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TRANSLATION OF
DOCUMENT NIK-12326
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT
1543¹ |
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| LETTER FROM DEFENDANT KORSCHAN TO DEFENDANT HOUDREMONT, 22 AUGUST
1944, CONCERNING KORSCHAN’S VISIT TO THE FUENFTEICHEN² CONCENTRATION
CAMP AND RELATED MATTERS |
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Breslau, 22 August 1944
[Stamp] Houdremont Secretariat
No.
6142
received: 28 August |
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To Professor Houdremont
In accordance with your wish I have
visited the management of the Fuenfteichen concentration camp and obtained
information on the differences between the plant management of the Bertha Works
and the camp management. I have set out the main points in the attached file
note. Last week, before his meeting with you in Berlin, Mr. Siekmann promised
the camp management that your wish would be complied with. He thinks, however,
that various difficulties should be overcome beforehand, and that consequently
compliance will require a certain amount of time.
I consider reports
from the camp managements to their superior offices to be dangerous,
particularly since I was able to deduce from subsequent conversations that the
two Hauptsturmfuehrer believe that they have not a proper understanding with
nor the full support of the works management. For example, complaints to the
effect that everything about the Bertha Works was much too bureaucratic, that
difficulties were overestimated and that there was no one there who could get
anything done. As proof of the latter he stated that, for example, a coffee
boiler in hall 4 which was broken about 6 weeks previously had at present still
not been repaired in spite of many reports to the responsible offices.
Considering the great heat this was very regrettable because the concentration
camp prisoners, owing to the lack of coffee, drank cold, and at times, bad
water as a result of which the amount of sickness was increasing. Further they
cited the example of a hole in the wall of the concentration camp lavatory in
hall 5 through which a prisoner had broken out some time previously and which,
in spite of having been reported immediately, has up to the present still not
been repaired. During the nightly |
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¹ This document was originally
identified before Commission II of the Tribunal as Franke Exhibit 1 during
cross-examination of the defense witness Franke. Later the exhibit was marked
within the usual prosecution exhibit series as Prosecution Exhibit 1543.
² This was a large concentration camp from which concentration
camp inmates were sent out to numerous industrial firms, including the Krupp
firm.
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