. NMT06-T0772
Volume VI · Page 772
| Q. Do you recall
whether or not concentration camp workers were brought into Groeditz to be used
in the particular plant in which you were located? A. In the machine construction department, in autumn 1943, we got the first concentration camp prisoners, about 200 of them. Q. Do you know where these concentration camp workers came from? A. We knew that they came from Flossenbuerg. Q. Were they sent by the Flossenbuerg camp to Groeditz or were they brought to Groeditz as a result of some official in Groeditz going to Flossenbuerg and picking them out? A. We engineers were told at the time that Director Hoeger and Works Manager Weiser had been to Flossenbuerg and had selected these prisoners there. They then came with a guard led by an SS Second Lieutenant Koermann. The guard consisted of marines. Q. Now, you say the engineers were told that Weiser and Hoeger had gone to Flossenbuerg to pick out these men. Exactly who told the engineers that? A. The works manager, Weiser, said that at a meeting with the foremen and engineers. Q. Did he describe the circumstances of his going to Flossenbuerg to pick up additional labor? A. A few weeks earlier, during another meeting, he had said that in Thuringia he had visited a plant belonging to another firm which had been working with these concentration camp inmates and which had achieved very good production results; and this use of concentration camp prisoners would also be introduced in Groeditz. Q. Were these concentration camp workers employed in order to increase the productivity of their plant? A. Yes. At this time the orders were increased because in the west we had considerable losses by air raids and Groeditz had to increase its production; that is why it was necessary to get prisoners because with the people we had we could not increase our output. We just had to have more workers. Q. Do you know whether or not Weiser discussed the question of acquiring concentration camp workers with men located in the Berlin office? A. I only know that the various engineers put in for so-and-so many. They had to name the requisite number to fulfill the Program. This total demand for the machine construction plant was, of course, passed on by the works manager to the Naval High Command and to the Berlin office. I often saw the reports, or rather the copies of reports which were sent around to the machine |
