USA v. Pohl et. al - The Indictment
(January 13, 1947)
I. Indictment
The United States of America, by the undersigned Telford
Taylor, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, duly appointed to represent
said Government in the prosecution of war criminals, charges that the
defendants herein participated in a common design or conspiracy to commit
and did commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as defined in Control Council Law No. 10,
duly enacted by the Allied Control Council on 20 December 1945. These
crimes included murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities,
deportations, enslavement, forced labor, plunder of property, and other
inhumane and unlawful acts, as set forth in counts one, two, and three
of this indictment. All but one of the defendants herein are further
charged with membership in a criminal organization; as set forth in
count four of this indictment.
The persons accused as guilty of these crimes and accordingly
named as defendants in this case are
OSWALD POHL-
Obergruppenfuehrer in the Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen
Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as the "SS") and
General of the Waffen SS (Lieutenant General); Chief of the SS Economic
and Administrative Main Department [Office] (SS Wirtschaftsund Verwaltungshauptamt,
commonly known as "WVHA") and chief of Division W of the WVHA.
AUGUST FRANK - Obergruppenfuehrer in the SS and General
of the Waffen SS (Lieutenant General); Deputy Chief of the WVHA and
chief of Division A of the WVHA.
GEORG LOERNER - Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant
of the Waffen SS (Major General); Deputy Chief of the WVHA, chief of
Division B of the WVHA, and deputy chief of Division W of the WVHA.
HEINZ KARL FANSLAU - Brigadefuehrer in the SS and Generalmajor
of the Waffen SS (Brigadier General); chief of Division A of the WVHA.
HANS LOERNER - SS Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) and
chief of Office I of Division A of the WVHA.
JOSEF VOGT - SS Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) and chief
of Office IV of Division A of the WVHA.
ERWIN TSCHENTSCHER - SS Standartenfuehrer (Colonel);
deputy chief of Division B and chief of Office I of Division B of the
WVHA.
RUDOLF SCHEIDE - SS Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) and
chief of office V of Division B of the WVHA.
MAX KIEFER - SS Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lieutenant Colonel)
and chief of Office II of Division C of the WVHA.
FRANZ EIRENSCHMALZ - SS Standartenfuehrer (Colonel)
and chief of Office VI of Division C of the WVHA.
KARL SOMMER - SS Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) and deputy
chief of Office II of Division D of the WVHA.
HERMANN POOK - Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lieutenant Colonel)
of the Waffen SS and chief dentist of the WVHA, of Office III, Division
D.
HANS HEINRICH BAIERSS - Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel)
and Amtschef Stab (executive officer) of Division W of the WVHA.
HANS HOHBERG - Amtschef Stab (executive officer) of
Division W of the WVHA.
LEO VOLKSS - Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain), personal
adviser (Persoenlicher Referent) on Pohl's staff, and head of legal
section (Leiter der Rechtsabteilung) in the executive office of Division
W of the WVHA.
KARL MUMMENTHEY - SS Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lieutenant
Colonel) and chief of Office I of Division W of the WVHA.
HANS BOBERMIN - SS Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lieutenant
Colonel) and chief of Office II of Division W of the WVHA.
HORST KLEIN - SS Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lieutenant Colonel)
and chief of Office VIII of Division W of the WVHA.
COUNT ONE - THE COMMON DESIGN
OR CONSPIRACY
1. Between January 1933 and April 1945 all of the
defendants herein, acting pursuant to a common design, unlawfully, willfully,
and knowingly did conspire and agree together and with each other and
with divers other persons, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,
as defined in Control Council
Law No. 10, Article II.
2. Throughout the period covered by this indictment
all of the defendants herein, acting in concert with each other and
with others, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly were principals in,
accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were
connected with plans and enterprises involving the commission of war
crimes and crimes against humanity.
3. It was a part of the said common design, conspiracy,
plans, and enterprises -
a. To formulate and carry out ways and means for
financing the Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen
Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as the "SS") and each of
its various purposes, functions, activities and enterprises.
b. To establish, maintain, operate, and administer
throughout Germany and other countries concentration camps and labor
camps in which thousands of persons, including prisoners of war, German
civilians, and nationals of other countries, were unlawfully imprisoned,
enslaved, tortured, and murdered.
c. To formulate and carry out plans to supply the
labor and services of the inmates of concentration camps to various
industries, enterprises, and undertakings throughout Germany and other
countries.
d. To furnish human subjects for criminal medical,
surgical, and biological experimentation and to assist in formulating
and carrying out the plans for such unlawful experiments.
e. To carry out the policies and purposes of the
German Reich with reference to the extermination of the Jews.
f. To carry out the policies and purposes of the
German Reich with reference to the sterilization and castration of
certain groups of peoples.
g. To carry out the policies and purposes of the
German Reich with reference to the unlawful treatment of prisoners
of war
h. To carry out the so-called "euthanasia"
program of the German Reich; and
i. To deport the citizens of countries occupied by
the armed forces of the German Reich, plundering their property and
impressing their services and labor for the German Reich.
4. Throughout the period covered by this indictment
ail of the defendants herein were associated with the Economic and Administrative
Main Department [Main Office] (Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt,
commonly known as the "WVHA"), which was one of the twelve
main departments of the SS.
5. The defendant Oswald Pohl was the head of the WVHA
and the defendants August Frank and Georg Loerner were his deputies.
The WVHA was divided into Amtsgruppen (office groups or divisions),
which were interrelated in their operations, purposes, and functions.
6. Amtsgruppe A, among other things, discharged the
responsibility for financial matters of the SS, including those relating
to its concentration camps. This Amtsgruppe was subdivided into five
offices or Aemter, which were charged with responsibility for certain
parts of the entire financial administration. The defendants August
Frank and Heinz Karl Fanslau were, successively, heads of Amtsgruppe
A. The defendants Hans Loerner, August Frank, Josef Vogt, and Heinz
Karl Fanslau were heads of offices or Aemter within this Amtsgruppe
A.
7. Amtsgruppe B, among other things, was responsible
for the supply of food and clothing for inmates of the concentration
camps, and of food, uniforms, equipment, billets, and camp quarters
for the members of the SS. It was subdivided into five offices or Aemter.
The defendant Georg Loerner was the chief of Amtsgruppe B, and the defendant
Erwin Tschentscher was his deputy and chief of one of the offices or
Aemter within this Amtsgruppe B. The defendant Rudolf Scheide was head
of an office or Amt within this Amtsgruppe B.
8. Amtsgruppe C, among other things was charged with
the construction and maintenance of houses, buildings, and structures
of the SS, the German police, and of the concentration camps and prisoner
of war camps. It was subdivided into six offices or Aemter. The defendants
Max Kiefer and Franz Eirenschmalz were heads of Aemter or offices within
this Amtsgruppe C.
9. Amtsgruppe D, which prior to March 1942 was known
as the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, was responsible, among other
things, for the administration of the concentration camps and of the
concentration camp inmates. It was responsible for the food, clothing,
housing, sanitation, and medical care of the concentration camp inmates,
and of the order, discipline, and regulation of the lives of the inmates.
It was charged with the supply of the forced services and labor of the
concentration camp inmates to public and private employers throughout
Germany and the occupied countries. It was subdivided into six offices
or Aemter. The defendant Karl Sommer was the deputy chief of one of
the offices or Aemter of Amtsgruppe D, responsible for the supply of
the services and labor of concentration camp inmates. The defendant
Hermann Pook was in charge of matters relating to dentistry affecting
the concentration camp inmates.
10. Amtsgruppe W, among other things, was responsible
for the operation and maintenance of various industrial, manufacturing,
and service enterprises throughout Germany and the occupied countries.
It was also responsible for providing clothing for concentration camp
inmates. In the operation of the enterprises under its control, this
Amtsgruppe employed many concentration camp inmates. It was subdivided
into eight offices or Aemter. The defendant Oswald Pohl as the head
of Amtsgruppe W, the defendant Georg Loerner was his deputy, and the
defendants Hans Hohberg and Hans Baier were his executive assistants.
The defendant Leo Volk was personal adviser on the staff of Oswald Pohl
and head of the legal section of the executive office of Amtsgruppe
W; and the defendants Karl Mummenthey, Hans Bobermin, and Horst Klein
were heads of offices or Aemter within this Amtsgruppe.
11. All of the defendants herein, acting in concert
with each other and with others, unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly
participated as leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices in
the formulation and execution of the said common design, conspiracy,
plans, and enterprises to commit, and which involved the commission
of war crimes and crimes against humanity and accordingly are individually
responsible for their own acts and for all acts performed by any person
or persons in execution of the said common design, conspiracy, plans,
and enterprises.
12. The said common design, conspiracy, plans, and
enterprises embraced the commission of war crimes and crimes against
humanity, as set forth in counts two and three of this indictment in
that the defendants unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly encouraged,
aided, abetted, and participated in the commission of atrocities and
offenses against persons and property, including plunder of public and
private property, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, unlawful
imprisonment, torture, and persecutions on political, racial, and religious
grounds, ill-treatment of, and other inhumane and unlawful acts against
thousands of persons, including German civilians, nationals of other
countries, and prisoners of war.
COUNT TWO - WAR CRIMES
13. Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the
defendants herein unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed war
crimes, as defined by Control
Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories
to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected
with plans and enterprises involving the commission of atrocities and
offenses against persons and property, including, but not limited to,
plunder of public and private property, murder, torture; illegal imprisonment,
and enslavement and deportation to slave labor of, and brutalities atrocities,
and other inhumane and criminal acts against thousands of persons. These
crimes embraced, but were not limited to, the particulars set out in
paragraphs 4 to 10, inclusive, of this indictment, which are incorporated
herein by reference and the acts charged in paragraphs 14 to 22, inclusive,
and were committed against the civilian populations of occupied territories
and prisoners of war.
14. The concentration camps were the principal means
through which the defendants committed the crimes charged. The WVHA
took over jurisdiction of the concentration camps in Germany and the
occupied countries and territories in the spring of 1942, and charged
with their operation, maintenance, and administration, and the establishment
of new concentration camps. It was responsible for the food, clothing,
housing, sanitation, and medical care of the inmates; for the order,
regulations, and discipline their lives; and had power to exact the
death penalty for infraction of its rules.
15. The WVHA discharged the responsibility for the
supply of the forced labor and services of concentration camp inmates
and the allotment of such supply to public and private employers throughout
Germany and the occupied countries and territories. It also forced thousands
of concentration camp inmates and other persons into employment in the
various industrial, and commercial enterprises which it operated.
16. The established policy of the WVHA was to extract
from the inmates of the concentration camps the greatest possible amount
of work with the smallest possible amount of food, clothing, housing,
sanitation, medical, and surgical services, and other necessary provisions
or facilities. This policy resulted, foreseeably, in the deaths of thousands
of people from disease or sheer physical exhaustion. For the vast majority
of inmates, there was no provision for eventual release from the concentration
camps, except through death, and little or no provision or plan for
sustaining life in those incapable of work. Epidemics of disease were
treated by killing those afflicted. As a result of this policy, the
disposal of bodies of the dead became a problem of insurmountable proportions.
17. Concentration camp inmates were transported from
one camp to another as the demands for labor and other circumstances
might require. Thousands died on these transports from over-crowding,
suffocation, hunger, thirst, cold, disease, physical exhaustion, and
treatment by the SS guards. They were often forced to march long distances
in cold weather with inadequate shoes and clothing.
18. The murders, torture, and ill-treatment charged
were carried out by the defendants by divers methods, including gassing,
shooting, hanging, whipping, beating, gross overcrowding, systematic
undernourishment, systematic imposition of labor tasks beyond the strength
of those ordered to carry them out; medical, surgical, and biological
experimentation on involuntary human subjects; criminal sterilization
and castration of involuntary human subjects; inadequate provision of
surgical and medical services; inadequate clothing, housing and sanitation,
exposure to cold, overwork, and grossly inadequate facilities for transporting
persons to and from concentration camps and labor camp.
19. In Poland, Russia, and other countries the defendants
assisted in planning and carrying out the plunder, spoliation, and confiscation
of real and personal property of Jewish, Russian, Polish and other private
owners, of churches, communities, towns, cities, and states, the deportation
to slave labor and other purposes of civilians there resident, and the
resettlement of such regions by peoples asserted by the Nazis to be
Aryans. The defendants systematically confiscated the personal property
of living and deceased inmates of concentration camps.
20. Civilians and prisoners of war from all the countries
of Europe were deported from their homelands and herded into the concentration
camps, some of which were fitted with special installations such as
gas-chambers and sealed busses, for their mass execution. Countless
Jews, Poles, and Russians, upon their arrival into the concentration
camps, were immediately driven from the transport trains and trucks
into the waiting gas-chambers, where they were exterminated. Throughout
the administration of the concentration camps, the worst treatment was
systematically given Jews of all nationalities and Poles and Russians.
21. The defendants assisted in planning and carrying
out plans for the subjugation and extermination of entire "races"
and nationalities considered inferior by the Nazi hierarchy. Clergymen,
attorneys, intellectuals, and other persons were hunted down and transported
to the concentration camps, where they were subjected to a calculated
process of murder, torture, and illtreatment which the defendants perfected
and were ever ready to administer. Experiments were carried out to determine
how most efficiently to use the labor and services of the living members
of undesired "races" and nationalities and to insure that
such persons would be unable to propagate their kind. Inmates of concentration
camps were forced to undergo castration, sterilization, and to submit
to experiments whose purpose was to ascertain a method by which mass
sterilization of "undesirable persons" might be effected.
Countless persons, including nationals of occupied territories, were
murdered in the so-called "euthanasia" program of the German
Reich.
22. The defendants assisted in planning and carrying
out medical, surgical, and biological experiments upon hundreds of involuntary
human subjects without regard to the lives of such subjects, resulting
in the murder, torture, and illtreatment of hundreds of persons.
23. The said war crimes constitute violations of international
conventions, particularly Articles 3-7, 14, 18, 23, 43, 46, 50, 52,
55, and 56 of the Regulations respecting the laws and customs of war
on land, annexed to the Hague Convention of 18 October 1907, and Articles
2-4, 6, 8-17, 23-31, 33, 34, 36, 42, 46-48, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 60,
62, 63, 668, 76, and 77 of the Prisoners of War Convention (Geneva,
1929), the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal
law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the
internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed,
and were declared, recognized, and defined as crimes by Article
II of Control Council Law
No. 10.
COUNT THREE - CRIMES AGAINST
HUMANITY
24. Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the
defendants herein unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly committed crimes
against humanity as defined by Control
Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories
to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected
with plans and enterprises involving the commission of atrocities and
offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, illegal imprisonment, torture, persecution on political,
racial, and religious grounds, and ill-treatment of, and other inhumane
and criminal acts against thousands of persons. These crimes embraced,
but were not limited to, the particulars set out in paragraphs 4 to
10, inclusive, and the acts charged in paragraphs 14 to 22, inclusive,
of this indictment, which are incorporated herein by reference, and
were committed against German civilians and nationals of other countries.
25. The said crimes against humanity constitute violations
of international conventions, including the Articles of the Hague Regulations,
1907, and of the Prisoners of War Convention (Geneva, 1929) enumerated
in paragraph 23 of this indictment, the laws and customs of war, the
general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws
of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in
which such crimes were committed, and were declared, recognized and
defined as crimes by Article
II of Control Council Law
No. 10.
COUNT FOUR - MEMBERSHIP IN CRIMINAL
ORGANIZATION
26. All of the defendants herein, except defendant
Hohberg, are charged with membership, subsequent to September 1, 1939,
in the Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei
(commonly known as the "SS"),
declared to be criminal by the International
Military Tribunal and paragraph 1 (d) Article
II of Control Council Law
No. 10.
Wherefore, this indictment is filed with the Secretary
General of the Military Tribunal and the charges herein made against
the above-named defendants are hereby presented to the Military Tribunal.
TELFORD TAYLOR
Brigadier General, U. S. Army
Chief of Counsel for War Crimes
Acting on Behalf of the United States
of America
Nuernberg, 13 January 1947
Sources: The
Avalon Project |