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Volume V · Page 1223
| "THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Reich,
we'll say, had 5,000 human machines, just as it might have had 5,000 motors and
it said to the factories, ‘We'll rent those human machines to you for so
many Reichsmarks per day.’ THE WITNESS: Yes. That is the way it was. THE PRESIDENT: Just as they could have rented 5,000 motors for so many Reichsmarks per month. THE WITNESS: Yes, quite so; exactly the same thing. THE PRESIDENT: The 5,000 human machines just got food and shelter. THE WITNESS: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: And nothing more. THE WITNESS: No, nothing at all." Hohberg offered a rather grim reason for the impracticability of paying and cumulating wages: |
"However, the problem is entirely different even if it had been the way you say it was, namely, that the inmate was to be paid a daily wage and the pay had accumulated. Then what use is it to the inmate if he dies later, or if he is gassed or something similar?" (Tr. p. 1371) |
| In reviewing the entire record in the Hohberg
case, it becomes evident that in comparison with the sentences imposed on other
defendants Hohberg fared well. The fact that he was not a member of the SS
weighed in his favor, and the fact that once he left the WVHA he lent some aid
and comfort to the anti-Nazi movements also contributed to the light sentence
which he received. On the basis of his activities in WVHA he could well have received a much severer punishment. He not only was aware of the abuse of concentration camp inmates but through his intense energies and zealous concern for the economic enterprises he materially contributed to their exploitation and oppression. He proudly testified on the witness stand that he had saved the economic enterprises 10 million marks through the advice he had given them. It does not appear that this advice anywhere along the line included any plea for better food and treatment for the inmates. Hohberg knew that in the infamous OSTI operation Jews were killed |
"A. ***I have seen from the documents that actually the position was that utilization of the Osti later on, when the Jewish inmates had been taken away, became quite impossible; and these Jews were killed apparently at Himmler's orders; but their killing cannot have been the primary intention because otherwise there would have been no point in establishing these enterprises. |
