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of Auschwitz consisted of 2,000 Germans, 1,000 Jews, and 7,000 Poles.
The Jews and Poles were to be turned out so that the town would be available
for the staff of the factory. The report then states: “A concentration
camp will be built in the immediate neighborhood of Auschwitz for the Jews and
Poles.”
At a regional planning meeting on 31 January 1941 [NI-11785, Pros. Ex. 1419],
attended by Chief Engineer Santo of the Ludwigshafen plant, who later became a
member of the Auschwitz Planning Committee, the labor problems of Auschwitz
were again discussed, and it is stated in the report that “The
concentration camp already existing with approximately 7,000 prisoners is to be
expanded. Employment of prisoners for the building project possible after
negotiations with the Reichsfuehrer SS.”
We have already referred
to the meeting of the Plastics and Rubber Committee attended by ter Meer and
Ambros on 23 October 1941, at which reference was made to the valuable support
given by the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Ter Meer personally visited
the Auschwitz site in October 1941. He was accompanied on this inspection by
Hoess, the camp commandant. He says: “Hoess was in no way favorable to
sending concentration-camp inmates to the Auschwitz works. He wanted them to
work for the factory in the camp itself.”
Ter Meer again visited
the Auschwitz site in November 1942 and also the Monowitz labor camp, in which
the concentration-camp inmates who were working on the building site were
housed.
The evidence clearly establishes that one of the chief problems
of Farben in connection with the building of the Auschwitz plant was the
procurement of labor for the construction work. Thousands of unskilled laborers
were required, whose work was of course only temporary and who would not become
permanent employees. It was the type of labor that could be procured through
the concentration camp and the Sauckel program. The captured documents to which
we have referred established beyond question that the availability of
concentration-camp labor figured in the planning of the Auschwitz construction.
Ambros played a major role in this planning. His immediate superior with whom
he had frequent contact and to whom he made detailed reports was ter Meer. The
over-all field of new construction was one in which ter Meer was both active
and dominant. It is indeed unreasonable to conclude that, when Ambros sought
the advice of and reported in detail to ter Meer, the conferences were confined
to such mutters as transportation, water supply, and the availability of
construction materials and excluded that important construction factor, labor,
in which the concentration camp played so prominent a part. Ter Meer’s
visits to Auschwitz were no doubt as revealing to him as they are to this
Tribunal. Hoess was reluctant |
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