. NMT05-T1021
Volume V · Page 1021
| The defendant's knowledge of the classes of inmates in concentration camps is shown by the following testimony of the defendant himself: |
"According to my opinion there is a big difference between a political prisoner and a criminal. I myself was definitely convinced that there were political prisoners in the concentration camps, prisoners whom the state wanted to get rid of or at least secure for special reasons. In my opinion the criminals were in the jails, whereas all the other ones were in the concentration camps." (R. 3387.) |
| The Tribunal finds that the defendant was also aware that inmate labor was used in construction projects authorized and planned by Amt C II and other offices within Amtsgruppe C. He testified that he saw Kammler's letter to Gluecks, dated 10 March 1942, concerning the assignment of prisoners of war, inmates, and Jews, to carry out the construction program of Amtsgruppe C but that no action was taken because it was not in his field of tasks. (NO-1292, Pros. Ex. 56, and Record page 3367.) In the preface to this document, the following appears: |
"Subject: Employment of prisoners, prisoners of war, Jews, etc. to carry out the construction program of the SS Economic Administrative Main Office, Amtsgruppe C, 1942, in the third year of war." |
| A summary attached to the document shows the
required workers listed under the various construction projects and the number
of prisoners, and prisoners of war, Jews, etc., required to carry out the
construction program for 1942. The summary shows conclusively that thousands of
inmates, Jews, and prisoners of war, were to be used for construction projects
at the various concentration camps. These included construction projects at
Ravensbrueck, Oranienburg, Natzweiler, Wewelsburg, Dachau, Gross-Rosen,
Auschwitz, Freudenthal, Weimar-Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Flossenbuerg,
Gieshuebel, Krondorf Sued, Gruen, Neu-Rohlau, Mauthausen, Gusen, Brettstein,
Lodz, and Poznan. The last entry in the summary was a request for 5,000
prisoners of war to be used at Danzig-Stutthof. Thus, the defendant Kiefer was
officially put on notice that concentration camp labor, Jews and prisoners of
war, were the means whereby his architectural plans were transferred from
blueprints into actual constructions. The defendant contends that even though
he might have read the document at the time he was totally ignorant of
concentration camp conditions. The Tribunal cannot accept this contention of the defendant. He was directly subordinate to Kammler, chief of Amtsgruppe C, and was also his deputy. As to his deputyship there can be no |
