EMIL KIPA

Warsaw, 15 July 1947. A member of District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Acting Judge Halina Wereńko interviewed the person named below as a witness, without an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and the obligation to speak the truth, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Emil Józef Kipa
Parents’ names Sebastian, Elżbieta née Pełczyńska
Date of birth 17 March 1886
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warszawa, Mickiewicza Street 18 flat 14
Education Doctor of Philosophy
Profession Professor at SGH Warsaw School of Economics

Throughout the German occupation, I held the position of a vice chief of the Presidential Office in the Municipal Board in Warsaw, and as such I was an interpreter and liaison between the Polish Municipal Board and the German Municipal Board.

Regarding the Dengel case I know the following: after the dismissal of the first German commissioner in Warsaw, Dr. Otto, his deputy, Dr. Dengel, was nominated for the post. I hadn’t encountered him personally. By the end of 1940, Dengel had to resign. According to Fischer’s statement during the trial, he was dismissed for lawlessness and exceeding his competences. Among others, he was supposedly the author of the plan to transform Warsaw into a city of 300,000. That plan is within the files related to the Fischer case.

Leist started off his tenure with a remarkable directive to keep twelve chests of Dengel’s alleged personal property, which turned out to belong to the Blank Palace. Dengel had a hostile attitude towards Poles, who considered him a bitter enemy. He was coarse, brutal, threatening, and he didn’t hide his hatred for us. In the administrative rulings regarding the Municipal Board he was undoubtedly aiming to liquidate it and replace it with German people. Dengel was directly responsible for arresting president Starzyński under the guise of an illegal subvention granted to an evangelical congregation for charity (70 thousand zlotys). The president of the congregation was Ewert. On the document which questioned the granting of the subvention, there was a hand-written annotation by Dengel: gestapo ist Herbeizuholen, that is “the Gestapo needs to be summoned”.

It was clear to me that Dengel had informed the Gestapo about the subvention case. I saw that file personally. A couple days later Starzyński was arrested.

The best insight on Dengel’s activity could be provided by Dr. Lorenc [Lorentz?], who was dealing directly with the commissioner’s authorities in that period, and who is presently employed in the Ministry of Culture and Art as a department chief, as well as mayor Kulski, presently head of SPB in Warsaw. Regarding financial matters and possible frauds in that area, Aleksander Iwanka – the head of the Municipal Board Financial Department, presently chief of budget department in the Ministry of Treasury – could be informative, along with Zawadzki, Iwanka’s deputy at the time, presently the head of the Municipal Board Financial Department in Warsaw. The building’s intendent Dawidowski, now employed in the Municipal Board, had contacts with Dengel too.

Privately, I heard that part of the file documenting the work of the Municipal Board at the time of the occupation is located in the Municipal Board Financial Department in Warsaw under chief Zawadzki’s supervision. This information isn’t confirmed.

I can recall that in 1941, due to over 1.5 million zlotys missing from the Municipal Board’s cash deposit, the Municipal Board presented Leist with a list of expenditures which amounted to that number and it turned out that it was comprised of private spending by Dr. Otto and Dengel. There were checks for tea, chocolate, cookies, wine, cognac, etc., which both commissioners requested to be delivered to their homes, sending the bills to the Municipal Board, which created a separate account for German governors. Dengel didn’t come back to Poland after having left in 1940. I heard he was given a post somewhere in Norway.

The protocol was hereby ended and read out.