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| 520 Hungarian Jewesses formerly employed with Krupp. This statement
actually contains nothing false, which is why I signed it. However, upon closer
examination of all the statements deposed by me meanwhile in connection with
the trial, I now have some misgivings that the statement concerning the
Jewesses as quoted from the point of view of the prosecution in its brief and
particular form may admit an interpretation which I did not want to be read
into the statement. The chief portion of the statement concerned reads:
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“* * * these 2,000 women were quartered in Gelsenberg in four
large canvas tents. They were very poorly clothed: chemise, pair of knickers
and a light gray overcoat, and they wore very poor shoes. In my report to Mr.
Ihn I had pointed out that the women in question were of a very slender build
and that they were not fit for heavy work. In spite of my rather negative
report, 520 of these women were brought to Essen from June to August 1944 to be
employed in various plants of the firm * * *.” |
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If this passage were interpreted by the prosecution in the sense
that at that time it was automatically in the power of the Krupp firm to take
over or refuse the Hungarian Jewesses, this interpretation would be erroneous.
The actual situation was this —
When Mr. Ihn ordered me,
approximately in the middle or at the end of July, to have a look at the 2,000
Jewesses assigned for clearing jobs after an air raid at the Gelsenberg-Benzin
A.G., in Horst near Essen, the assignment of 520 concentration camp women had
already been decided upon by the competent official authorities, but it had not
yet been determined where they were to come from. My mission at Gelsenberg,
therefore, could only be of an unofficial and purely informative nature, since
the choice and the allocation of the women was not handled by Labor Allocation
A under Mr. Ihn, to which I belonged, but by Labor Allocation I. Some time
later the latter organ entrusted labor allocation to Mr. Specht after 520 of
the 2,000 who were at Gelsenberg, had meanwhile been allocated. Mr. Specht then
informed me that among the Hungarian Jewesses from Gelsenberg there were
sufficient robust women qualified for labor allocation, contrary to the opinion
concerning my first impression set forth in my deposition.
Under these
circumstances, in my opinion, the firm management had no pretext for refusing
to take over the Jewesses.
Following the very heavy air attack upon the
plant, the 2,000 women lived and worked at the Gelsenberg-Benzin A.G., firm
under especially unfortunate conditions. They could not have |
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