BÜHLER: We had daily contact with the Police, but we had differences of opinion. Moreover, the Police were not under my jurisdiction; the Chief of Police was in no way under my orders.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In that case the Police did not come within your competence?
BÜHLER: No, it was not one of my duties.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How then can you explain that no one but you carried out successful negotiations with the Police for the exploitation of the property of Jews executed in the concentration camps? Do you remember these negotiations?
BÜHLER: I did not quite understand you.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I ask you: If you had no direct relations with the Police, how can you explain the fact that you, and none other but you, were the person who carried out successful negotiations with the Police for the exploitation of property belonging to Jews murdered in the concentration camps? Do you remember these negotiations with the Police?
BÜHLER: I do not remember any such negotiations, and I could not have conducted them. In any case the Administration was the department which, by order of the Four Year Plan, had to effect the confiscation of Jewish property.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, have I your permission to submit a document handed to us by the American Prosecution, Document Number 2819-PS? It is a directive issued by the Administration of the Economic Department of the Government General and addressed to the Governors of Warsaw, Radom, Lublin, and Galicia. May I submit this document?
I quote the following from the text of this document:
“Subject: Transfer of Jewish movable property from the SS to the Government.