. NMT05-T1045
Volume V · Page 1045
| certain duties, "regarding the management and
supervision of all enterprises which are under the supervision and
administration of WVHA." But it is argued that it was impossible for Baier to exercise any management or direction in business enterprises because commercial law did not permit it. It is not apparent from the evidence in this case that SS enterprises or SS officers were halted from a performance of any self-serving function or deed by commercial law or any other law. Baier was aware of the long hours of employment to which concentration camp inmates were subjected, having received from Pohl on 22 January 1943, a communication which reads: "I should like to point out that the working time of prisoners, laid down by order, which amounts to 11 hours daily, has to be kept up also during the winter months." Baier was involved with Volk in the matter of the acquisition of real estate for the proposed concentration camp at Stutthof, already discussed in the Volk opinion. Baier also had full cognizance of the OSTI operation. On 16 April 1944, he received a report from Dr. Horn on the state of the liquidation of the Ostindustrie G.m.b.H. In one of his reports, Dr. Horn in winding up the affairs of OSTI, declared: "As the SS members are no longer needed they are sent back to the personnel office of the SS Economic and Administration Main Office if there are no other orders from the SS WVHA." This in itself demonstrates how completely the OSTI was a WVHA activity. The Tribunal does not find that Baier participated in any of the early phases of OSTI, but it does find that his office trafficked in the ill-gotten gains from OSTI. Baier states that he never visited a concentration camp, even though the Dachau concentration camp was only a 15 minutes' walk from his school. In any event he can scarcely claim ignorance of concentration camps. On 19 January 1944, he signed a document with a notice of Pohl's order converting into concentration camps the forced labor camps at Krakow-Placzow, Lvov, Lublin, and Radom-Blizyn. He does admit having visited some of the DWB factories which employed concentration camp inmates, but declares that he never heard of any irregularities in the treatment of prisoners. He then qualifies this with the statement that he confined his visits to the office rooms of the factory. But even though he never set foot inside a concentration camp, he was satisfied that the inmates were all criminals, having been all duly adjudicated so by authority of the State. The Tribunal rejects Baier's explanation that he believed all inmates were criminals confined by due process of law. It was |
