DR. SEIDL: Witness, in connection with Document 3947-PS, USA-850, I have several questions to put to you.
You heard earlier when the witness Thoms was examined that this letter contains a paragraph which refers to Reich Marshal Göring and which is connected with the Main Trustee Office East. Is it true that this Main Trustee Office was an office which had been established by a Reich law and that its right to confiscate had also been specifically outlined by Reich law?
PUHL: I cannot answer the second part of your question without looking it up since I am not a legally trained man. The Main Trustee Office East was an officially established office—whether by a law or by a decree, is something I cannot tell you at the moment.
DR. SEIDL: To your knowledge, did the Main Trustee Office East have any connection with the SS Economic Administration headquarters, that is to say, with the office of Pohl?
PUHL: I have never observed that.
DR. SEIDL: Is it obviously out of the question, at least when you read the letter, that the Main Trustee Office East and its deliveries could in any way be connected with the “Melmer” action?
PUHL: That very probably is so, yes.
DR. SEIDL: You mean there was no connection?
PUHL: That there was no connection.
DR. SEIDL: You mentioned this morning that among the business transactions which the Reichsbank handled very unwillingly were those with the Customs Investigation and the Currency Control Offices. The last part of this paragraph which refers to the Defendant Göring contains a sentence which refers to the conversion of objects of a similar type which were taken from the occupied western territories. Is it true that, particularly in the occupied western territories, both the Currency Control Offices and the Customs Investigation Offices obtained rich booty?