DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you differentiate between the smaller camps and the regular concentration camps, and if so, why?
KALTENBRUNNER: The difference is very obvious for the following reasons: Any worker who worked in armament industries -that is; each internee-worked in the same enterprise, in the same factory, as every other German or foreign worker. The difference was merely that the German worker at the conclusion of his working hours, at the end of the day, returned to his family, whereas the internee of the labor camp had to return to the camp.
DR. KAUFFMANN: You are accused of establishing the Concentration Camp Mauthausen, that you visited this camp repeatedly. The witness Hollriegel, who testified here, said he had seen you in this camp.
He also claims to have seen you inspecting the gas chambers while they were in operation. There is an affidavit of Zutter, who has already been mentioned today and who claims to have seen you at the Concentration Camp Mauthausen. From this the Prosecution conclude that you, too, must have known exactly about these conditions which were beneath human dignity. I am asking you now, is this evidence correct or wrong? When did you inspect these camps, and what observations did you make?
KALTENBRUNNER: The testimony is wrong. I did not establish any concentration camps in Austria where I was until 1943. I did not establish a single concentration camp in the Reich from 1943 onwards. Every concentration camp in the Reich as I know today, and as has been proved here with certainty, was established on orders of Himmler to Pohl. This applies also-and I wish to emphasize this-to the Mauthausen Camp. Not only were Austrian authorities excluded from establishing the Mauthausen Camp, but they were unpleasantly surprised because neither was the conception of a concentration camp in that sense known in Austria, nor was there a necessity for establishing concentration camps anywhere in Austria.
DR. KAUFFMANN: And now, in Germany, in the Reich proper?
KALTENBRUNNER: What do you mean by that?
DR. KAUFFMANN: I am asking regarding your knowledge of conditions there.
KALTENBRUNNER: I heard gradually more and more about conditions in concentration camps. It is apparent that I must have heard of these things already by way of the entire Reich intelligence service and its news channels for home politics.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you not, as testified by Hollriegel, see the
gas chambers in operation?
KALTENBRUNNER:
Never; neither while they were operating nor at any other time did I see a gas chamber.
THE PRESIDENT: You are going too fast. Make pauses between your questions and answers and don't speak too fast. He said that he had gradually by way of Intelligence, heard of the concentration camps in the Reich. Is that right?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.
[Turning to the defendant.] You heard gradually about conditions in the concentration camps, that is what you said, is it not?
KALTENBRUNNER: Yes.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you recall my last question?
KALTENBRUNNER: No.
DR. KAUFFMANN:
Whether you saw the gas chambers in operation?
KALTENBRUNNER:
Yes, I already answered that I never saw a gas chamber, either in operation or at any other time. I did not know that they existed at Mauthausen and
testimony to that effect is entirely wrong. I never set foot in the detention camp at Mauthausen-that is, the concentration camp proper. I was at Mauthausen, but in the labor camp, not in the detention camp. The total complex of Mauthausen, as I remember it today, extends over an area of ~ kilometers. Within this area there is a space of perhaps 41/2 or 5 kilometers of labor camps. There are the largest granite quarries in Austria, and they were owned by the city of Vienna.
DR. KAUFFMANN: A picture has been shown in which you appear together with Himmler and Ziereis.
KALTENBRUNNER: I was just coming to that. The quarries belonged to the city of Vienna. The city of Vienna had a vital interest not to be excluded from the deliveries of granite which they used for paving the streets of Vienna. Now, according to a Reich law, as I learned later, this large quarry was expropriated from the city of Vienna by the WVHA-Pohl-and the city of Vienna was excluded from the supply of granite for quite some time. Now, the city turned to me to approach Himmler on this. It happened that Himmler was visiting and inspecting southern Germany and decided to visit Austria and Mauthausen and asked me to see him there. In that way, it came about that I was with Himmler at this quarry. Whether or not I was photographed at that time, I do not know. I have not seen the picture and I cannot say whether I am in it.
I might add something. Neither at this time nor at any other time did Himmler ever take me into a concentration camp or suggest that he do so; as I learned later, he had certain reasons for not doing so. I would not have attended such an inspection for I knew very well that as far as I was concerned, he would, as he did with others whom he had invited on such visits, show me "Potemkin villages" and not conditions as they actually were; and, except for a handful of men in the WVHA, no one else was allowed to see how things really were in concentration camps.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Now, may I ask you-you are speaking about a handful of men-you did not belong to this group?
KALTENBRUNNER: No, I did not. This handful of men were Himmler, Pohl, Muller, and Glucks, and the camp commanders.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/04-11-46.asp