THE PRESIDENT: We will recess now for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: It will perhaps be convenient that I should announce that the Tribunal will adjourn today at 4 o’clock.
MAJOR FARR: Through its activities with respect to concentration camps, the SS performed part of its mission to safeguard the security of the Nazi regime. But another specialized aspect of that mission must not be forgotten. The Tribunal will recall Himmler’s definition of that task—a definition I referred to earlier—the prevention of a Jewish-Bolshevist revolution of subhumans; in plain words, participation in the Nazi program of Jewish persecution and extermination.
It would be idle for me to refer again at any length to the evidence relating to that program which the Tribunal heard a day or so ago from Major Walsh. I want to call attention to just a few documents showing how the program involved every branch and component of the SS.
The racial philosophy of the SS, which I dealt with at the very outset, made that organization a natural agency for the execution of all types of anti-Semitic measures. The SS position on the Jewish question was publicly stated in the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Corps, the issue of August 8, 1940, by its editor, Gunter d’Alquen, a statement which has already been read into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-269. It is our Document 2668-PS. I shall not repeat that quotation in which D’Alquen says that the Jewish question will not be solved until the last Jew has been deported, and that the German peace which awaits Europe must be a peace without Jews.
The attempted solution of the Jewish question through the “spontaneous” demonstrations in Germany, following the murder of Vom Rath in November of 1938, has been presented to the Tribunal. In those demonstrations all branches of the SS were called on to play a part. I refer to the teletype message from SS Gruppenführer Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and SD, issued on the 10th of November 1938. It is our Document 3051-PS. Portions of that teletype have already been read into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-240. I wish to read one further paragraph, which has not been read. It appears on Page 2 of the translation, the fourth paragraph. I quote:
“The direction of the measures of the Security Police concerning the demonstrations against Jews is vested with the organs of the State Police”—by which he means the Gestapo—“inasmuch as the inspectors of the Security Police are not issuing their own orders. In order to carry out the measures of the Security Police, officials of the Criminal Police as well as members of the SD, of the Verfügungstruppe, and the Allgemeine SS may be used.”
With the outbreak of the war and the march of Nazi armies over Europe, the SS participated in solving the Jewish question in other countries in Europe. The solution was nothing short of extermination. To a large degree these wholesale murders were disguised under the name of “anti-partisan” or “anti-guerilla” actions and as such they included as victims not merely Jews but Soviets, Poles, and other Eastern peoples. With this anti-partisan activity I shall deal in a few moments.
I want to refer now to a few actions confined essentially to Jews. To take one example—the mass annihilation of Jews in gas vans—described in our document 501-PS, which was read into the record by Major Walsh as Exhibit Number USA-288. I do not think that that document appears in the document book, because I am not going to read from it. I simply want to point out that these gas vans, as appears from the letters, were operated by the Security Police and SD under the direction of RSHA. Or to take another example—the report entitled, “Solution of the Jewish Question in Galicia,” our Document L-18, prepared by SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Police Katzmann and rendered to SS Obergruppenführer and General of the Police Krüger—that report has already been received in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-277. The Tribunal will recall that the solution, which consisted in the evacuation and extermination of all the Jews in Galicia and the confiscation of their property, was carried out under the energetic direction of the SS and Police Leaders with the assistance of SS Police units. I wish to read three short items in the report which have not already been read. The first is a text under a photograph which appears on Page 3 of the translation and on Page 3(a) of the original report. It is the first item on Page 3 of the translation. I quote: “Great was the joy of the SS men when the Reichsführer SS in person in 1942 visited some camps along the Rollbahn.”