PUHL: No, I did not know that.
MR. DODD: I want you to look at an affidavit by Mr. Thoms, executed the 8th day of May 1946. You have seen this before, by the way; haven’t you, you saw it yesterday? Answer that question, will you please, Mr. Witness. You saw this affidavit yesterday, the one I just sent up to you? You saw that yesterday, didn’t you?
PUHL: Yes.
MR. DODD: You will observe in Paragraph 5 that Thoms, who executed this affidavit, said that he went to see you and that you told him that the Reichsbank was going to act as custodian for the SS and the receipt and disposition of deposits and that the SS would deliver the property, namely gold, silver and foreign currency; and you also explained that the SS intended to deliver numerous other kinds of property such as jewelry, and “we must find a way to dispose of it,” and that he suggested to you, Mr. Puhl, that:
“We transmit the items to the Reichshauptkasse, as we did in the case of Wehrmacht booty, or that the items could be given by the Reichsführer-SS directly to the pawnshop for disposition, so that the Reichsbank had no more to do with it than it did in the case of confiscated Jewish property. Puhl told me that it was out of the question and that it was necessary that we arrange a procedure for handling this unusual property in order to hold the whole business secret.”
Then he goes on to say:
“This conversation with Puhl occurred just a short time, approximately two weeks, before the first delivery, which occurred on 26 August 1942. The conversation was in the office of Herr Puhl; nobody else was present. I don’t remember if Herr Frommknecht was present during the whole time; and Puhl said it was very important not to discuss this with anybody, that it was to be highly secret, that it was a special transaction, and if anybody asked about it that I should say I was forbidden to speak about it.”
And on the next page you find, in Paragraph 8, Herr Thoms says:
“I was told by Herr Puhl that if I had any questions on this matter I was to get in touch with Brigadeführer Frank or with Gruppenführer or Obergruppenführer Wolff of the SS. I remember getting the telephone number of this office, and I think I recall it was furnished me by Herr Puhl. I called Brigadeführer Frank about this, and he stated that the deliveries would be made by truck and would be in charge of an SS man by the name of Melmer. The question was discussed whether Melmer should appear in uniform or civilian clothes, and Frank decided it was better that Melmer appear out of uniform.”
And so on.