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Volume V · Page 807
| [Ger…] man to sacrifice his
life for the war, and the war-effort law made the same with property. The
savings which the Germans brought to the savings banks were used without
restriction by the state for war. Clever methods were instituted with which the
last reserves were dragged out of the people. I remember the various
collections and drives, wool collections, the clothing collection, and whatever
it was. We were told and we heard all the time on the radio and in the
newspapers that the Jews would not yield anything voluntarily, and constantly
one spoke of enormous hoards of stocks which had been found in the ghettos. I,
at that time, had no possibility to doubt these facts. I imagined that from
absolute necessity of war these materials had to be seized whenever found and I
had no possibility, as I said, to protest against this kind of warfare and take
any position against it. Q. But, if you had known in reality everything you know now, how much misery, and how much blood and tears were connected with part of these materials, what would you have done then? A. I certainly wouldn't have taken any part in it. What I would have done in detail, that of course is very difficult for me to explain today, but if I had known how much blood was on those clothes and things, I certainly wouldn't have taken part. These goods which were placed at my disposal, constituted for me looted property, looted for military necessity. |
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| Q. Well, let's take some concrete cases.
Document NO-1563 has been submitted and that is in volume 14 on page 56 in the
German text, volume 14, as I said, and page 56 of the German text and it is
Prosecution Exhibit 302. Your Honors. It is on page 59 in the English document
book NO-1563. PRESIDING JUDGE TOMS: It is Prosecution Exhibit 392? DR. HAENSEL: Yes, 392, your Honor. This is headed "Final Conference on Balance Accounts." From that document it seems that you were to have taken part in the balance conference of office W of June 1944. Page 59 should be right, your Honor. It is a conference on balance accounts of Office W. According to your knowledge the combined enterprises, which were under office W belonged to such enterprises which employed inmate labor, and pay for this work was not channeled to the inmates but to other agencies, and these agencies had a profit for this work. Isn't that an inhumane way of treating the people? DEFENDANT GEORG LOERNER: In this respect I have to point out that in these conferences on balance accounts concerning inmate work, there was no mention made of inmate labor. They |
