I might add that Heydrich demanded, particularly for himself, his office, and its branches, the exclusive and uninterrupted competence and control in this matter.
DR. SEIDL: What concentration camps in the Government General did you know about during your activity as State Secretary?
BÜHLER: The publications in the press during the summer of 1944 called my attention to the Maidanek camp for the first time. I did not know that this camp, not far from Lublin, was a concentration camp. It had been installed as an economic establishment of the Reichsführer SS, in 1941 I think. Governor Zörner came to visit me at that time and he told me that he had objected to the establishment of this camp when he talked to Globocznik, as it would endanger the power supply of the city of Lublin; and there were objections, too, on the part of the Police with regard to the danger of epidemics. I informed the Governor General of this and he in turn sent for Globocznik. Globocznik stated to the Governor General that certain workshops for the needs of the Waffen-SS at the front had been erected on that site by him. He mentioned workshops for dressing furs but he also mentioned a timber yard which was located there.
In these workshops for dressing furs, as I heard, fur articles from the collection of furs were altered for use at the front. At any rate, Globocznik stated that he had installed these workshops in compliance with Himmler’s command.
The Governor General prohibited the erection of any further installations until all questions were settled with the police in charge of building and blueprints had been submitted to the state offices, in other words until all rules had been complied with, which apply to the construction of buildings. Globocznik never submitted these blueprints. With regard to the events inside the camp, no concrete information ever reached the outside. It surprised the Governor General just as much as it surprised me when the world press released the news about Maidanek.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, the Prosecution has submitted a document, Number 437-PS, Exhibit USA-610, which is a memorandum from the Governor General to the Führer, dated 19 June 1943. I think you yourself drafted that memorandum. On Page 35 a report of the commander of the Security Police is mentioned and quoted verbatim in part. This report of the Security Police mentions also the name of Maidanek.
Did you at that time realize that this Maidanek was identical or probably identical with that camp near Lublin?
BÜHLER: No. I assumed that, like Auschwitz, it was a camp outside the territory of the Government General, because the Governor General had repeatedly told the Police and the Higher SS and Police Leader that he did not wish to have concentration camps in the Government General.
DR. SEIDL: Under whose jurisdiction was the administration of concentration camps in the Government General?
BÜHLER: I don’t know because I did not know of the existence of the camps. In August, on the occasion of a visit to the reception camp at Pruszkow, I heard about the administration of concentration camps in general. At that time I brought instructions from Himmler to the camp commandant, according to which transport of the inhabitants of Warsaw who had been removed from the city to concentration camps was to cease forthwith.