“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: