DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it right for me to assume that administration and feeding of concentration camps were exclusively under the control of the Main Economic and Administrative Office?
HOESS: Yes.
DR. KAUFFMANN: A department which is completely separated from the RSHA?
HOESS: Quite correct.
DR. KAUFFMANN: And then from 1943 until the end of the war, you were one of the chiefs in the Inspectorate of the Main Economic and Administrative Office?
HOESS: Yes, that is correctly stated.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you mean by that, that you are particularly well informed on everything occurring in concentration camps regarding the treatment and the methods applied?
HOESS: Yes.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I ask you, therefore, first of all, whether you have any knowledge regarding the treatment of internees, whether certain methods became known to you according to which they were tortured and cruelly treated? Please formulate your statement according to periods, up to 1939 and after 1939.
HOESS: Until the outbreak of war in 1939, the situation in the camps regarding feeding, accommodations, and treatment of internees, was the same as in any other prison or penitentiary in the Reich. The internees were treated severely, but methodical beatings or ill-treatments were out of the question. The Reichsführer gave frequent orders that every SS man who laid violent hands on an internee would be punished; and several times SS men who did ill-treat internees were punished.