We will not burden the Tribunal with a recital of all of these reports. We wish, however, to make reference to the Concentration Camp Mauthausen, one of the most notorious extermination centers; and I refer particularly to Document Number 2176-PS, which I have already placed in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-249. This is also an official report of the office of the Judge Advocate General of the United States 3rd Army, dated 17 June 1945. I wish to refer to the conclusions on Page 3 of the English text, at paragraph numbered Roman V, beginning with the second sentence as follows:
“V. Conclusions. There is no doubt that Mauthausen was the basis for long-term planning. It was constructed as a gigantic stone fortress on top of a mountain flanked by small barracks. Mauthausen, in addition to its permanency of construction, had facilities for a large garrison of officers and men and had large dining rooms and toilet facilities for the staff. It was conducted with the sole purpose in mind of exterminating any so-called prisoner who entered within its walls. The so-called branches of Mauthausen were under direct command of the SS officials located there. All records, orders, and administrative facilities were handled for these branches through Mauthausen. The other camps, including Gusen and Ebensee, its two most notorious and largest branches, were not exclusively used for extermination; but prisoners were used as tools in construction and production until they were beaten or starved into uselessness, whereupon they were customarily sent to Mauthausen for final disposal.”
Both from the showing of the moving picture and from these careful reports, which were made by the 3rd Army of the United States on their arrival at those centers, we say it is clear that the conditions in those concentration camps over Germany—and in a few instances outside of the actual borders of the Old Reich—followed the same general pattern. The wide-spread incidence of these conditions makes it clear that they were not the result of sporadic excesses on the part of individual jailers, but were the result of policies deliberately imposed from above. The crimes committed in these camps were on so vast a scale that individual atrocities pale into insignificance.
We have had turned over to us two exhibits which we are prepared to show to this Tribunal only because they illustrate the depths to which the administration of these camps had sunk shortly before, at least, the time that they were liberated by the Allied Army. The Tribunal will recall that in the showing of the moving picture, with respect to one of the camps, there was a showing of sections of human skin taken from human bodies in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and preserved as ornaments. They were selected, these particular hapless victims, because of the tattooing which appeared on the skin. This exhibit, which we have here, is Exhibit Number USA-252. Attached to the exhibit is an extract of an official United States Army report describing the circumstances under which this exhibit was obtained; and that extract is set forth in Document 3420-PS, which I refer to in part. It is entitled:
“Mobile Field Interrogation Unit Number 2; PW Intelligence Bulletin; 13. Concentration Camp, Buchenwald.
“Preamble. The author of this account is PW Andreas Pfaffenberger, 1 Coy, 9 Landesschützen Bn., 43 years old and of limited education. He is a butcher by trade. The substantial agreement of the details of his story with those found in PWIB (H) /LF/36 establishes the validity of his testimony. PW has not been questioned on statements which, in the light of what is known, are apparently erroneous in certain details, nor has any effort been made to alter the subjective character of the PW’s account, which he wrote without being told anything of the intelligence already known. The results of interrogation on personalities at Buchenwald have already been published (PWIB Number 2/12, item 31.).
“ ‘In 1939 all prisoners with tattooing on them were ordered to report to the dispensary.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: Is this what Pfaffenberger said?