The Mazal Library

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NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume V · Page 1050

a letter from Kammler, chief of department [Amtsgruppe] C, WVHA, to the inspector of concentration camps, Gluecks, which contains this significant paragraph:

"In view of the increasing shortage of civilian workers the execution of the construction tasks devolving upon the SS Economic Administration Main Office in the third year of war, 1942, requires the employment of an increased number of prisoners, prisoners of war, and Jews."

On 1 July, 1943, Mummenthey wrote the commandant of the concentration camp at Flossenbuerg that he and Volk were coming to visit him and specifically asked him to make arrangements so that Volk could visit the camp. Volk later denied that he went into the camp but only saw it from a distance, but this does not eliminate Mummenthey's declaration of his (Volk's) interest.

Volk's counsel in his final plea argued that even if concentration camps were employed, this was no crime. He stated:

"It is therefore very doubtful whether the mere use of prisoners for unpaid work alone is sufficient to comply with the definition of the crime of enforcing so-called slave labor:"

But, if forcibly depriving a man of his liberty, and then compelling him to work against his will without remuneration does not constitute slave labor, then the term has no meaning whatsoever.

Volk seeks to disassociate himself from complicity in the OSTI operation by stating that he was in Switzerland when OSTI was formed on 12 March 1943. However, he attended one of the first conferences on this project. He states that at this conference, which occurred 13 February 1943, its aims were not obvious and therefore he could not be charged with knowledge of its illegal objectives if any. But the memorandum on the subjects discussed at the conference lists as the first two items (1) the utilization of the Jewish manpower in the Government General; (2) the utilization of the Jewish movable property.

Since it was obvious that these two utilizations would be without compensation to the Jews involved, the criminal aspect of the operation must have been obvious at once. Volk, however, seeks to explain away his participation in this conference with the statement that he had been summoned to deal with any legal questions which might arise and did not know the subject of this discussion. It is rather difficult to accept that Pohl would ask Volk for a legal opinion without outlining to him the subject matter. Volk goes further and says that he never saw the questionnaire which was the basis for that discussion until the trial.

The evidence establishes that Volk was cognizant of the OSTI operations and the Action Reinhardt. On 31 August 1943, he

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