20 Dec. 45
regulated by the WVHA. As an illustration of WVHA
management, call the Court's attention to our Document 2189-PS, which I
offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-460. It is an order directed to
commandants of concentration camps, dated 11 August 1942, and bearing
the facsimile signature, which does not appear on the translation but
does appear on the original, of SS Brigade Führer and General of
the Waffen-SS Glücks who was Chief of Office Group D of WVHA. That
is Document Number 2189-PS. I will read the body of that letter:
"The Reichsführer SS and Chief
of the German Police has ordered that punishment by beating will be
executed in concentration camps for women by prisoners under the
ordered supervision.
"In order to co-ordinate this order the Main Office Chief SS of
the Economic Administration Main Office, SS Obergruppenführer and
General of the Waffen-SS Pohl, has ordered, effective immediately,
that punishment by beating will also be executed by prisoners in
concentration camps for men.
"It is forbidden to have foreign prisoners execute the
punishment on German prisoners."
Even after their death the prisoners did not escape the management of
WVHA. I refer the Court to our Document 2199-PS, a letter to commanders
of concentration camps dated 12 September 1942 and signed by the Chief
of the Central Office Group D of WVHA SS Obersturmbannführer
Liebehenschel. I offer this as Exhibit Number USA-461. I shall read the
body of that directive, which appears on Page 1 of the translation. I
quote:
"According to a communication of the
Chief of the Security Police and the SD, and conforming to a report of
the Chief of the Security Police and the SD in Prague, urns of
deceased Czechs and Jews were sent for burial to the home cemeteries
within the Protectorate.
"In view of different events (demonstrations, erecting of
posters inimical to the Reich on urns of deceased inmates in the halls
of cemeteries of the home communities, pilgrimages to the graves of
deceased inmates, et cetera) within the Protectorates, the
delivery of urns with the ash remnants of deceased nationals of the
Protectorate and of Jews is henceforth prohibited. The urns shall be
preserved within the concentration camps. In case of doubt about the
preservation of the urns oral instructions shall be available at this
agency."
The SS indeed
regarded the inmates of concentration camps as its own personal property
to be used for its own economic advantage. The Tribunal will recall that
as early as 1942 the Defendant