. NMT05-T0787
Volume V · Page 787
| his energy and his comradeship and his
assistance he was well liked, and he was a very respected comrade. We know that
money rules the world. He was the man who in this case had to distribute the
funds, and at that time, at his best time, he was the chief, there might have
been some people who bore a grudge against him if he was unable to satisfy
every desire. However, up to the time of the capitulation I never heard any
criticism worthy of mentioning against him, besides making fun about some
little human weaknesses which he had like all other mortals. After the
capitulation, of course, the opinion and the readiness of his old comrades to
intervene in his behalf and to expose themselves in public unfortunately
disappeared to a very large extent, and I would like you to consider that point
also when you ask the questions. Q. You have previously stated that this schematic organizational connection apparently incriminated him. What do you mean by that? A. After the attacks which appeared in the German press and the world press, and which described Pohl as the worst criminal after the Reich Leader SS, this already means a very bad incrimination because the outsider will assume that the press will not write anything of that sort without having a sufficient basis for that, and therefore, after so many other horrible facts and atrocities were stated afterwards, everything seems to have turned against Oswald Pohl. However, I, as I have already described to the Tribunal before, knew him since 1934, and I knew him very closely indeed, and since I have seen what mental difficulties he had to undergo before he carried out his first divorce, and beyond that in how decent and honorable a manner he carried this through. I am still convinced today that Pohl did not issue any order for the killing of any human being and that it was not the intention of Pohl, the intentional purpose of Pohl, to work somebody to death. It is his misfortune to be connected upon orders organizationally with the most terrible problem of all centuries. And that he seems to have been brought into connection with this, and to stand today before this Tribunal under the charge that the verdict of the BIT has declared the SS, and with that all members of the SS from the very beginning, as members of a criminal organization. And that already is a preliminary charge in itself. Of course this is a terrible handicap for Pohl, and it is also a severe incrimination which has also been placed on the hundreds of thousands of young, enthusiastic volunteers and has been thrown after them into the graves; who died without having had any idea about Auschwitz or Lublin; gladly gave their lives in fulfilling military service for their |
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