. NMT05-T0986
Volume V · Page 986
| summer of 1943, Pohl set to work to carry out Himmler's order. The concentration camp in the Warsaw ghetto was established and Pohl appointed Goecke, a veteran of Mauthausen, as commandant. Pohl reported to Himmler that at first there were only 300 prisoners in the camp but that this number would be increased as speedily as possible. In October, Pohl reported that Amtsgruppe C of the WVHA had been charged with the technical execution of the demolition order and Amtsgruppe D with the placing of the prisoners. Pohl engaged four private contracting firms, who guaranteed to pull down and remove 4,500 cubic meters daily. He advised that 1,500 prisoners were being used as laborers at the end of October, but that upon securing additional mechanical equipment 2,000 more prisoners would be needed at once. In February 1944, Pohl reported that 3,750,000 cubic meters of buildings had been demolished, and that 2,040 prisoners were being used. By April, 6,750,000 cubic meters had been "pulled down and blasted," and 2,180 prisoners were being used. By June, 10,000,000 cubic meters had been destroyed and the concentration camp had been completed. Thus was accomplished the most complete task of destruction of a modern city since Carthage met its fate many centuries ago, and in this nefarious undertaking Pohl stood hand in glove with Himmler and Stroop in accomplishing the task of total destruction. This was not a city taken in battle; it had long before been captured and occupied by the German armed forces. It was the deliberate and intentional destruction of a large modern city and its entire civilian population. It was wholesale murder, pillage, thievery, and looting, and Pohl's part in accomplishing this abominable project is recorded in his own handwriting. He cannot free himself from his share in Brigadefuehrer Stroop's shameful boast — "The total number of Jews dealt with is 56,065, including Jews caught, and Jews whose extermination can be proved." |
| MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS |
| Pohl's connection with the medical experiments, which have already been described, consisted only in supplying the subjects from the inmates of the concentration camps. It is not claimed that he actually participated in the performance of the experiments or did anything more than make them possible by supplying victims from his inmate pool. Here, again, his own writings convict him. In his own affidavit, dated 23 June 1946 (NO-065, Pros. Ex. 183), Pohl outlines his part in these experiments. He states that he was aware that experiments were being performed from April 1942 until the end of 1944; that Dr. Schilling continually asked for prisoners, but that he does not know the exact number that were sent; that at Himmler's request prisoners were |
