Morning Session
THE PRESIDENT: I call on the counsel for the United States.
COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, when Your Honors adjourned on 20 December we were presenting the Gestapo and had referred to the use of the death vans by the Einsatz groups in the eastern occupied countries and had almost concluded that phase of the presentation. Your Honors will recall we had referred to the use of some death vans made by the Saurer works, and the final reference that I want to make in that connection is to a telegram attached to Document 501-PS, which it is not necessary to read, which establishes the fact that the same make of truck or vans were the death vans used by the Einsatz groups.
The final document in connection with the Einsatz groups in the Eastern Occupied Territories which we desire to offer is Document 2992-PS, and I believe it is in the second volume of the document book. This is an affidavit made by Hermann Gräbe. Hermann Gräbe is at present employed by the United States Government at Frankfurt. The affidavit was made at Wiesbaden; and I offer excerpts from the affidavit, 2992-PS, Exhibit Number USA-494.
This witness was at the head of a construction firm that was doing some building in the Ukraine and he was an eyewitness to the anti-Jewish actions at the town of Rovno, Ukraine, on 13 July 1942, and I refer to the part of the affidavit which is on Page 5 of the English translation. Beginning at the first:
“From September 1941 until January 1944 I was manager and engineer-in-charge of a branch office in Sdolbunov, Ukraine, of the Solingen building firm of Josef Jung. In this capacity it was my job to visit the building sites of the firm. The firm had, among others, a site in Rovno, Ukraine.
“During the night of 13 July 1942, all inhabitants of the Rovno ghetto, where there were still about 5,000 Jews, were liquidated.
“I should describe the circumstances of my being a witness of the dissolution of the ghetto and the carrying out of the pogrom during the night and morning, as follows:
“I employed for the firm in Rovno, in addition to Poles, Germans, and Ukrainians, about 100 Jews from Sdolbunov, Ostrog, and Mysotch. The men were quartered in a building, 5 Bahnhofstrasse, inside the ghetto, and the women in a house at the corner of Deutschestrasse, 98.
“On Saturday, 11 July 1942, my foreman, Fritz Einsporn, told me of a rumor that on Monday all Jews in Rovno were to be liquidated. Although the vast majority of the Jews employed by my firm in Rovno were not natives of this town, I still feared that they might be included in this announced pogrom. I therefore ordered Einsporn at noon of the same day to march all the Jews employed by us—men as well as women—in the direction of Sdolbunov, about 12 kilometers from Rovno. This was done.
“The Eldest of the Jews had learned of the departure of the Jewish workers of my firm. He went to see the commanding officer of the Rovno Sipo and SD, SS Major (SS Sturmbannführer) Dr. Pütz, as early as Saturday afternoon to find out whether the rumor of a forthcoming Jewish pogrom, which had gained further credence by reason of the departure of Jews of my firm, was true. Dr. Pütz dismissed the rumor as a clumsy lie and for the rest had the Polish personnel of my firm in Rovno arrested. Einsporn avoided arrest by escaping from Sdolbunov. When I learned of this incident I gave orders that all Jews who had left Rovno were to report back to work in Rovno on Monday, 13 July 1942. On Monday morning I myself went to see the commanding officer, Dr. Pütz, in order to learn, for one thing, the truth about the rumored Jewish pogrom and secondly to obtain information on the arrest of the Polish office personnel. SS Major Pütz stated to me that no pogrom whatever was planned. Moreover, such a pogrom would be stupid because the firms and the Reichsbahn would lose valuable workers.
“An hour later I received a summons to appear before the area commissioner of Rovno. His deputy, Stabsleiter and Cadet Officer Beck, subjected me to the same questions as I had undergone at the SD. My explanation that I had sent the Jews home for urgent delousing appeared plausible to him. He then told me—making me promise to keep it a secret—that a pogrom would, in fact, take place in the evening of Monday, 13 July 1942. After lengthy negotiation I managed to persuade him to give me permission to take my Jewish workers to Sdolbunov—but only after the pogrom had been carried out. During the night it would be up to me to protect the house in the ghetto against the entry of Ukrainian militia and SS. As confirmation of the discussion he gave me a document, which stated that the Jewish employees of Messrs. Jung were not affected by the pogrom.”
And this original which I hold in my hand, I will now pass to the translator for reading. I call the attention of Your Honors to the fact that it has the letterhead of “Der Gebietskommissar in Rovno,” and it is dated the 13th of July 1942, and it is signed by this area commissioner. I now read this document:
“The area commissioner”—which means Gebietskommissar—“Rovno. Secret.”—Addressed—“Messrs. Jung, Rovno.
“The Jewish workers employed by your firm are not affected by the pogrom”—in parenthesis “Aktion.” As I understand, that means “action.”
“You must transfer them to their new place of work by Wednesday, 15 July 1942, at the latest.”
Signed by the Area Commissioner Beck. And then the stamp—the official stamp of the area commissioner at Rovno.
Now, just the following paragraph on the original, Page 5 or 6, I believe it is; one more paragraph I would like to read after the reference “Original attached”:
“On the evening of this day I drove to Rovno and posted myself with Fritz Einsporn in front of the house in the Bahnhofstrasse in which the Jewish workers of my firm slept. Shortly after 2200 the ghetto was encircled by a large SS detachment and about three times as many members of the Ukrainian militia. Then the electric arclights which had been erected in and around the ghetto were switched on. SS and militia squads of four to six men entered or at least tried to enter the house. Where the doors and windows were closed and the inhabitants did not open at the knocking, the SS men and militia broke the windows, forced the doors with beams and crowbars and entered the houses. The people living there were driven on to the street just as they were, regardless of whether they were dressed or in bed. Since the Jews in most cases refused to leave their houses and resisted, the SS and militia applied force. They finally succeeded, with strokes of the whip, kicks, and blows with rifle butts, in clearing the houses. The people were driven out of their houses in such haste that small children in bed had been left behind in several instances. In the streets women cried out for their children and children for their parents. That did not prevent the SS from driving the people along the road at running pace, and hitting them, until they reached a waiting freight train. Car after car was filled, and the screaming of women and children and the cracking of whips and rifle shots resounded unceasingly. Since several families or groups had barricaded themselves in especially strong buildings and the doors could not be forced with crowbars or beams, the doors were now blown open with hand grenades. Since the ghetto was near the railroad tracks in Rovno, the younger people tried to get across the tracks and over a small river to get away from the ghetto area. As this stretch of country was beyond the range of the electric lights, it was illuminated by small rockets. All through the night these beaten, hounded, and wounded people moved along the lighted streets. Women carried their dead children in their arms, children pulled and dragged their dead parents by their arms and legs down the road toward the train. Again and again the cries, ‘Open the door! Open the door!’ echoed through the ghetto.”
I will not read any more of this affidavit. It is a very long one. There is also a second affidavit, but the part I wanted to emphasize is the fact that the original exemption was signed by the area commissioner and that the SD and the SS participated in this action.
THE PRESIDENT: Oughtn’t you to read the rest of that page, Colonel Storey?
COL. STOREY: All right, Sir. I really had eliminated that because I thought there might be some repetition.
“About 6 o’clock in the morning I went away for a moment, leaving behind Einsporn and several other German workers who had returned in the meantime. I thought the greatest danger was past and that I could risk it. Shortly after I left, Ukrainian militia men forced their way into 5 Bahnhofstrasse and brought seven Jews out and took them to a collecting point inside the ghetto. On my return I was able to prevent further Jews from being taken out. I went to the collecting point to save these seven men. I saw dozens of corpses of all ages and both sexes in the streets I had to walk along. The doors of the houses stood open, windows were smashed. Pieces of clothing, shoes, stockings, jackets, caps, hats, coats, et cetera, were lying in the street. At the corner of a house lay a baby, less than a year old with his skull crushed. Blood and brains were spattered over the house wall and covered the area immediately around the child. The child was dressed only in a little shirt. The commander, SS Major Pütz, was walking up and down a row of about 80 to 100 male Jews who were crouching on the ground. He had a heavy dog whip in his hand. I walked up to him, showed him the written permit of Stabsleiter Beck and demanded the seven men whom I recognized among those who were crouching on the ground. Dr. Pütz was very furious about Beck’s concession and nothing could persuade him to release the seven men. He made a motion with his hand encircling the square and said that anyone who was once here would not get away. Although he was very angry with Beck, he ordered me to take the people from 5 Bahnhofstrasse out of Rovno by 8 o’clock at the latest. When I left Dr. Pütz, I noticed a Ukrainian farm cart with two horses. Dead people with stiff limbs were lying on the cart. Legs and arms projected over the side boards. The cart was making for the freight train. I took the remaining 74 Jews who had been locked in the house to Sdolbunov.
“Several days after the 13th of July 1942 the area commissioner of Sdolbunov, Georg Marschall, called a meeting of all firm managers, railroad superintendents, and leaders of the Organization Todt and informed them that the firms, et cetera, should prepare themselves for the resettlement of the Jews which was to take place almost immediately. He referred to the pogrom in Rovno where all the Jews had been liquidated, i.e. had been shot near Kostopol.”
Finally, his signature is sworn to on the 10th of November 1945.
THE PRESIDENT: What nationality is Gräbe?
COL. STOREY: He is German. Gräbe was a German and is now in the employ of the Military Government at Frankfurt—the United States Military Government.
Your Honor, in that connection there is another separate affidavit attached to this which is a part of the same document, which I will not attempt to read. But it has to do with the execution of some people in another area and is along the same line. I am not reading it because it would be cumulative, but it is a part of this same document.
I now pass from that subject to the next subject.
The Gestapo and SD stationed special units in prisoner-of-war camps for the purpose of screening out racial and political undesirables and executing those who were screened out. The program of mass murder of political and racial undesirables carried on against civilians was also applied to prisoners of war who were captured on the Eastern Front. In this connection I call attention of the Tribunal to the testimony of General Lahousen, which Your Honors will recall, of the 30th of November 1945. Lahousen testified to a conference which took place in the summer of 1941 shortly after the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union, which was attended by himself—and I want to emphasize this, because we will later have a document that emanated from this conference—attended by himself, General Reinecke, Colonel Breuer, and Müller, the head of the Gestapo. At this conference the command to kill Soviet functionaries and Communists among the Soviet prisoners of war was discussed. The executions were to be carried out by Einsatzkommandos of the Sipo and the SD. Lahousen further recalled that Müller, who was the head of the Gestapo, insisted on carrying out the program and that the only concession he made was that, in deference to the sensibilities of the German troops, the executions would not take place in the presence of the troops. Müller also made some concessions as to the selection of the persons to be murdered; but, according to Lahousen, the selection was left entirely to the commanders of these screening units. I refer to Page 633 of the official transcript (Volume II, Page 458).
Now I offer Document 502-PS as the next exhibit, Exhibit Number USA-486. This document is a Gestapo directive of the 17 of July 1941—If you will recall, Lahousen said this conference was in the summer of 1941—It is addressed to commanders of the Sipo and SD stationed in camps and provides in part as follows, and I read from the first page of the English translation. Now, if the Tribunal please, our colleagues, the Soviet prosecutors, will present most of that document; and I am only going to read enough to show that the Gestapo were the ones that took part in it. From the beginning:
“The activation of Commandos will take place in accordance with the agreement of the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service and the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as of 16 July 1941. Enclosure 1.
“The Commandos will work independently within the limits of the camp regulations according to special authorization and according to the general directives given to them. Naturally the Commandos will keep close contact with the camp commander and the intelligence officer assigned to him.
“The mission of the Commandos is the political investigating of all camp inmates, the separation and further treatment of:
“a. All political, criminal, or in some other way, intolerable elements among them;
“b. Those persons who could be used for the reconstruction of the occupied countries.”
Now I skip to the beginning of the fourth paragraph:
“The Commandos must use for their work, as far as possible at present and even later, the experiences of the camp commanders which the latter have collected meanwhile from the observation of the prisoners and examination of the camp inmates. Further, the Commandos must make efforts from the beginning to seek out among the prisoners elements which would appear reliable, regardless whether they are Communists or not, in order to use them for intelligence purposes inside the camp and, if advisable, later in the occupied territories also.
“By use of such informers and by use of all other existing possibilities, the discovery of all elements to be eliminated among the prisoners must proceed, step by step, at once. The Commandos must find out definitely in every case, by a short questioning of those reported and possibly by questioning other prisoners, what measures should be taken. The information of one informer is not sufficient to designate a camp inmate to be a suspect without further proof. It must be confirmed in some way, if possible.”
Now I skip to Page 2, the third paragraph of the English translation, quoting:
“Executions are not to be held in the camp or in the immediate vicinity of the camp. If the camps in the Government General are in the immediate vicinity of the border, then the prisoners are to be taken for special treatment, if possible, into the former Soviet Russian territory.”
And then the fifth paragraph:
“In regard to executions to be carried out and to the possible removal of reliable civilians and the removal of informers for the Einsatzgruppe into the occupied territories, the leader of the Einsatzkommandos must make an agreement with the nearest State Police office, as well as with the commandant of the Security Police unit and Security Service, and beyond these, with the Chief of the Einsatzgruppe concerned in the occupied territories.”
Proof that persons so screened out of the prisoner-of-war camps by the Gestapo were executed is to be found in Document 1165-PS, from which I did not intend to quote and which has been introduced previously as Exhibit Number USA-244. Document 1165-PS which shows that they executed those that had been screened out.
The first page of that document, without reading it, is a letter from the camp commandant of the Concentration Camp Gross-Rosen to Müller, who was the Chief of the Gestapo, dated the 23rd of October 1941, referring to a previous oral conference with Müller and setting forth the names of 20 Soviet prisoners of war executed the previous day.
The second page—I am still referring to 1165 but not reading from it, because it has been quoted from—is a directive issued by Müller on the 9th of November 1941 to all Gestapo offices, in which he ordered that all diseased prisoners of war should be excluded from transports to concentration camps for execution, because 5 to 10 percent of those destined for execution were arriving in the camps dead or half dead.
I now offer Document 2542-PS, Exhibit Number USA-489, which is in the second volume. This is an affidavit of Kurt Lindow, a former Gestapo official, which was taken on the 30th of September 1945, at Oberursel, Germany, in the course of an official military investigation by the United States Army; and I quote from that document from the beginning:
“I was criminal director in Section IV of the RSHA”—I call Your Honors’ attention to the chart on the board that he was criminal director in Section IV and head of the Subsection IV A 1—“from the middle of 1942 until the middle of 1944. I had the rank of SS Sturmbannführer.
“From 1941 until the middle of 1943, there was attached to Subsection IV A 1”—which is not shown on this chart, but has previously been described in the beginning—“a special department that was headed by the Regierungsoberinspektor, later Regierungsamtmann, and SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Königshaus. In this department, were handled matters concerning prisoners of war. I learned from this department that instructions and orders by Reichsführer Himmler dating from 1941 to 1942 existed, according to which captured Soviet political commissars and Jewish soldiers were to be executed. As far as I know, proposals for execution of such prisoners of war were received from the various prisoner-of-war camps. Königshaus had to prepare the orders for execution and submitted them to the chief of Section IV, Müller, for signature”—Müller being the head of the Gestapo.—“These orders were made out so that one was to be sent to the agency making the request, and a second one to the concentration camp designated to carry out the execution. The prisoners of war in question were at first formally released from prisoner-of-war status, then transferred to a concentration camp for execution.
“The Chief of the section Königshaus, was under me in disciplinary questions from the middle of 1942 until about the beginning of 1943 and worked, in matters of his department, directly with the chief of Subsection IV A, Regierungsdirector Panzinger. Early in 1943 the department was dissolved and absorbed into the departments in Subsection IV B. The work concerning Russian prisoners of war must then have been done by IV B 2a. Head of Department IV B 2a was Regierungsrat and Sturmbannführer Hans Helmuth Wolf.
“There existed in the prisoner-of-war camps on the Eastern Front small screening teams (Einsatzkommandos), headed by a lower ranking member of the Secret Police or Gestapo. These teams were assigned to the camp commanders and had the job to segregate the prisoners of war who were candidates for execution, according to the orders that had been given, and to report them to the office of the Secret Police.”
I will not read the remainder of that affidavit.
Passing from that phase of the case: The Gestapo and SD sent recaptured prisoners of war to concentration camps where they were executed—that is, prisoners of war who had escaped and were recaptured. The Tribunal will recall that in a document heretofore introduced, 1650-PS, was an order in which the Chief of the Security Police and SD instructed regional Gestapo offices to take certain classes of recaptured officers from camps and to transport them to Mauthausen concentration camp, under the operation known as “Kugel.” That, if Your Honor recalls, means “bullet.” That is the famous “Bullet Decree” that has been previously introduced. On the journey the prisoners of war were to be placed in irons. The Gestapo officers were to make semi-annual reports, giving numbers only, of the sending of these prisoners of war to Mauthausen. On the 27th of July 1944 an order was issued from the VI Corps Area Command on the treatment of prisoners of war. That is Document 1514-PS in the second volume, which I offer as Exhibit Number USA-491. This document provided that prisoners of war were to be discharged from prisoner-of-war status and transferred to the Gestapo under certain circumstances, and I quote from the first page, beginning with the word “subject,” quoting:
“Subject: Delivery of prisoners of war to the Secret State Police.
“Enclosed in the annex Reference Decree 1. The following summarized ruling is issued with respect to the delivery to the Secret Police:
“1) a) According to Reference Decrees 2 and 3, the commander of the camp has to deliver Soviet prisoners of war to the Secret State Police in case of punishable offenses and to dismiss them from imprisonment of war, if he does not believe that his disciplinary functions suffice to prescribe punishment for violations committed. Report of the facts of the case is not necessary.
“b) Recaptured Soviet prisoners of war have to be delivered first to the nearest police office in order to ascertain whether punishable offenses have been committed during the escape. The dismissal from imprisonment of war takes place upon suggestion of the police office, (Section A6 of Reference Decree Number 4 regarding the compilation of all regulations on the Arbeitseinsatz of prisoners of war who have been recaptured and refuse to work.)
“c) Recaptured Soviet officers who are prisoners of war have to be delivered to the Gestapo and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war. (Section A1 of Reference Decree Number 4.)
“d) Soviet officer prisoners of war who refuse to work and those who distinguish themselves as agitators and exert an unfavorable influence upon the willingness to work of the other prisoners of war have to be delivered by the responsible Stalag to the nearest State Police office and dismissed from imprisonment of war. (Section C1 of Reference Decree Number 4 and Reference Decree Number 5.)
“e) Soviet enlisted prisoners of war refusing to work who are ringleaders and those who distinguish themselves as agitators and therefore exert an unfavorable influence upon the willingness to work of the other prisoners of war have to be delivered to the nearest State Police office and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war. (Section C2 of Reference Decree Number 4.)
“f) Soviet prisoners of war (enlisted men and officers) who, with respect to their political attitude, have been sifted out by the Einsatzkommando of the Security Police and the Security Service have to be delivered upon request by the camp commander to the Einsatzkommando and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war. (Reference Decree Number 6.)
“g) 1. Polish prisoners of war have to be delivered, if acts of sabotage are proven, to the nearest State Police office and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war. The decision rests with the camp commander. Report on this is not necessary. (Reference Decree Number 7.)
“2. A report on the delivery and dismissal from imprisonment of war in the cases mentioned under Paragraph 1 of this decree to the Wehrkreis Command VI, Department for Prisoners of War, is not necessary.
“3. Prisoners of war from all nations have to be delivered to the Secret State Police and to be dismissed from imprisonment of war, if a special order to that effect is issued by the OKW or by Wehrkreis Command VI, Department for Prisoners of War.
“4. Prisoners of war under suspicion of participation in illegal organizations and resistance movements have to be left to the Gestapo upon request for the purpose of interrogation. They remain prisoners of war and have to be treated as such. The delivery to the Gestapo and their dismissal from imprisonment of war has to take place only by order of the OKW or of Wehrkreis Command VI, Department for Prisoners of War.
“In case of French and Belgian prisoners of war and interned Italian military personnel, approval of Wehrkreis Command VI, Department for Prisoners of War, has to be obtained—if necessary by phone—before delivery to the Gestapo for the purpose of interrogation.”
This decree was known as the “Bullet Decree.” Prisoners of war sent to Mauthausen concentration camp under the decree were executed.
I now offer in support of that statement Document 2285-PS, Exhibit Number USA-490. It is in the second volume. Document 2285-PS is an affidavit of Lieutenant Colonel Guivante de Saint Gast and Lieutenant Jean Veith, both of the French Army, which was taken on the 13th of May 1945 in the course of an official military investigation by the United States Army. The affidavit discloses that Lieutenant Colonel Gast was confined at Mauthausen from 18 March 1944 to 22 April 1945 and that Lieutenant Veith was confined from 22 April 1943 until 22 April 1945. I quote from the affidavit, beginning with the third paragraph of Page 1, quoting:
“In Mauthausen existed several treatments of prisoners, amongst them the ‘action K or Kugel’ (Bullet action). Upon the arrival of transports, prisoners with the mention ‘K’ were not registered, got no numbers, and their names remained unknown except for the officials of the Politische Abteilung. Lieutenant Veith had the opportunity of hearing upon the arrival of a transport the following conversation between the Untersturmführer Streitwieser and chief of the convoy:
“ ‘How many prisoners?’
“ ‘15 but two K.’
“ ‘Well, that makes 13.’
“The K prisoners were taken directly to the prison where they were unclothed and taken to the ‘bathroom.’ This bathroom in the cellars of the prison building near the crematory was specially designed for execution (shooting and gassing).
“The shooting took place by means of a measuring apparatus—the prisoner being backed towards a metrical measure with an automatic contraption releasing a bullet in his neck as soon as the moving plank determining his height touched the top of his head.
“If a transport consisted of too many ‘K’ prisoners, instead of losing time for the ‘measurement’ they were exterminated by gas sent into the shower room instead of water.”
I now pass to another subject, namely: “The Gestapo was responsible for establishing and classifying concentration camps and for committing racial and political undesirables to concentration and annihilation camps for slave labor and mass murder.”
The Tribunal has already received evidence concerning the responsibility of the Gestapo for the administration of concentration camps and the authority of the Gestapo for taking persons into protective custody to be carried out in the State concentration camps. The Gestapo also issued orders establishing concentration camps, transforming prisoner-of-war camps into concentration camps as internment camps, changing labor camps into concentration camps, setting up special sections for female prisoners, and so forth.
The Chief of the Security Police and SD ordered the classification of concentration camps according to the seriousness of the accusation and the chances for reforming the prisoners, from the Nazi viewpoint. I now refer to Documents 1063(a)-PS and 1063(b)-PS in the second volume, Exhibit Number USA-492. The concentration camps were classified as Class I, II, or III. Class I was for the least serious prisoners, and Class III was for the most serious. Now this Document 1063(a)-PS is signed by Heydrich and it is dated the 2d of January 1941. I quote from the beginning with the word “subject,” quoting:
“Subject: Classification of the concentration camps.
“The Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police has given his approval to classify the concentration camps into various categories, which take into account the personality of the prisoner as well as the degree of his harmfulness to the State. Accordingly, the concentration camps will be classified into the following categories:
“Category I—for all prisoners charged with minor offenses only and definitely qualified for correction; also for special cases and solitary confinement—Camps Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Auschwitz I. The latter also applies in part to Category II.
“Category Ia—for all old prisoners conditionally qualified for work who could still be used in the medicinal herb gardens—Camp Dachau.
“Category II—for prisoners charged with major offenses but still qualified for re-education and correction—Camps Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Neuengamme, Auschwitz II.
“Category III—for prisoners under most serious charges, also for those who have been convicted previously for criminal offenses; at the same time for asocial prisoners, that is to say, those who can hardly be corrected—Camp Mauthausen.”
I call Your Honor’s attention to the fact that we have been talking about Mauthausen, where the “K” action took place.
The Chief of the Security Police and SD had the authority to fix the length of the period of custody. During the war it was the policy not to permit the prisoners to know the period of custody and merely to announce the term as “until further notice.” That was established by Document 1531-PS, which has previously been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-248; and the only reason for referring to it is to show that they had the right to fix the length of period of custody.
The local Gestapo offices, which made the arrests, maintained a register called the “Haftbuch,” and I understand Haftbuch simply means a block or police register. In this register the names of all persons arrested were listed, together with personal data, grounds of arrest, and disposition. When orders were received from the Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin to commit persons who had been arrested to concentration camps, an entry was made in the Haftbuch to that effect.
I now offer in evidence the original of one of these books, and it is Document Number L-358, Exhibit Number USA-495. This book was captured by the 3rd Army when it overran an area; and it was captured by the T-Force on April 22, 1945, near Bad Sulza, Germany. This book is the original register used by the Gestapo at Tomaszow, Poland, to record the names of the persons arrested, the grounds for arrest, and the disposition made of cases during the period from 1 June 1943 to 20 December 1944.
In the register are approximately 3,500 names of persons. Approximately 2,200 were arrested for membership in the resistance movements and partisan units. This is a very large book; and I am going to ask the clerk to pass it to Your Honors so that you might get a look at it. It is too big to photograph. And if Your Honors will just turn to one of the pages, I will read what the different columns provide—just any one of the pages. There is a double column. It starts on the left and goes over to the other side. In the first column that heading is simply a number of the man when he comes in. The next column is his name. The third column is the family—a brief family history and his religion. The fourth is the domicile. The next shows the date he was arrested and by whom—that is the fifth column. The next column, the place of arrest. And then the next column, the reason for arrest. And then the next is another number which is apparently a serial number for delivery. And next to the last column is the disposition. And the final column, remarks.
Now, out of the 3,500 names that are shown in that book, Your Honors will notice a number of red marks. Those apparently meant the ones that were shot. Of these, 325 were shot. Only 35 of that 325 had first been tried. Nine hundred and fifty out of this list were sent to concentration camps; and 155 were sent to the Reich for forced labor. According to this register, similar treatment was accorded persons who were arrested on other grounds, for instance, Communists, Jews, hostages, and persons taken in reprisal. A large number are shown to have been arrested during raids, no further grounds being stated.
I particularly refer Your Honors to entries 286, 287, and 288, that is, the numbers in the first column of the register, where the crime charged to the person arrested was “als Juden”; in other words, he was a Jew. And by that you will find a red cross mark; and the punishment given was death.
I now pass from this document and simply call attention to Document L-215, which was heretofore introduced as Exhibit Number USA-243. I don’t intend to read from it unless Your Honors want to turn to L-215. This is a file of original dossiers on 25 Luxembourgers taken into protective custody for commitment to concentration camps. I will just refer to a sentence of the language in the document. Quoting:
“According to the finding of the State Police, he endangers by his attitude the existence and security of the people and the State.”
And in each case, with reference to those dossiers, that appears as being the reason for the execution of these 25 Luxembourgers. And in connection . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Storey, you said execution, did you not?
COL. STOREY: I beg your pardon—sending to concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. There is no evidence they were executed?
COL. STOREY: No, Sir; they were committed to concentration camps. And also in connection with that same document there is a form provided by which the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin were notified when the persons were received by the concentration camps.
Another document—which has heretofore been received as Exhibit Number USA-279, Document 1472-PS, in the second volume—I am simply going to refer to as a predicate for another. That was a telegram of 16 December 1942 in which Müller reported that the Gestapo could round up some 45,000 Jews in connection with the program of obtaining additional labor in concentration camps. And with reference to the same subject there is Document 1063(d)-PS, which has heretofore been offered as Exhibit Number USA-219. Müller sent a directive to the commanders and inspectors of the Security Police and SD and to the directors of the Gestapo regional offices in which he stated that Himmler had ordered, on 14 December 1942, that at least 35,000 persons who were fit for work had to be put into concentration camps not later than the end of January.
Now, in that same connection I offer Document L-41, Volume 1, as Exhibit Number USA-496. This document contains a further directive from Müller dated the 23rd of March 1943 and supplements the directive of 17 December 1942, to which I referred and in which he states that the measures are to be carried out until 30 April 1943. And I would like to quote from the second paragraph on Page 3 of the exhibit:
“Care must be taken, however, that only prisoners who are fit for work are transferred to concentration camps, and adolescents only in accordance with the given directives; otherwise, the concentration camps would become overcrowded, and this would defeat the intended aim.”
In that same connection I offer Document 701-PS, Exhibit Number USA-497. This is a letter dated 21 April 1943 from the Minister of Justice to the public prosecutors and also addressed to the Commissioner of the Reich Minister of Justice for the penal camps in Emsland. Quoting:
“Subject: Poles and Jews who are released from the penal institutions of the Department of Justice. Copies for the independent penal institutions.
“1. With reference to the new guiding principles for the application of Article 1, Section 2, of the decree of 11 June 1940, Reichsgesetzblatt I, Page 877—Attachment I of the decree (RV) of 27 January 1943—9133/2 Enclosure I-III a 2/2629—the Reich Security Main Office has directed by the decree of 11 March 1943—II A 2 Number 100/43—176:
“(a) Jews, who in accordance with Number VI of the directives are released from prison, are to be committed for life in the concentration camps Auschwitz or Lublin by the head office of the State Police competent for the district in which the prison is located, in compliance with directions issued about protective custody.
“The same applies to Jews who in the future are released from prison after serving a sentence of confinement.
“(b) Poles, who in accordance with Number VI of the directives are released from prison, are to be taken, by the head office of the State Police competent for the district in which the prison is located, for the duration of the war to a concentration camp in compliance with directions issued concerning protective custody.
“The same applies in the future to Poles being released from prison after serving a term of imprisonment of more than 6 months.
“In answer to the request of the Reich Security Main Office I ask that in the future: (a) All Jews about to be released and (b) all Poles awaiting release who have served a sentence of more than 6 months, are to be listed to the directorate of the State Police competent for the district for further confinement and, in due time before the end of sentence, are to be placed at its disposal for transfer.”
And the last paragraph states that this ruling replaces the hitherto ordered return of all Polish prisoners undergoing imprisonment in the Old Reich condemned in the annexed Eastern territory.
The next subject: The Gestapo and the SD participated in deportation of citizens of occupied countries for forced labor and handled the disciplining of forced labor.
With reference to the presentation heretofore made concerning forced labor, I do not intend to repeat. However, there were several references to important positions played by the Gestapo and the SD in rounding up persons to be brought into the Reich for forced labor and references in two or three documents that were introduced, I simply want to cite those documents as showing the part that the Gestapo and SD played. Document L-61, Exhibit Number USA-177. It is set out in this document book—I am simply citing it—it is a letter of the 26th of November 1942 from Fritz Sauckel, in which he stated that he had been advised by the Chief of the Security Police and SD under date of 26 October 1942 that during the month of November the evacuation of Poles in the Lublin district would begin in order to make room for the settlement of persons of the German race. The Poles who were evacuated as a result of this measure were to be put into concentration camps for labor as far as they were criminal or antisocial.
The Tribunal will also recall the Christensen letter, which is our Document 3012-PS, Exhibit Number USA-190. In that letter it is stated that during the year 1943 the program of mass murders carried out by the Einsatz groups in the East should be modified in order to round up hundreds of thousands of persons for labor in the armament industry. That was in Document 3012-PS, which has heretofore been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-190. And that force was to be used when necessary. Prisoners were to be released so that they could be used for forced labor. When villages were burned down the whole population was to be placed at the disposal of the labor commissioners.
Now in that connection the direct responsibility of the Gestapo for disciplining forced workers is shown in our exhibit, Document 1573-PS, Exhibit Number USA-498. This is a secret order signed by Müller himself to the regional Gestapo offices on the 18th of June 1941; and I quote from the document from the beginning. It is addressed:
“To all offices of the State Police—to the State Police, attention SS Sturmbannführer R. R. Nosske or deputy at Aachen.
“Subject: Measures to be taken against emigrants and civilian workers who come from the Greater Russian areas and against foreign workers.
“Reference: None.
“To prevent the return of Russian, Ukrainian, White Ruthenian, Cossack, and Caucasian emigrants and civilian workers from the territory of the Reich to the East without authorization and on their own initiative and to prevent attempts of sabotage by foreign workers in German production, I decide as follows:
“(1) The managers of the branch offices of the Russian, Ukrainian, White Ruthenian, and Caucasian trustees office, as well as of the relief committees and the leading members of the Russian, Ukrainian, White Ruthenian, Cossack, and Caucasian emigrants’ organizations, are to be notified immediately that they are not allowed to leave their domicile without permission of the Security Police until further notice. They are, at the same time, to be told to apply the same measures to the members who are under their care. Their attention is to be called to the fact that they will be arrested upon giving up their job or domicile without permission. I request a check on the presence of branch office leaders, if possible, by daily inquiries, on pretexts.
“(2) Emigrants and foreign workers who are specifically charged and who are suspected of intelligence work for the U.S.S.R. are to be arrested if the situation demands it. This step must be prepared; it is, however, not to be executed before the pass word ‘Fremdvölker’ has been transmitted by means of ‘urgent’ telegram.”
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think you should read the rest of that?
COL. STOREY: I don’t think so, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, I next offer in evidence Document 3360-PS, Exhibit Number USA-499, the second volume. Before I hand this document to the translator, I should like to exhibit it to Your Honors. It is an original telegram that was sent to the Gestapo office at Nuremberg. It was discovered by the C.I.C., by Lieutenant Stevens, near Hersbruck, Germany; and Your Honors will notice that parts of it have been burned. It was in connection with some documents that had been buried and they were partially burned when they were buried. This is one of the telegrams. It is from the Secret State Police, the State Police station at Nuremberg and Fürth, and it is dated the 12th of February 1944. I quote from the telegram:
“RSHA IV F 1-45/44; the Border Inspector General; urgent, submit immediately.
“Treatment of recaptured escaped Eastern laborers.”—Ostarbeiter.
“On the basis of an order of the RFSS, all recaptured escaped Eastern laborers without exception are, from now on, to be sent to concentration camps. For the purpose of reporting to RFSS, I ask for one single report by teletype to Section IV D (foreign laborers) on 10 March 1944 as to how many of such male or female Eastern laborers were turned over to a concentration camp between today and 10 March 1944.”
By these methods the Gestapo and SD maintained control over forced labor brought into the Reich.
The next subject I go into is that the Gestapo and SD executed captured commandos and paratroopers and protected civilians who lynched Allied fliers.
On 4 August 1942 Keitel issued an order which provided that the Gestapo and SD were responsible for taking counter measures against single parachutists or small groups of them with special missions. In substantiation I offer Document Number 553-PS as the exhibit next in order, Exhibit Number USA-500. I quote from the first page of the translation, the first part of Paragraph 3:
“Insofar as single parachutists are captured by members of the Armed Forces, they are to be delivered, after report to the competent Abwehr office, to the nearest agency of the Chief of the Security Police and SD without delay.”
Now, if the Tribunal please, to divert from the text: Colonel Taylor will present the Nazi High Command and a few of their orders. This is one and there is another one with which he is going to deal extensively. My purpose in introducing these orders now is to show the part that the Gestapo and SD played in connection with those orders.
The next order that I introduce is Document 498-PS, in the first volume, Exhibit Number USA-501. That is the celebrated Commando order signed by the Führer himself on the 18th of October 1942. There were only 12 copies of this made and it bears the personal, original signature of Adolf Hitler. One copy was sent to the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police. That order, without reading it and getting down to the part from which I want to quote, simply provides that all commandos, whether or not in uniform or unarmed, are to be slaughtered to the last man. I want to read down toward the bottom, the beginning of Paragraph 4, to show the part of the SD:
“If individual members of such commandos, such as agents, saboteurs, et cetera, fall into the hands of the military forces in some other way, through the police in occupied territories for instance, they are to be handed over immediately to the SD.”
Another one of those orders is Number 526-PS, Exhibit Number USA-502, to which I would like to refer. That document has to do with some alleged saboteurs landing in Norway. It is dated the 10th of May 1943 and is top-secret. I quote the first paragraph as identifying a crew:
“On 30 March 1943 on Toftefjord (70° latitude) an enemy cutter was sighted. Cutter was blown up by the enemy. Crew: two dead men, 10 prisoners.”
That is the crew. Near the bottom of that order, the third sentence from the bottom, is this statement: “Führer order executed by SD”—Security Service.
We have heretofore introduced Document R-110, Exhibit Number USA-333; and that was the Himmler order of 10 August 1943 which was sent to Security Police. That order provided that it was not the task of the police to interfere in clashes between Germans and English and American terror fliers who had bailed out. It was personally signed by Himmler and here is the signature. It has been introduced in evidence, but I wanted to call the attention of the Court to it again.
May I next go to the subject, where the Gestapo and the SD took civilians of occupied countries to Germany for secret trial and punishment? That is the so-called “Night and Fog” decree, issued on 7 December 1941 by Hitler. That decree has not been introduced in evidence.
I now refer to Document L-90, in the first volume, Exhibit Number USA-503. That decree under which persons who committed offenses against the Reich or occupation forces in occupied territory, except where death sentence was certain, were to be taken secretly to Germany and surrendered to the Security Police and SD for trial or punishment in Germany itself. And this is the original from which we quote, beginning on the first page of the translation. It is on the stationery of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police, Munich, 4 February 1942. Subject: “Prosecution of offenses against the Reich or the occupation forces.”
“I. The following regulations published by the Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, dated 12 December 1941, are being made known herewith:
“1). The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces. After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. The deportation to Germany serves this purpose.
“The attached directives for the prosecution of offenses correspond with the Führer’s conception. They have been examined and approved by him.”—signed—“Keitel.”
And then follow some of the directives and descriptions. This is a very long document, with enclosures, and we next turn to Page 4 of the English translation, near the bottom:
“Insofar as the SS and the Police courts are competent to deal with offenses committed under I, proceedings follow on the same lines.”
Next, in connection with the same document, on Page 20, Part 2 of the English translation, which is the secret letter addressed to the Abwehr, I quote from Page 2. It is the letter dated 2 February 1942—passing down to the words “Enclosed please find”:
“1. Decree of the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of 7 December 1941.
“2. Executive order of the same date.
“3. Communication of the Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces of 12 December 1941.
“The decree introduces a fundamental innovation. The Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces orders that offenses committed by civilians in the occupied territories and of the kind mentioned above, are to be dealt with by the competent military courts in the occupied territories only if (a) the death penalty is pronounced and (b) sentence is pronounced within 8 days of the prisoner’s arrest.
“Unless both these conditions are fulfilled, the Führer and Supreme Commander does not anticipate that criminal proceedings within the occupied territories will have the necessary deterrent effect.
“In all other cases the prisoners are, in the future, to be transported to Germany secretly, and further dealings with the offenses will take place here; these measures will have a deterrent effect because (a) the prisoners will vanish without leaving a trace, (b) no information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate.”
Now, skipping the next paragraph, to the second paragraph below:
“In case the competent military court and the military commander, respectively, are of the opinion that an immediate decision on the spot is impossible, and the prisoners are therefore to be transported to Germany, the counter-intelligence offices have to report this fact directly to the RSHA in Berlin (SW 11), Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 7, in care of Dr. Fischer, Director of Criminal Police, stating the exact number of prisoners and of the groups which belong together as the case may be. Isolated cases, where the superior commander has an urgent interest in the case being dealt with by a military court, are to be reported to the RSHA. A copy of the entire report to the Reich Security Main Office is to be sent to Amt Ausland Abwehr, Section Abwehr III.
“The RSHA on the basis of available accommodation will determine which office of the state police has to accept the prisoners. The latter office will communicate with the competent Abwehr office and determine with it the particulars of the removal, particularly whether this will be carried out by the Secret Field Police, the Field Gendarmerie, or the Gestapo itself, as well as the place and manner of the handing over of the material.”
After the civilians arrived in Germany no word of the disposition of their cases was permitted to reach the country from which they came or their relatives.
I now offer Document 668-PS, Exhibit Number USA-504. This is a letter of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, dated the 24th of June 1942; and I quote from the first page of the English translation:
“It is the intent of the directive of the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht concerning prosecution of criminal acts against the Reich or the occupation forces in Occupied Territories, dated 7 December 1941,”—that is the order that I first referred to—“to create, for deterrent purposes, through the transportation into Reich territory of persons arrested in occupied areas on account of activity inimical to Germany, uncertainty about the fate of prisoners among their relatives and acquaintances. This goal would be jeopardized if the relatives were to be notified in cases of death. Release of the body for burial at home is inadvisable for the same reason, and beyond that also because the place of burial could be misused for demonstrations.
“I therefore propose that the following rules be observed in the handling of cases of death:
“a. Notification of relatives is not to take place.
“b. The body will be buried at the place of decease in the Reich.
“c. The place of burial will, for the time being, not be made known.”
Now passing to the next activity of the SD and Gestapo, which was that they arrested, tried, and punished citizens of occupied countries under special criminal procedure and by summary methods. And I next offer in evidence Document 674-PS, Exhibit Number USA-505.
The Gestapo arrested, placed in protective custody, and executed civilians of occupied countries under certain circumstances. Even where there were courts capable of handling emergency cases the Gestapo conducted its own proceedings without regard to normal judicial processes.
This document, 674-PS, Exhibit Number USA-505, is a letter from the Chief Public Prosecutor at Katowice, dated the 3rd of December 1941; and it is addressed to the Reich Minister of Justice, attention Chief Councillor to the Government Stadermann or representative in office, Berlin. The subject is “Executions by the Police and Expediting of Penal Procedure; without order; enclosure: 1 copy of report.” I quote from the beginning:
“About 3 weeks ago, six ringleaders (some of them German) were hanged by the police in connection with the destruction of a treasonable organization of 350 members in Tarnowskie Góry without notification of the competent court. Such executions of criminals have previously taken place in the Bielsko district, too, without the Public Prosecutor having knowledge of them. On 2 December 1941 the head of the State Police at Katowice, Oberregierungsrat Mildner, reported orally to the undersigned that he had ordered, with authority from the Reichsführer of the SS as necessary immediate action, these executions by public hanging at the place of the crime and that deterrents would also have to be continued in the future until the criminal and actively anti-German elements in the Occupied Eastern Territories have been destroyed or until other immediate actions, perhaps by the courts, would guarantee equally deterrent effect. Accordingly, six leaders of another Polish organization guilty of high treason in the district in and around Sosnowiec were to be hanged publicly today as an example.
“About this procedure the undersigned expressed considerable scruples.
“Besides the fact that such measures have been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts and are contradictory to laws still in force, a justified emergency for the exceptional proceedings by the police alone cannot, in our opinion, be lawfully recognized.
“The penal justice in our district within the limits of its competence is quite capable of fulfilling its duty of immediate penal retribution by means of a special form of special judicial activity (establishment of a so-called Rapid Special Court). Indictment and trial could be speeded up in such a way that between turning the case over to the public prosecutor and the execution no more than 3 days would elapse, if the practice of reprieve is simplified and if the decision, where necessary, can be obtained by telephone. This was expressed yesterday to the head of the State Police at Katowice by the undersigned.
“We cannot believe that execution by the police of criminals, especially German criminals, can be considered more effective in view of the shaken sense of justice of many Germans. In the long run they might, in spite of public deterrent, lead to even further brutality of minds, which is contrary to the intended purpose of pacifying. These deliberations, however, do not apply to future legal competence of a court-martial for Poles and Jews.”
I next refer to Document 654-PS, Exhibit Number USA-218, which has previously been introduced in evidence but bears on this subject; and I will simply summarize, in a word, what it provided.
It states that on the 18th of September 1942 Thierack, the Reich Minister of Justice, and Himmler came to an understanding by which antisocial elements were to be turned over to Himmler to be worked to death. That is in Document 654-PS, and a special criminal procedure was to be applied by the police to the Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians, and Ukrainians, who were not to be tried in ordinary criminal courts. I simply refer to that document as bearing on the same subject.
Another document, which I will not quote from but cite to Your Honors, is the order of November 5, 1942 issued by the RSHA; and that is Document L-316, Exhibit Number USA-346. I don’t think it is necessary to quote from that except to state that that letter provides that the administration—in fact, the last statement in it just before the signature provides:
“The administration of penal law for persons of alien race must be transferred from the hands of the administrators of justice into the hands of the police.”
That is the part that connects the police with it, and I will not quote from the document otherwise.
Now I next come to the subject where the Gestapo and the SD executed or confined persons in concentration camps for crimes allegedly committed by their relatives; and in that connection I offer Document L-37 in the first volume, Exhibit Number USA-506.
That is a letter dated the 19th of July 1944—I call Your Honor’s attention to the fact that it is dated in 1944—sent by the commander of the Sipo and SD for the district of Radom to the foreign service office in Tomaszow.
Parenthetically, that big Haftbuch that we introduced in evidence has a number of cases in connection with the district of Radom, and Your Honors will remember that it is a list of the people in the district of Tomaszow.
The subject of this letter is “Collective Responsibility of Members of Families of Assassins and Saboteurs.” I will read after the word “precedents”:
“The Higher SS and Police Leader East has issued on 28 June 1944 the following order:
“The security situation in the Government General has in the last 9 months grown worse to such an extent that from now on the most radical means and the harshest measures must be applied to the alien assassins and saboteurs. The Reichsführer SS, in agreement with the Governor General, has ordered that in all cases where assassinations of Germans, or such attempts, have occurred or where saboteurs have destroyed vital installations, not only the culprits be shot but that also all of the kinsmen are to be executed and their female relatives who are above 16 years old are to be put into concentration camps. It is strictly presupposed, of course, that if the culprit or culprits are not apprehended, their names and addresses be correctly ascertained. Male members of kin include, for example: the father, sons (insofar as they are above 16 years of age), brothers, brothers-in-law, cousins, and uncles of the culprit. The same ruling applies to the women. The aim of this procedure is to secure joint responsibility of all men and women of the kin of the culprit. It furthermore hits most severely the family circle of the political criminal. For example, this practice has already shown, at the end of 1939, the best results in the new Eastern territories, especially in the Warta district. Experience shows that as soon as this new method for combatting assassins and saboteurs becomes known to these foreign people—this may be achieved by oral propaganda—the female members of a kin to which members of the resistance movement or bands belong will exert a curbing influence.”
Now the SD and Gestapo also conducted third-degree interrogations of prisoners of war; and I refer to Document 1531-PS, Exhibit Number USA-248. This document contains an order of 12 June 1942, signed by Müller, which authorized the use of third-degree methods in interrogations where preliminary investigation indicated that the prisoners could give information on important facts such as subversive activities but not to extort confessions of prisoners’ own crimes.
Now I quote from Page 2 of the English translation, Paragraph 2:
“Third degree may, under this supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, parachute agents, asocial elements, Polish or Soviet Russian loafers, or tramps. In all other cases, my permission must first be obtained.”
Then I pass to Paragraph 4 at the end:
“Third degree can, according to the circumstances, consist amongst other methods, of:
“Very simple diet (bread and water); hard bunk; dark cell; deprivation of sleep; exhaustive drilling; also in flogging (for more than 20 strokes a doctor must be consulted).”
On the 24th of February 1944 the commander of the Sipo and the SD for the district of Radom published an order issued by the Befehlshaber of the Sipo and the SD at Kraków, which is Document L-89, Exhibit Number USA-507, in the first volume. This followed closely the provisions of the previous decree that I have just quoted from; and I quote the first paragraph after the list of offices on the first page:
“In view of the variety of methods used to date in intensified interrogations and in order to avoid excesses, also to protect officials against eventual criminal proceedings, the Befehlshaber of the Security Police and of the SD in Kraków has issued the following order for the Security Police in the Government General, which is based on the regulations in force for the Reich.”
And then the regulations are quoted. The significance of this document is that it proves that as late as 1944 third-degree interrogations were still being conducted by the Gestapo.
I next pass to the activity of the Gestapo and the SD as being primary agencies for the persecution of the Jews; and I do not intend to go into any of the evidence previously introduced, except to refer to the participation of these organizations.
The responsibility of the Gestapo and SD for the mass extermination program carried out by the Einsatz groups of the Sipo and SD, in the annihilation camps to which Jews were sent by the Sipo and SD, has already been considered; and I simply cite to the Tribunal the Document 2615-PS, which has previously been introduced and in which the number of Jews executed was referred to by Eichmann. I simply call attention that Eichmann was head of Section B IV of the Gestapo. That section of the Gestapo dealt with Jewish affairs, including matters of evacuation, means of suppressing enemies of the people and the State, and the dispossession of rights of German citizenship. The Gestapo was also charged with the enforcement of discriminatory laws, which heretofore have been introduced.
I now invite Your Honors’ attention to Document 3058-PS, Exhibit Number USA-508. I would like to exhibit to Your Honors that it is a red-bordered document signed by Heydrich himself and addressed to the Defendant Göring. It is dated the 11th of November 1938. I pass this to the reporter—and before it is passed to the reporter—there is an appendix attached to it to the effect that the matter had been called to the attention of the Defendant Göring.
Now this concerns a report of activities of the Gestapo in connection with the anti-Jewish demonstrations, you will recall, in the fall of 1938. This is a report from Heydrich personally to the Defendant Göring. It is addressed to the Prime Minister, General Field Marshal Göring and is dated the 11th of November 1938. The previous documents showed that that activity occurred just before—and the order for it in connection with the Jewish uprooting or extermination:
“The extent of the destruction of Jewish shops and houses cannot yet be verified by figures. The figures given in the reports—815 shops destroyed, 29 department stores set on fire or destroyed, 171 dwelling houses set on fire or destroyed—indicate only a fraction of the actual damage caused, as far as arson is concerned. Due to the urgency of the reporting, the reports received to date are entirely limited to general statements such as ‘numerous’ or ‘most shops destroyed.’ Therefore the figures given will be considerably augmented.
“One hundred and ninety-one synagogues were set on fire and another 76 completely destroyed. In addition, 11 parish halls, cemetery chapels, and similar buildings were set on fire and three more completely destroyed.
“Twenty thousand Jews were arrested, also seven Aryans and three foreigners. The latter were arrested for their own safety.
“Thirty-six deaths were reported and those seriously injured were also numbered at 36. Those killed and injured are Jews. One Jew is still missing. The Jews killed include one Polish national, and those injured include two Poles.”
I want to call Your Honors’ special attention to the paper appended to that document:
“The General Field Marshal”—that is Göring—“has been informed. No steps are to be taken. By order.”
It is dated the 15th of November 1938 and signed. The signature is illegible.
Now in that same connection Heydrich was charged by the Defendant Göring with this entire program; and we next offer in evidence the original of that order, 710-PS, Exhibit Number USA-509. That is an order dated the 31st of July 1941. It is written on the stationery of the Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich, Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, Chairman of the Ministerial Council for National Defense; and it is dated at Berlin, the 31st of July 1941, and directed to the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service, SS Gruppenführer Heydrich:
“Complementing the task that was assigned to you on 24 January 1939, which dealt with arriving at—through furtherance of emigration and evacuation—a solution of the Jewish problem as favorable as possible, I hereby charge you with making all necessary preparations in regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe.
“Wherever other Government agencies are involved; these are to co-operate with you.
“I charge you furthermore, to send me before long an overall plan concerning the organizational, factual, and material measures necessary for the accomplishment of the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”—signed—“Göring.”
The Tribunal has already received the evidence as to what the final solution of the Jewish problem was as conceived by Heydrich and executed by the Security Police and SD under him and under the Defendant Kaltenbrunner, which was enslavement and mass murder.
Now, finally, in this presentation, the last activity of the Gestapo and SD to which I will refer is that these organizations were the primary agencies for the persecution of the churches. Already evidence has been received concerning the persecution of the churches. In this struggle the Gestapo and the SD played a secret but very highly significant part.
Section C2 of the SD dealt with education and religions life. Section B1 of the Gestapo dealt with political Catholicism, Section B2 with political Protestantism, and Section B3 with other churches and Freemasonry.
The Church was one of the enemies of the Nazi State, and it was a peculiar function of the Gestapo to combat it. It issued restrictions against church activities, dissolved church organizations, and placed clergymen in protective custody.
I now want to offer in evidence Document 1815-PS, Exhibit Number USA-510. This is a very large file—this original document—and I want to quote only portions of it. This was a file of the Gestapo regional office at Aachen. It discloses that the purpose of the Gestapo in combatting the churches was to destroy them, and I want to read the first page of the English translation from the beginning.
This is dated the “12th of May 1941, at Berlin, from the RSHA, Section IV B 1, to all Staatspolizeileitstellen. For information: The SD Leit-Abschnitte; the inspectors of the Sipo and SD.” I understand this word “Abschnitte” means sub-divisions. The subject is “Concerning the Study and Treatment of Political Churches”:
“The chief of the RSHA has ordered that the tasks assigned to the SD and Sipo regarding control of the political churches, which have hitherto been carried out jointly by the SD-Abschnitte and Stapostellen, shall now be solely performed by the Stapostellen”—which I understand means regional offices of the Gestapo.
Then it refers to the plan for the division of work issued by the RSHA on March 1, 1941:
“In addition to combatting opposition, the Stapostellen thus take over the entire Gegnernachrichtendienst”—I understand that word means counter-intelligence—“in this sphere.
“In order that the Stapostellen should be in a position to take over this work, the Chief of the Sipo and SD has ordered that the church specialists, hitherto employed in the SD-Abschnitten, shall be temporarily detailed in equal rank to the Stapo offices and operate the ‘Nachrichtendienstliche Arbeit’ ”—which means intelligence service in regard to the Church—“On the orders of the Chief of the RSHA and in agreement with the heads of Amt III, II, and I, those church specialists specified in the attached list . . .”
THE PRESIDENT: Is it necessary to give us the details of this?
COL. STOREY: No, Sir, I don’t think so. At any rate, if Your Honors please, we quote from it; and it is simply a direction as to how they will proceed.
Now then, later, on the 22d and 23rd of September 1941, they called a conference of these so-called church specialists attached to the Gestapo regional offices that I have mentioned. That was held in the lecture hall of the RSHA in Berlin. Notes were taken, and this same document contains notes of that conference. The program is shown; the plan is worked out in connection with the churches. I will just read the closing statement to these so-called church specialists; it is very short:
“Each one of you must go to work with your whole heart and a true fanaticism. Should a mistake or two be made in the execution of this work, this should in no way discourage you, since mistakes are made everywhere. The main thing is that the adversary”—meaning the church—“should be constantly opposed with determination, will, and effective initiative.”
And then, finally, the last thing I would like to refer to in this document is on the eighth page of the English translation, which sets out their immediate aim and their ultimate aim:
“The immediate aim: The Church must not regain 1 inch of the ground it has lost.
“The ultimate aim: Destruction of the confessional churches to be brought about by the collection of all material obtained through Nachrichtendienst activities, which will, at a given time, be produced as evidence against the church of its treasonable activities during the German fight for existence.”
I understand that long German word means intelligence activities.
Now, if Your Honors please, this concludes the factual, documentary presentation which I shall make in connection with the SD and Gestapo. Closely allied with it is the case against Kaltenbrunner, as the representative of these organizations, which will be presented immediately after lunch by Lieutenant Whitney Harris. Also, there will be one or two witnesses who will be introduced in connection with these organizations and in connection with Kaltenbrunner.
With that I should like to conclude, with just these remarks:
The evidence shows that the Gestapo was created by the Defendant Göring in Prussia in April 1933 for the specific purpose of serving as a police agency to strike down the actual and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime and that henceforward the Gestapo in Prussia and in the other states of the Reich carried out a program of terror against all who were thought to be dangerous to the domination of the conspirators over the people of Germany. Its methods were utterly ruthless. It operated outside the law and sent its victims to the concentration camps. The term “Gestapo” became the symbol of the Nazi regime of force and terror.
Behind the scenes operating secretly, the SD, through its vast network of informants, spied upon the German people in their daily lives, on the streets, in the shops, and even within the sanctity of the churches.
The most casual remark of the German citizen might bring him before the Gestapo where his fate and freedom were decided without recourse to law. In this government, in which the rule of law was replaced by a tyrannical rule of men, the Gestapo was the primary instrumentality of oppression.
The Gestapo and the SD played an important part in almost every criminal act of the conspiracy. The category of these crimes, apart from the thousands of specific instances of torture and cruelty in policing Germany for the benefit of the conspirators, reads like a page from the devil’s notebook:
They fabricated the border incidents which Hitler used as an excuse for attacking Poland.
They murdered hundreds of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children by the infamous Einsatz groups.
They removed Jews, political leaders, and scientists from prisoner-of-war camps and murdered them.
They took recaptured prisoners of war to concentration camps and murdered them.
They established and classified the concentration camps and sent thousands of people into them for extermination and slave labor.
They cleared Europe of the Jews and were responsible for sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths in annihilation camps.
They rounded up hundreds of thousands of citizens of occupied countries and shipped them to Germany for forced labor and sent slave laborers to labor reformatory camps.
They executed captured commandos and paratroopers and protected civilians who lynched allied fliers.
They took civilians of occupied countries to Germany for secret trial and punishment.
They arrested, tried, and punished citizens of occupied countries under special criminal procedures, which did not accord fair trials, and by summary methods.
They murdered or sent to concentration camps the relatives of persons who had allegedly committed crimes.
They ordered the murder of prisoners in Sipo and SD prisons to prevent their release by Allied armies.
They participated in the seizure and spoliation of public and private property.
They were primary agencies for the persecution of the Jews and churches.
In carrying out these crimes the Gestapo operated as an organization closely centralized and controlled from Berlin headquarters. Reports were submitted to Berlin and all important decisions emanated from Berlin. The regional offices had only limited power to commit persons to concentration camps. All cases, other than short of duration, had to be submitted to Berlin for approval.
The Gestapo was organized on a functional basis. Its principal divisions dealt with groups and institutions against which it committed the worst crimes—which I have enumerated.
Thus, in perpetrating these crimes, the Gestapo acted as an entity, each section performing its parts in the general criminal enterprises ordered by Berlin. The Secret State Police should be held responsible as an organization for the vast crimes in which it participated.
The SD was at all times a department of the SS. Its criminality directly concerns and contributes to the criminality of the SS.
And as to the Gestapo, it is submitted that it was an organization in the sense in which that term is used in Article 9 of the Charter, that the Defendants Göring and Kaltenbrunner committed the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter in their capacity as members and leaders of the Gestapo, and that the Gestapo, as an organization, participated in and aided the conspiracy which contemplated and involved the commission of the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter.
And finally, I have in my hand here a brochure published in honor of the famous Heydrich, the former Chief of the Security Police and SD; and I quote from a speech delivered by Heydrich on German Police Day, 1941, of which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice:
“Secret State Police, Criminal Police, and SD are still adorned with the furtive and whispered secrecy of a political detective story. In a mixture of fear and shuddering—and yet at home with a certain feeling of security because of their presence—brutality, inhumanity bordering on the sadistic, and ruthlessness are attributed abroad to the men of this profession.”
Those are the words of Heydrich, who was the former head of this organization.
Does Your Honor want to go ahead?
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): I have just heard that during the afternoon the evidence will concern the Defendant Kaltenbrunner. I therefore regard it as advisable to make a motion regarding Kaltenbrunner now, before the recess, and not in the afternoon.
My suggestion is the following:
I ask that the trial against Kaltenbrunner be postponed during his absence. Kaltenbrunner has only been able to be present at a few days of the proceedings so far. The reason for his absence is an illness which, in my opinion, is of a serious nature, for it is obvious that in so important a trial only a very serious illness can justify the absence of a defendant. I have no doctor’s report on his present condition. It appears to me dubious whether he will be capable of attending the hearing at all in the future. Be that as it may, my present suggestion that the trial of Kaltenbrunner be postponed is not in contradiction to Paragraph 12 of the Charter. If a defendant is alive and cannot be brought to trial in person, then the trial can proceed against him in his absence. This is particularly justified if the defendant is concealing himself and it is thus his own fault if he is tried in his absence.
But Kaltenbrunner is here in prison. He did not withdraw himself from the trial and he wishes nothing more than that he may be able to face the accusations. But if such a defendant is obliged to be absent through no fault of his own, then a trial that was nevertheless carried out would hardly be consistent with justice. Article 12 of the Charter mentions this point of justice specifically.
I should regret the procedure of the trial all the more since precisely now Kaltenbrunner must have an opportunity to give me information in my capacity as his Defense Counsel. The particular Indictment is not even known to him; it was only handed over just before the Christmas recess.
I do not need to emphasize how greatly the Defense’s task is made more difficult by a continuation of the trial—indeed it is made almost impossible.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the application which has been made on behalf of counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner and will give its decision shortly.
The Tribunal will now adjourn until 2 o’clock.
COL. STOREY: If I may make just one statement in connection with that, if Your Honor pleases.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.
COL. STOREY: The evidence against Kaltenbrunner will be in connection with the part he played in these organizations; and we thought, in the interest of time, the individual case against Kaltenbrunner could be presented at the same time. Now, if it were not presented in this connection, it would be within a few days, early next week, in connection with the other individual defendants. Counsel mentions that he probably will not be able to be here for some time, and I thought I would make that statement.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.