COL. POKROVSKY: Just what do you want to say about that?
WESTHOFF: I want to say that they were not treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention until 1942.
COL. POKROVSKY: In other words, not according to international law, right?
WESTHOFF: I cannot give you any more detailed information on that, since at that time I was still serving at the front and did not know details regarding these regulations.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. Tell me, was there in the OKW a special group or section which dealt exclusively with railway transportation of prisoners of war?
WESTHOFF: The OKW had attached to me a group which brought about the transport of prisoners of war. The transport itself was not a matter for the OKW but a matter for the individual camp commanders.
COL. POKROVSKY: Are you aware under what conditions the transport of the prisoners of war from one camp to another took place?
WESTHOFF: Transports of prisoners of war were ordered by the OKW. The execution of such transports of prisoners of war was a matter for the individual camp commandants who received their orders in this respect from the commanders of prisoners of war in the military administrative districts. The OKW had nothing to do with the actual transport.
COL. POKROVSKY: The question I asked is whether you are aware or were informed under what conditions the transport from one point to another took place. Do you know that thousands of prisoners died en route from cold and hunger? Do you know anything about it at all?
WESTHOFF: The transports, during which prisoners of war died, can at most be traced back to the earlier years when I was not yet in the High Command. As long as I was there, I had no reports on a large scale saying that people lost their lives in large numbers. The orders which the OKW gave regarding transports of prisoners of war were clear-cut and so given that the commanders of the camps concerned were responsible for these transports being carried out in an orderly manner.