. NMT05-T0989
Volume V · Page 989
| 1943, wrote to Himmler, stating that he
intended to make gifts of watches and fountain pens to SS units, and asked
whether the gifts should be made in Himmler's Dame. Himmler approved Pohl's
generous plan and added that 15,000 ladies’ watches should be distributed
to Germans coming from Russia for resettlement. Pohl thought it would be a
generous gesture to distribute 3,000 clocks which had been repaired to guards
at the concentration camps and to Berlin inhabitants who had been bombed. As an
after-thought, he suggested to Himmler that 16 extra-fine gold precision wrist
watches, valued at 300 Reichsmarks each, which had been repaired, be
distributed among commanders of technical units. Pohl's own statement as to his knowledge of the operation of Action Reinhardt and of his participation in the distribution of the loot is again quite sufficient. In his affidavit of 2 April 1947 (NO-271 4, Pros. Ex. 535), he states that the action was instituted in 1941 or 1942 and was in direct charge of SS Gruppenfuehrer Globocnik; that by Himmler's direction he contacted the president of the Reich Bank to arrange for delivery of the valuables; these transactions were to be carried out in extreme secrecy. Together with Georg Loerner, Frank, and others, he visited the Reich Bank and was shown the accumulated valuables in the bank vaults. "It was never doubted," he said, "that this loot was taken from Jews exterminated in the concentration camps. * * * As I learned in 1943, gold teeth and crowns of inmates of concentration camps were broken out of their mouths after liquidation. This gold was melted down and delivered to the Reich Bank. * * * When I received all the vouchers, setting out the economic assets received, I realized the extent of the operation. I realized that the greatest part of the textile goods listed in these reports had been taken from people who had been violently put to death and that the purpose of the operation had been the extermination of the Jews." In another affidavit, 15 July 1946 (4045-PS, Pros. Ex. 530), Pohl further indicates his knowledge of, and participation in the ghoulish scramble. The facts stated therein are cumulative and need not be specifically referred to. The fact that Pohl himself did not actually transport the stolen goods to the Reich or did not himself remove the gold from the teeth of dead inmates, does not exculpate him. This was a broad criminal program, requiring the cooperation of many persons, and Pohl's part was to conserve and account for the loot. Having knowledge of the illegal purposes of the action and of the crimes which accompanied it, his active participation even in the afterphases of the action make him particeps criminis in the whole affair. |
