concentration camp Nordhausen-Dora. The giant munitions plant was constructed underground to escape allied bombings and was located on the outskirts of Nordhausen, 125 miles southwest of Berlin Approximately 80,000 slave laborers were used at Dora and they were forced to work, eat, and sleep in the darkness of the subterranean tunnels, and were driven 14 hours a day along the 31 miles of railroad track in the underground factories. The tempo of work was deadly and the living conditions unbearable. Literally thousands of inmates were murdered on this project. One transport of unfortunates after another left Buchenwald and nearby camps for Dora never to return. The V weapons were a specialty of the SS and of the WVHA and were constructed upon the lives of those foreigners whose countries were to be destroyed by them. Amtsgruppe W, under the supervision of the defendants Pohl, Georg Loerner, Baier, Volk, and Mummenthey, also used inmate labor on a wide scale and under the most inhumane conditions in manufacturing armaments in its Amt IV plants, which were located in almost every camp under the WVHA, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Lublin, Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof. As an example, in plants of the DEST industry, directly managed by the defendant Mummenthey of Amt W II, airplane parts were manufactured by inmates at Flossenberg and Mauthausen, planes were assembled by inmates at Hertogenbosch, and air torpedoes were welded by inmates at Natzweiler. More detailed reference will be made to these firms in the discussion of the SS industries. Private armament firms, as well as many other types of industries, were supplied with laborers from concentration camps by Amtsgruppe D. One of the largest private employers was the I.G. Farbenindustrie, which was given priority on prisoners for its Buna plant over all other armament plants. At Goering's request eight to ten thousand inmates were used in constructing the Buna plant in 1941. The largest labor camp in Auschwitz, containing 7,000 inmates, was attached to the Farben plant. Numerous other Farben plants were also supplied with inmate labor by Amtsgruppe [Amt] D II. Hermann Goering Works, Krupp, Siemens-Schuckert, and Flick were also among the large employers of inmates Close liaison was maintained by order of Speer among the highest officials in the Reich Ministry for Armament and War Production, the Office of the Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor, Sauckel, and the WVHA. The policy of the WVHA was to allocate concentration camp labor through the former agencies in groups of not less than 1,000 male inmates or 5,000 female inmates. If one concern was not able to use an entire lot of inmates, several collectively applied for the allocation. The WVHA also worked in close cooperation with Saur, the head of the technical office of armament production in the Speer Ministry, in building tank engines for the Jaeger program, and with members of the Central Planning Board in building armament plants. Fifteen extensive plans for the construction of subterranean plants for the airplane industry were carried out by Amtsgruppe C with concentration camp prisoners in cooperation with the Armament Commission and the Plenipotentiary General for Construction in the Reich Aviation Ministry. In March 1944, in a top secret letter to Reich Marshal Goering, Himmler summarized the activities of the WVHA in the aviation industry. Himmler's letter read as follows:
Continuing the quotation from Himmler's letter to Goering:
Still reading from Himmler's letter to Goering:
In addition to the double role which Amtsgruppe C played in the armament industry, it was responsible for two other model achievements in construction; the construction of concentration camps and crematoriums cold, damp, vermin-infected huts, and well-constructed murder chambers which extended for blocks. The existence of the crematoriums was a closely-guarded secret and the camp commander of Mauthausen concentration camp has related that an order existed to the effect that every 3 weeks the detail of inmates working in the crematorium was to be shot. Another project under Amtsgruppe C was the construction of a secret Fuehrer headquarters near Ohrdruf. The project was known by the code name S III. The defendant Sommer himself went to Buchenwald to select the inmates for this important work. The strength of the project, which was commenced in November 1944, reached 13,000 by 27 March 1945 and hundreds of inmates were killed by overwork and mistreatment. Various other construction projects were carried out by Amtsgruppe C. The so-called "A" projects were underground work detachments, designated A-1, A-2, A-3, etc. Construction of these projects included the enormous undertaking of moving the munitions industries underground and cost the lives of thousands of inmates. The "B" projects were surface work details. "S" projects were secret building detachments, such as the one at Ohrdruf, and the "V" projects already described, involved production of secret weapons. Amtsgruppe C was the largest user of concentration camp inmates. Kammler was constantly on the search for new manpower for his construction brigades. On 10 February 1942 he wrote to Gluecks, chief of Amtsgruppe D:
The evidence will show that the defendants Eirenschmalz and Kiefer, as members of the Amtsgruppe C, played a vital part in this construction program and are responsible for the mistreatment, torture, and murder of untold hundreds of concentration camps inmates The SS IndustriesOne of Himmler's principal ambitions for the WVHA was that it would eventually make the SS economically independent, both from the State and from the Party. The SS was to become a "state within a state" industrially and commercially, as well as politically and militarily. Here again as in other aspects of German life, the basis of industrial organization was to be the National Socialist philosophy. The economic system of this elite group was to be based upon racial and political selection, reinforced by military organization, and individually motivated by a characteristically corrupted conscience and a desire for personal enrichment. The cornerstone of the new economic order was to be slave labor and spoliation exploitation, and even extermination through work of so-called inferior people; and expropriation of valuable industries in the occupied countries. The development of the SS industries was entrusted to Amtsgruppe W of the WVHA. The Amtsgruppe was designated "W" from "Wirtschaft" which means economy. The importance of Amtsgruppe W was emphasized by the fact that Pohl and his deputy, Georg Loerner, were themselves directly in charge of the Amtsgruppe and were principal managers of the parent holding company, German Economic Enterprises, Ltd., commonly known as DWB. However, the operation of the SS industries was both too intensive and too extensive to be supervised to any substantial degree by Pohl and Loerner. The bulk of the supervising work was carried on by members of staff W including Hohberg, Baier, and Volk, and the chiefs of the Aemter, including Mummenthey Bobermin, and Klein. These were the men of commerce of the new order the elite industrialists. It was their goal to carry the economics of business efficiency to the Nazi terminus. Fanatical Nazis turned into fanatical businessmen, and their business was profit for the SS state and for themselves through the fraudulent income of the SS industries. In order that German economic life could be recast and rebuilt on the SS pattern, entrepreneurs were trained in the WVHA industries, and schools for business administration were established where SS principles of commerce were taught. The defendant Baier, later to become the chief of staff W, was in charge of such a school, known as the "Junkerschule Toelz" and as the "SS Fuehrerschule-Verwaltung". Indeed, one of the most enlightening of the captured WVHA documents is a memorandum which was to be used by the defendant Fanslau as material for a lecture in the SS training schools and which explains the political and economic rationale of the SS industries. The memorandum was submitted to Fanslau on behalf of the defendant Volk, legal advisor to Pohl and member of staff W. It explains that the purpose of the SS industries was "to get hold of all anti-social elements, which no longer had a right to live within the National Socialist state, and to turn their working strength to the benefit of the whole nation. This was effected in the concentration camps. The Reich Leader SS, therefore, delegated SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl to set up concentration camp enterprises, in addition he gave orders to establish companies on a private economy basis for the purpose of employing the prisoners. "National Socialism maintains this point of view: The State gives orders to the benefit of economy, economy. The State does not exist for the but economy exists for the benefit of the State." * * * * * * * Brief examination of the organization of Amtsgruppe W and of its several Aemter will illustrate how closely connected were each of the industries with the administration of the concentration camps and the slave labor program, and how closely their purposes coincided with those of the SS state. The structure of Amtsgruppe W was based upon Pohl's conception of military organization and the Fuehrerprinzip. The individual economic enterprises maintained by the SS were headed by the Offices W I to W VIII. They in turn, were subordinate to staff W, which was responsible to the chief and deputy chief of the Amtsgruppe. Viewing Amtsgruppe W from the standpoint of private economy, into which the SS industries had to be fitted for purposes of commercial law, registration, and taxation, the parent holding company, the German Economic Enterprises, Ltd., commonly known as DWB, stood at the head of the various W industries Within the DWB, Pohl was managing director and Georg Loerner was second managing director. The defendant Volk was executive manager. The chief of staff W held the position of economic adviser to the managing director. He had immediate supervision over the directors of the DWB, the auditing and legal departments, tax affairs, and questions concerning plant management. All communications to the highest Party offices, ministries, and central authorities had to go through the chief of staff W. This position was occupied by the defendant Hohberg until August 1943, thereafter by the defendant Baier. The chief of each of the eight Aemter occupied the position of assistant to the managing director and was the principal member of the board of directors of the companies under the control of his particular Amt. Pohl, as the managing director of the DWB, had the power of appointment and dismissal of the chiefs and deputy chiefs of the Aemter, and had exclusive power to establish, acquire, sell, and dissolve subsidiaries; and to appoint and dismiss managers and members of the boards of directors of the subsidiary companies. The code of procedure, or bylaws, of the DWB was binding upon each of its subsidiaries in which it had a direct or indirect share of 50 percent of the capital and upon all enterprises under the administration of the WVHA. The organization of this giant combine and of its subsidiaries was designed to achieve a synthesis of the theories of industrial management with the principles of Party, State, and military organization. In addition to the duties of staff W, which have already been mentioned, control and management of five subsidiary industries was the direct responsibility of this group. These were, in addition to the Ostindustry, which will be dealt with in connection with the part it played in the Jewish extermination program the Public Utility Dwelling and Homestead Ltd., Dachau (Gemeinnuetzige Wohnungs- und Heimstaetten GmbH), House and Real Estate Ltd., Berlin (Haus- und Grundbesitz GmbH), and German Medicines Ltd., Prague (Deutsche Heilmittel GmbH). A fifth company, the Sales Office of Berlin Furniture Factory Ltd. (Verkaufsstelle Berliner Moebelwerkstaetten GmbH), was liquidated in 1943. Additionally, it was the function of staff W to collaborate with Amtsgruppe D in negotiating for, appraising and acquiring sites for concentration camps in which DAW plants were to be located. Typical of this function of staff W was the negotiation by the defendant Volk for the site for concentration camp Stutthof. Also typical was an arrangement by the defendant Hohberg, as chief of staff W, for participation by the WVHA with the Hermann Goering Works in establishing a klinker factory at Linz. Hohberg, in this instance, arranged for the raw material to be supplied by the Hermann Goering Works and for the WVHA to build the factory and supply the inmates from the concentration camp Mauthausen; the profits were to be divided equally between the Goering Works and the WVHA. Participation by Mummenthey, as chief of Amt W I, and representatives from Amtsgruppe C and D in these particular negotiations illustrate the close cooperation among all the officials of the WVHA. Staff W also assisted Pohl in determining the amount which each of the SS industries was to set aside for payment for the use of concentration camp labor. Each SS industry put aside an amount ranging from 30 pfennigs to 5 Reichsmarks per day, ostensibly to be used as prisoner's wages. However, it was never even considered that the inmate should receive any part of the sum. "Legally" such "wages" belonged to the Reich treasury. Various schemes, however, were utilized by staff W to enable the WVHA illegally to retain a substantial part of the funds. A file memorandum dated 23 March 1944 by the defendant Baier, at that time chief of staff W, states Pohl's attitude on this matter: "The Hauptamtschef emphasized that he doesn't aim at letting the entire amount paid by the employer for the prisoner go to the Reich, but that part of it could serve other purposes." Amtsgruppe D employed the same fraudulent methods in charging private firms for the use of inmate labor. Up to 8 RM was collected, but only a fraction turned over to the Reich. One of the bookkeeping methods adopted by some of the SS industries for the purpose of evading their obligation to surrender their excess profits to the Reich was to increase the charge to themselves for inmate labor, to pay approximately half this amount to the Reich, and to set up the balance in an account called "Reserve for Prisoners' Wages". By this device the industries increased their apparent expenses for wages, thereby reducing their excess profits and the amount which they transmitted to the Reich. In a confidential profit analysis of the W industries, Dr. Wenner, an executive manager of the DWB, rationalized this system of bookkeeping as follows: "In case the Reich or the corresponding Reich offices do not intend to realize this claim, a trustee of the DWB will take over the administration of these amounts in the trustee section. The control of these amounts rests with SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl in his capacity of representative of the Reich. * * * The only difference is that payment of taxes and surrender of profits will fall to the tax collector's office, while a payment of the amounts to the trustee account will leave the control of the amounts in the hands of the SS WVHA." These were the elite economists and plant managers who were chosen on the basis of race and blood and their readiness to give their lives for the Reich. Instances of sordid practices could be multiplied from looting the inmates of their money, watches, blankets, and clothing, to the spoliation of great industries in the occupied countries. As an instance, the camp commander at Mauthausen has explained how in one of the camps, approximately a thousand inmates who had been engravers and lithographers by profession were used in the manufacturing of counterfeit foreign bank notes and identification papers and seals from all over the world. At Dachau and Mauthausen, human skin of dead prisoners was used to make lamp shades, saddles, riding britches, gloves, house slippers, and ladies' hand bags. Tattooed skin was particularly valued by the SS men. The WVHA even illegally appropriated laborers who were consigned to the Plenipotentiary General for Labor Allocation [Sauckel] and who had been recruited through "Action Sauckel" in the East as so-called free laborers. This occurred when transports from the East were sent by mistake to the concentration camps. Needless to say, the entire transport in almost every instance was kept in the concentration camp. What was the gain of the WVHA was Sauckel's loss, and that of the new emigre. Even the execution and cremation of their victims became a matter of marks and pfennigs. A typical bill rendered by the commander of the concentration camp Natzweiler to the Security Police and SD reads as follows:
But perhaps the most sordid income of the WVHA was derived from the house of prostitution operated in the camps. An order by Pohl, dated 13 April 1943, provided that visitors to the brothels would be charged 2 RM, and that from this amount, the woman would receive 45 pfennigs and the matron 5 pfennigs. The remainder of 1.50 RM, or 75 percent of the proceeds, went to the WVHA. These were the businessmen of the SS. I now turn to a brief description of the industries under the individual Aemter. Amt W I, under the defendant Mummenthey, was in charge of stone and earthworks within the Reich. The largest industry under this Amt was the German Earth and Stone Works, Ltd. commonly known as DEST. The DEST concern operated granite quarries in Mauthausen, Flossenberg, Gross-Rosen, and Natzweiler, a stone preparation plant at Oranienburg, a gravel dredging pit at Auschwitz, and brick factories at various camps. The DEST industry was organized in 1938 and was under the control of Mummenthey after September 1939. The preamble to its table of organization stated that it was to employ inmates from the concentration camps in the production of building material. The importance of this enterprise was emphasized by an order of Hitler in 1941 that the DEST industry, by the end of the war, should supply an amount of granite in excess of that supplied before the war by all German stone quarries combined; and by order of Himmler to Pohl to train 5,000 stonemasons and 10,000 bricklayers. Assignment to work in the DEST stone quarries was one of the most dreaded of the details. Prisoners were forced to attempt impossible tasks, such as pulling heavy carts up steep hills and carrying heavy stone. Every evening many invalid and severely injured workers were brought into the camp on stretchers. Thousands were killed by overwork, falling stones, beatings, shootings, deliberate pushing into the abyss, and other sports of the guards Also under the defendant Mummenthey were the Bohemia Ceramic Works, Ltd., and the Porcelain Factory Allach-Munich, Ltd., both using concentration camp labor on a large scale. The extent to which the latter industry relied upon prison labor is illustrated by a novel request which it made to staff W. In a letter of 22 December 1943, an official of the porcelain factory stated that the company had suffered a loss of 10,500 RM because, for a period of five weeks, it had been unable to obtain inmates from the Dachau concentration camp due to a typhus epidemic in that camp. Advancing a unique theory of contract liability, the official claimed that because the porcelain company relied exclusively upon concentration camp labor, staff W should reimburse the company for its loss. Amt W II, under the defendant Bobermin, was established to operate the confiscated stone and earthworks in the East. As early as May 1940 Bobermin, as chief of what was then office III A II of the WVHA, was in charge of stone industries in the East. The defendant Volk was Bobermin's deputy at that time. In a report for the year 1940, Volk described the early activities of the WVHA in the East:
The Golleschauer Portland-Zement AG, under Amt W II was the first of the cement factories in the hands of the SS. It produced 200,000 tons yearly, and used inmates from the concentration camp Auschwitz. The cement company, together with two other large firms operating earth and stoneworks, glazed tile factories, lime and chalk factories in the East, were subsidiaries of Clinker Cement Ltd., which was in turn a subsidiary of DWB. Bobermin well described his activities in a letter to Himmler which he drafted in July 1941 for Pohl's signature. It read in part:
Bobermin's methods in acquiring Eastern earthworks are illustrated in a letter to Pohl on 2 April 1944, advocating that Amt W II take over the tileworks of Bonarka: [NO-1006, Pros. Ex. 449.]
The evidence will also show in addition that part of the funds obtained from the infamous "Action Reinhardt," to be described at a later point, were placed at Bobermin's disposal. Office W III comprised the so-called nutrition firms and supplied provisions for concentration camps and troops. They too, used inmate labor and had operating branches in Oranienburg, Dachau, Auschwitz, Lublin, and in other camps. Office W IV, under May and Opperbeck, controlled one of the largest SS enterprises, the German Equipment Works, commonly known as DAW. This firm originated in the concentration camp workshops and was placed under Pohl's administration as early as 1936. During the war it was engaged principally in armament production and had branches in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Lublin, Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, and other camps. Also included in office W IV were other large industries using inmate labor in the production of armaments. Office W V was engaged in the utilization of concentration camp labor in agriculture, forestries, and fisheries. The scope of its activities was greatly enlarged by the acquisition of large fertile territories in the East. Farming, lumbering, and fisheries in Russia, farming and stock breeding in Poland, all became a part of SS economics under office W V. The principal task of office W VI was the operation of textile and leather plants in the concentration camp Ravensbrueck. Clothing for inmates and troops was manufactured there. An adequate explanation of the activities of Amt W VII is found in Fanslau's lecture material quoted earlier:
The activities of the defendant Klein and his special tasks office (W VIII) have been dealt with earlier when it was pointed out that his enterprises used concentration camp labor under the most cruel and inhuman conditions. The evidence will show that in spite of the ostensibly cultural purpose and nature of hi projects, the defendant Klein, as well as the other defendants, was responsible for the death of numerous inmates. In the SS industries, production and profit were valued far more highly than hum |
