15.4.46

Q. How many guards were there in the inner compounds for, let us say, 1,000 detainees?

A. You can't estimate it in that way. According to my observations 10 percent of the total number of guarding personnel were used for interior purposes, that is to say, administration and supervision of detainees within the compounds, including the medical personnel of the camp.

Q. So that 90 percent were therefore used for the exterior guarding, that is to say, for watching the camp from watch towers and for accompanying the detainees on work assignments.

A. Yes.

Q. Did you make any observations as to whether there was any ill-treatment of prisoners to a greater or lesser degree on the part of those guards, or whether the ill-treatment was mostly to be traced back to the so-called Kapos?

A. If any ill-treatment of detainees by guards occurred - I myself have never observed any - then this was possible only to a very small degree since all officers in charge of the camps took care that as few S.S. men as possible had immediate contact with the inmates, because in the course of the years the guard personnel had deteriorated to such an extent that the former standards could no longer be maintained.

We had thousands of guards who could hardly speak German, who came from all leading countries of the world as volunteers and joined these units; or we had older men, between 50 and 60, who lacked all interest in their work, so that a camp commandant had to take care continuously that these men fulfilled even the lowest requirements of their duties. Furthermore, it is obvious that there were elements among them who would ill-treat detainees, but this ill-treatment was never tolerated.

Furthermore, it was impossible to have these masses of people working or when in the camp directed by S.S. men, so that everywhere detainees had to be engaged to give instructions to the other detainees and set them to work, and who almost exclusively had the administration of the inner camp in their own hands. Of course, a great deal of ill-treatment occurred which couldn't be avoided because at night there was hardly any member of the S.S. in the camps. Only in specific cases were S.S. men allowed to enter the camp, so that the detainees were more or less exposed to the detainee supervisors.

Q. You have already mentioned regulations which existed for the guards, but there was also a standing order in all the camps. In this camp order there were laid down the punishments for detainees who violated the camp rules. What punishments were these?

A. First of all, transfer to a "special company" (Strafkompanie), that is to say, harder work, and their accommodation restricted; next, detention in the cell block, detention in a dark cell; and in very serious cases, chaining or strapping. Punishment by "strapping" (anbinden) was prohibited in the year 1942 or 1943, I can't say exactly when, by the Reichsführer. Then there was the punishment of standing to attention during a long period at the entrance to the camp (Strafstehen), and finally punishment by beating.

However, this punishment by beating could not be decreed by any commandant independently. He could only apply for it. In the case of men, the decision came from the Inspector of Concentration Camps, Gruppeführer Schmidt and where women were concerned, the Reichsführer reserved the decision exclusively for himself.

Q. It may also be known to you that members of the S.S., too, had two penal camps which sometimes were called concentration camps, namely, Dachau and Danzig-Matzgau.

A. That's right.

Q. Were the existing camp regulations and the treatment for members of the S.S. who were accommodated in such camps different from the regulations relative to the other concentration camps?