THOMS: I cannot say that for certain. I made that statement on the strength—I beg your pardon, that is, probably—these deliveries were probably not handled until as late as 1945 or 1944 in the late autumn. It is possible that something about Auschwitz had already leaked out.
DR. SAUTER: Now, you said under Number 14 of your statement that one of the first clues to the source of these articles—apparently meaning the concentration camps—was the fact that a parcel of paper was stamped “Lublin.” This was early in 1943. And another indication was the fact that some items bore the stamp “Auschwitz.” “We all knew”—I’ve already emphasized this before for a very good reason—“we all knew that these places were the sites of concentration camps.” That’s your statement, and I now repeat the question. Of course we all know it now; but did you, Herr Reichsbank Councillor, know at the beginning of 1943 that there was this huge concentration camp at Auschwitz?
THOMS: No. To that positive type of question I must say no, I did not know it, but...
THE PRESIDENT: He did not say anything about a huge concentration camp at Auschwitz.
DR. SAUTER: No, that was a rhetorical exaggeration of mine. I said that we knew from the Trial that there was a huge concentration camp there.
THE PRESIDENT: Did he know it? Did he know that there was a huge concentration camp in 1943? He has not said so.
THOMS: I can answer “no” to your question, but this is the point: I assume that this slip marked “Auschwitz” came from a delivery which was probably made in 1943, but was not dealt with until much later; and I made that statement when I was already in Frankfurt, so that the name “Auschwitz” was familiar to me. I admit that there may be an exaggeration insofar as I did retrospectively tell myself that that was a concentration camp, you see. But I know that at the time, somehow, our attention was drawn to the name “Auschwitz,” and I think we even asked a question about the connection; but we received no answer and we never asked again.
DR. SAUTER: Well then, Witness, I have one last question. The Prosecution has shown us the Document 3947-PS. I repeat, 3947-PS. Apparently this is the draft of a memorandum which some department in the Reichsbank seems to have prepared for the Directorate of the Reichsbank. It is dated 31 March 1944, and it contains the sentence on Page 2 which I shall read to you because it refers to Defendant Funk and to Defendant Göring. This is the sentence:
“The Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich, the Delegate for the Four Year Plan, hereby informs the German Reichsbank, in a letter of 19 March 1944, copy of which is enclosed,”—incidentally, the copy is not here, at least I have not got it—“that the considerable amounts of gold and silver objects, jewels, and so forth, at the Main Trustee Office East should be delivered to the Reichsbank according to the order issued by Reich Minister Funk”—the defendant—“and Graf Schwerin-Krosigk, Reich Finance Minister. The conversion of these objects should be accomplished in the same way as the ‘Melmer’ deliveries.”
That is the end of my quotation.