Letter No. 8

Weimar, 25 November 1941,

Hotel Elephant

2058 hours

At 7 o’clock tomorrow morning we will be awakened. At about 8 o’clock we will have our coffee and then we will drive out in Schmalenbach’s car, but he himself will soon leave for Dresden again. On Thursday and Friday a meeting will be held in Pirna in connection with the action in which problems of the future will be discussed and in which Schmalenbach will take part as the medical adjutant of Herr Brack (Jennerwein). No experts will be present * * *. The first working day at Buchenwald is over. At 8:30 this morning we were out there. At first I introduced myself to the authoritative leaders. The deputy of the camp commandant is SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Florstaedt; camp physician is SS Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Hoven. At first another 40 reports of a first portion of Aryans had to be completed. The two other colleagues worked on these yesterday already. Out of these 40 I worked up about 15. After this whole portion had been worked up, Schmalenbach left for Dresden. He will not return until our work here is done. Following this, the “examination” of the patients was carried out, i. e., a presentation of the individuals and a comparison with the entries taken from the files. We did not finish this work until noon, because the other two colleagues worked only in theory yesterday, so that I had to “re-examine” those whom Schmalenbach (and I myself this morning) had prepared and Mueller did his people. At 12 o’clock we stopped for lunch * * *.

Afterwards we continued our examination until about 4 o’clock. I myself examined 105 patients, Mueller 78 patients, so that finally a total of 183 reports were ready as a first group. As a second group a total of 1,200 Jews followed, all of whom do not need to be “examined”, but where it is sufficient to take the reasons for their arrest from the files (often very voluminous!) and to transfer them to the reports. Therefore, it is merely theoretical work which will certainly keep us busy until next Monday inclusive, perhaps even longer. Of this second group (Jews), we completed today. I myself did 17, and Mueller 15. At 5 o’clock sharp, “we threw away the trowel” and went for supper * * *.

Exactly as the day I described above, the following days will pass—with exactly the same program and the same work. After the Jews, another 300 Aryans follow as a third group who will again have to be “examined”. Therefore, we are busy here until the end of next week. Then on Saturday, 6 December, we shall go home.


TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-1007

PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 413