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Volume V · Page 1048
| [versa…] tility and to cry
down the importance of his work by stating that Volk merely prepared notarial
documents, carried on law suits and generally gave legal advice. The evidence,
however, overwhelms this modest appraisement of Volk's capacities. It has been
demonstrated by the documents and by Volk's own testimony on the witness stand
that he was a vital figure in Amtsgruppe W charged with the handling of vast SS
enterprises employing unnumbered concentration camp inmates. It has been argued in Volk's behalf that he cannot be convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity because the prosecution has not established that he personally ever killed, maltreated, or robbed a concentration camp inmate. The prosecution never attempted to prove that Volk directly and physically abused a human being. It has been further argued that in order to convict Volk of any crime it must be shown that, if he knew of maltreatment of concentration camp inmates, he had to have the power to prevent the maltreatment in order to be convicted of crime. The law does not require that the proof go so far. It is enough if the accused took a consenting part in the commission of a crime against humanity to be convicted under Control Council Law No. 10. If Volk was part of an organization actively engaged in crimes against humanity, was aware of those crimes and yet voluntarily remained a part of that organization, lending his own professional efforts to the continuance and furtherance of those crimes, he is responsible under the law. But it is submitted that he was not aware of any crimes and it is this which the prosecution must establish before it can ask for a conviction. Volk's contract with the DWB provided: |
"It is Herr Volk's duty to manage the business transactions of the DWB with the care as befits a proper business man." |
| In a letter to Pohl as early as 1 September
1941, Volk displayed his grasp of the entire SS enterprise set-up by making
recommendations for various changes in business managers and recommending
himself as successor to Mummenthey as manager of Cooperative Housing and
Settlement Co., Ltd. The DWB has been charged with exploiting concentration camp labor, but Volk argues that since the DWB was only a holding company, it could not use the services of physical labor. Academically this is correct, but the various subsidiary companies of DWB employed concentration camp labor on a vast scale and Volk could not avoid knowing this. On 13 July 1943, Gluecks, chief of department [Amtsgruppe] D, wrote Volk about the allocation of prisoners from the labor camp in Neurohlau for the "Bohemia" firm. Paragraph 2 of this letter reads: |
"I too considered it advisable that all questions connected |
