DR. SEIDL: You were with the Chief of the Security Police and SD in Kraków. When did you yourself hear of concentration camps at Maidanek, Treblinka, and Lublin for the first time?
BILFINGER: May I correct you, I was attached to the Commander of Security Police.
DR. SEIDL: Yes, the Commander of the Security Police.
BILFINGER: I heard of Maidanek for the first time when Lublin and Maidanek were occupied by the Russians; and through propaganda I heard for the first time what the name Maidanek meant, when the then Governor General Frank ordered an investigation regarding events in Maidanek and responsibility for these events.
DR. SEIDL: According to your own observation, generally speaking, what were the relations like between the Governor General and the SS Obergruppenführer Krüger, and what were the reasons for those relations?
BILFINGER: Relations between them were very bad from the beginning. The reasons were partly questions of organization and of the use of the Police, and partly essential differences of opinion.
DR. SEIDL: What do you mean by essential differences of opinion? Do you mean different opinions regarding the treatment of the Polish population?
BILFINGER: I can still recollect one example which concerned the confirmation of police court-martial sentences by Governor General Frank. In opposition to Krüger’s opinion, he either failed to confirm a number of sentences or else mitigated them considerably. In this connection I remember such differences of opinion.
DR. SEIDL: Were these sentences which were passed in connection with the so-called AB Action?
BILFINGER: I know nothing of an AB Action.