“Then the intruders returned to the unconscious Mr. Klauber, saying, ‘He hasn’t had enough yet,’ and beat him further. Then they left, saying, ‘We are not yet finished,’ and just as they departed, one of them said to Mrs. Klauber, ‘Why did you marry a Jew? I hate them,’ and struck her on the jaw with his police club. . . .”
That is the end of the affidavit.
Now continuing, the next paragraph is the statement of the U.S. Consul:
“I personally can verify that the police had been instructed not to interfere; and that is, that there was official sanction for these activities. Affidavits taken from numerous victims attest this fact. I had become acquainted with the two police officers stationed at the corner of Bellevuestrasse and Tiergartenstrasse near where the Consulate General was located; these officers told me that they and all the other police officers had received definite instructions not to interfere with the SA, the SS, or the Hitler Youth.”
In addition, SA members served as guards at concentration camps during this consolidating period and participated in the persecution and mistreatment of persons imprisoned therein. I now refer to Document 2824-PS, which is a book entitled, Concentration Camp at Oranienburg. It is Exhibit Number USA-423. This was by an SA-Sturmbannführer named Schäfer, who was the commander of the concentration camp at Oranienburg. I quote the excerpt on the first page of the English translation, reading:
“The most trusted SA men of long service were selected in order to give them homes in the camp, since they were the permanent camp guards, and in such a manner we created a cadre of experienced guardsmen who were constantly prepared to be employed.”
Further evidence concerning the operation of the concentration camps by the SA is found in Document 787-PS, Exhibit Number USA-421. This is a report to Hitler from the public prosecutor of Dresden concerning the nolle-prossing of one Vogel, who was accused of mistreatment of persons imprisoned in the concentration camp. I quote from that report:
“On 14 March 1935 the prosecuting authority in Dresden has indicted . . . Oberregierungsrat Erich Vogel in Dresden on account of inflicting bodily injury while in office. The following subject matter is the basis of the process:
“Vogel belongs to the Gestapo office of the state of Saxony since its foundation and is chief of Main Section II, which formerly bore the title ZUB (central section for combatting subversive movements). In the process of combatting efforts inimical to the State, Vogel carried out several so-called ‘borderland actions’ in the year 1933 in which a large number of politically unreliable persons and persons who had become political prisoners in the border territories were taken into protective custody and brought to the Hohnstein protective custody camp. In the camp unusually severe ill-treatment of the prisoners has been going on at least since the summer of 1933. The prisoners were not only, as in the protective custody camp Bredow near Stettin, beaten into a state of unconsciousness for no reasons with whips and other tools, but were also tortured in other ways, as for instance with a drip-apparatus, especially constructed for the purpose, under which the prisoners had to stand so long that they came away with serious purulent wounds on the scalp. The guilty SA leaders and SA men were sentenced to punishments of 6 years to 9 months of imprisonment by the main criminal court of the provincial court in Dresden on 15 May 1935 . . . Vogel, whose duties frequently brought him to the camp, took part in this mistreatment, insofar as it happened in the reception room of the camp during completion of the reception formalities and in the supply room, during issuing of the blankets. In this respect it should be pointed out that Vogel was generally known to the personnel of the camp—exactly because of his function as head of the ZUB—and his conduct became at least partly a standard for the above-named conduct of the SA leaders and men.”