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It was supposed to be read by influential Americans interested in international economic affairs. Several Congressmen used the articles of this periodical for their speeches, and they were distributed to their constituency.

Q. Did Degner receive funds from the German government? A. From the Propaganda Ministry, I believe.

Q. Did you ever transmit funds to Degner?

A. No.

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Q. How did you know that he received funds from the Propaganda Ministry?

A. From conversations with my colleagues.

Q. Did the Consul General in New York exercise any control over Degner?

A. I think so. The Nazi system was for the Consul General to have a kind of control over such enterprises.

Q. Did the Ministry of Propaganda direct the line Degner's magazine was to take?

A. I believe so, by a mutual steering committee of the Propaganda Ministry and the Economic Ministry in Berlin.

Q. Have you ever heard of an organization called the Westermann Book Store in New York?

A. Yes.

Q. In what connection?

A. That you could buy there books about Germany, about economic, financial and political problems, and that those books would give the background for better understanding of German news. For instance, one important topic was the blockade, and they explained why the blockade would remain ineffective because Germany produced so many new synthetics. Q. Who managed the Westermann Book Company.

A. Eisele.

Q. Did the Westermann Book Store receive any funds from the German government?

A. Yes, I think so.

Q. Did you transmit any funds to the Westermann Book Store? A. No.

Q. Who did?

A. They came directly from the Propaganda Ministry or maybe from the Carl Schurz Vereinigung in Berlin.

Q. Did the Consul in New York supply any funds to the Westtermann Book Store?

A. I don't know. He may have been an agent for the trans

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mission of funds from the Propaganda Ministry or Carl Schurz.

Q. What do you know about Orgell?

A. He was representative of the VDA (Verein fur das Deutschtum in Ausland) in New York. He was steering man for mass distribution of small pamphlets that were printed in Germany, or at least in Europe, and then sent over and distributed in America.

Q. Who published these leaflets?

Q. Did the Fichtebund also publish some of these leaflets and pamphlets?

Q. Did he likewise represent Flanders Hall, and aid in the distribution of their materials?

Q. Did Orgell receive any funds from the German government? A. Yes.

Q. How do you know?

A. This was one of the points I learned when I returned to Germany.

Q. Do you know who financed him?

A. Finally the Propaganda Ministry. How many other organizations came between him and the Propaganda Ministry, I do not know.

Q. Do you know of the "Organisation Hoffman”?

Q. What was the nature of that organization?

A. They published periodicals called "Foreign Letter" or something, which was specially to be distributed in English-speaking countries.

Q. Who was the publisher?

A. Mr. Hoffman, and he lived near Munich at Starnberger See and I think he was close to the SS.

Q. Was he financed by the SS or the Propaganda Ministry? A. By both.

Q. Did Orgell distribute any of Hoffman's materials?

A. I do not know.

Q. Who did distribute them in the United States?

A. I think they had a list and sent the material directly.

Q. Did you know of this while in the United States, or did you learn of it after your return to Berlin?

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A. In the United States. I learned it from Gienanth, at the Embassy, that this weekly of Hoffman was backed by the SS. Q. Did any of the German agencies or German personnel indulge in whispering campaigns?

A. Yes.

Q. Who?

A. Remnants of the Foreign Section of the Nazi Party in the United States, under the control of Draeger.

Q. Was that the Draeger who was vice-Consul in New York? A. Consul, under Borchers.

Q. Who financed these whispering campaigns?

A. They were financed by members of the Party.

Q. The Nazi Party in the United States?

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A. Yes.

Q. What was the nature of these whispering campaigns?
A. Germany would win the war.

Q. What else?

A. Contradicting atrocity propaganda against Germany.
Q. What else?

A. Anti-Semitic propaganda.

Q. How did you learn about these whispering campaigns? A. Through visits in New York, I heard about this nonsense. Q. From whom?

A. From the German newspaper men.

Q. In what period were these whispering campaigns carried out?

A. 1940, 1941.

Q. What do you know about Mr. Westrick?

A. I knew him personally when he came to the United States. Q. In what capacity?

A. As special envoy of Ribbentrop.

Q. What was his mission?

A. In order to use his personal relations with influential American business men that they should engage in propaganda to keep America out of the war and that if Hitler would win the war in Europe, it would be of great benefit for American economics in general and to their business in particular. Q. How do you know this?

A. Out of conversations with him in the Embassy.

Q. Did he indicate any particular persons he proposed to contact?

A. He indicated several personalities.

Q. Do you recall any names?

A. An oil man. I cannot remember the name of this man, but I have the recollection that he was forced to resign from the Board of Directors because of his relations with Westrick as exposed by Winchell and other American newspapers. Q. Did Westrick comment upon this particular event? A. Several times he came to Washington and reported to Thomsen about his saddening experiences.

Q. Did he mention any other persons?

A. I can't recall their names at the moment.

Q. What "personal relations" did he have in the United States? A. He was legal adviser in Germany of General Motors, of Coca-Cola, Woolworths, Kodak, and other big American commercial enterprises.

Q. Did Westrick have any funds at his disposal for this particular mission?

A. He said he could use funds in a double way. He had a dollar fund and he said that he could furthermore help prominent business men through unfreezing their blocked credits in Germany.

Q. Who authorized him to engage in this type of activity?
A. He was a special envoy of Ribbentrop.

Q. Also of Goebbels?

A. No.

Q. Did he meet with any success?

A. It is difficult to say.

Q. It is past your dinner time and I believe we had better stop. I want the record to show that you have been very cooperative in answering my questions. Thank you.

I have read the foregoing interrogations, pages 1 through 44; I have made such corrections as I found necessary; I have initialed each page and I certify that all the statements in these interrogations are correct to my best knowledge and belief.

Signed: HERIBERT STREMPEL

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Febr. 18th 1946.

Witnessed this 18th day of February 1946, at Oberursel,

Signed: E. JOAN WAKEFIELD
Sgt. K. BEAUCHAMP

R. OTTENBACHER, Capt., Inf.

744400-47-39

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AFFIDAVIT

I, Gerhard Schmidt, Director of Haar-Eglfing Insane Asylum, after having been duly sworn, do hereby make the following statement:

I was licensed as M. D. by the University of Berlin (1930). In 1935, I became an assistant at the Institute for Legal Medicine in Berlin. I worked in Bavaria since 1937 at the Public Hospital, Munich-Schwabing, and also at the Research Institute for psychiatry in Munich. Since 1935, I have been familiar with the system of public asylums, mental hospitals, and similar institutions in Germany. I know that public institutions of this kind were under the supervision and control of the provisional administration of the Laender at the district level. All these public institutions were under the supervision and control of the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin at the highest level. The Reich Minister of the Interior was, as I know, Dr. Wilhelm Frick. As Reich Minister of the Interior, he was chief of the Medical Department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior from 1933 until August 1942 when he became Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

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After the beginning of the war in 1939, I learned from a colleague, Dr. Lemberger, who was in charge of an asylum in occupied Poland, that it was planned that the inmates of his asylum should be killed. About 1940, I became acquainted for the first time with the fact that inmates of asylums in Germany itself were being killed. I became acquainted with this fact first through an industrialist. A short time later, I learned it from my colleagues and from many other people-it was a so-called open secret that such killings were not only planned, but were actually being carried out. I was advised about these happenings not only by my colleagues, but also by relatives of people who had been killed.

It is typical, that despite the fact that this whole affair was an open secret, a psychiatrist who was in the Institution of HaarEglfing, where such things happened, said he could not give any official answer.

The organization of mass-killings was as follows:

First, the physicians of mental and similar asylums had to fill out questionnaires which were sent to a central agency in Berlin. Then the order came back from the central agency in Berlin, that the persons listed should be taken out from one asylum and sent to another asylum where they were killed. The killing was done frequently by injections. For these organized mass-killings, the

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