The Surgeon General-SS and Police, in a personal discussion, told me that the budget which he administers concerns primarily the purely military sector of the Waffen SS. As for the small part used for the enlarging of scientific research possibilities, it pertains exclusively to such affairs that can be carried out only with the material (prisoners), which is accessible to the Waffen SS and can therefore not be undertaken by any other experimental agency.
I cannot object therefore on the part of the Reich Experimental Counsel against the budget of the Surgeon General-SS and Police.
Signed: Mentzel
Ministerialdirektor
SECRET
Reich Leader SS
Reich Surgeon SS and Police
File: 135/ Secret / 43 TG, NR 24/43 geh.
Berlin 26 Feb 43
Subj.: Scientific Institutes
Ref to: Correspondence of 19 Feb. 43 Rf. 234/43 SR.—
To the Head of the Executive Counsel of the Reich Research
Counsel Ministerialdirektor Mentzel
Berlin-Steglitz
Grunewaldstrasse 35
My dear Ministerialdirektor:
In acknowledgment of your letter of the 19th Feb 1943, I am able to reply the following to it today:
The appropriation for the 53 key positions for my office which you made the basis of your memorandum was planned for peace times.
The special institutes of the SS which are to be partly staffed through this appropriation are to serve the purpose to establish and make accessible for the entire realm of scientific research, the particular possibilities of research only possessed by the SS.
In view of the further developments of this war, I have already shelved this plan for the time being as the result of negotiations with the Reich Finance Minister in the past year, so that my authorized personnel amounts to 25 key positions only. Of these positions, only 5 are filled at present.
Under these circumstances your objections with regard to an unreasonable overlapping of work of scientific institutes for the war's duration are void.