SAUCKEL: I heard nothing about such events as have been alleged here.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have anything to do with the evacuation of the camp at the end of the war, before the American Army approached?
SAUCKEL: When the mayor of Weimar informed me that they intended to evacuate the camp at Buchenwald and to use the camp guards to fight the American troops, I raised the strongest objections. As I had no authority over the camp, and since for various reasons connected with my other office I had had considerable differences with Himmler and did not care to speak to him, I telephoned the Führer’s headquarters in Berlin and said that in any case an evacuation or a transfer of prisoners into the territory east of the Saale was impossible and madness, and could not be carried through from the point of view of supplies. I demanded that the camp should be handed over to the American occupation troops in an orderly manner. I received the answer that the Führer would give instructions to Himmler to comply with my request. I briefly reported this to some of my colleagues and the mayor, and then I left Weimar.
DR. SERVATIUS: The witness Dr. Blaha has stated that you had also been to the concentration camp at Dachau on the occasion of an inspection.
SAUCKEL: No, I did not go to the Dachau Concentration Camp and, as far as I recollect, I did not take part in the visit of the Gauleiter to Dachau in 1935 either. In no circumstances did I take part in an inspection in Dachau such as Dr. Blaha has described here; and consequently, above all, I did not inspect workshops or anything of the sort.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you not, as Gauleiter, receive official reports regarding the events in the concentration camp, that is to say, orders which passed through the Gau administrative offices both from and to the camp?
SAUCKEL: No. I neither received instructions for the Buchenwald Camp, nor reports. It was not only my personal opinion but it was the opinion of old experienced Gauleiter that it was the greatest misfortune, from the administrative point of view, when Himmler as early as 1934-35 proceeded to separate the executive from the general internal administration. There were continual complaints from many Gauleiter and German provincial administrations. They were unsuccessful, however, because in the end Himmler incorporated even the communal fire brigades into the Reich organization of his Police.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did you have any personal relations with the Police and the SS at Weimar?
SAUCKEL: I had no personal relations with the SS and the Police at all. I had official relations inasmuch as the trade police and the local police of small boroughs still remained under the internal administration of the State of Thuringia.
DR. SERVATIUS: Did not the Police have their headquarters near you, at Weimar?