 |
Q. Witness, did you ever testify before a Tribunal?
A. The
end of last year I was tried by the Supreme People's Court of Poland in the
large trial of Auschwitz where I was defendant No. 8.
Q. What was the
result of the trial, as far as you were concerned, Mr. Witness?
A. I
was acquitted in that proceeding.
Q. What was your SS Grade that you
held while you were in the trial?
A. I was a 2d Lieutenant
[Untersturmfuehrer] of the Waffen SS, and as such I was an accused in the
trial.
Q. Can you give me the reasons briefly why the Tribunal there
acquitted you?
A. From September 1943 until January 1945, I was a
physician in the Hygiene Institute in Auschwitz, and the Hygiene Institute was
affiliated with the concentration camp.
Q. And what was the reason why
the Tribunal acquitted you?
A. The Court found that in disregard of my
personal safety, I effectively protected the inmates, regardless of race or
nationality, and that I had the confidence of all inmates.
Q. Did the
Polish Court then set you at liberty?
A. A few days after I was
acquitted I was taken to Berlin, and released by the Polish authorities.
Q. Mr. Witness, how did you come to join the SS?
A. At the end
of May, 1943, I was drafted for the SS, as a specialist for bacteria cultures.
Q. Were you with the SS previously?
A. No.
Q. Could you
do anything against the drafting for the SS?
A. Not at the time. At the
beginning of 1940, I was asked to join the Hygiene Institute of the SS and I
could prevent this only by volunteering for service with the Wehrmacht. That
was the only possibility to evade the desires or the demands of the SS.
Q. Witness, when you speak of the SS, you mean the Waffen SS?
A. Yes.
Q. When you were drafted in 1943, you had no other
choice but to comply with that draft?
A. The provision that the SS
could not take volunteers of the Army was abolished at that time by a personal
decree of Himmler who issued a law about this.
Q. What was your career,
Mr. Witness, in the SS — very briefly?
A. I went through the
normal infantry training for physicians, lasting two months, and then I was
transferred to the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS in Berlin.
Q. How
long did you stay there, and where did you go afterwards? |
213755—53—21
313 |
. 
