MR. DODD: Yes. They have been sent to the defendants’ counsel information room.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. DODD: I have one other matter that I should like to take up very briefly before the Tribunal this morning. It is concerned with a matter that arose after I had left the courtroom to return to the United States.
On the 13th of December we offered in evidence Document Number 3421-PS, and Exhibit Numbers USA-252 and 254. They were, respectively, the Court will recall, sections of human skin taken from human bodies and preserved; and a human head, the head of a human being, which had been preserved. On the 14th day of December, according to the Record, counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner addressed the Tribunal and complained that the affidavit, which was offered, of one Pfaffenberger, failed to state that the camp commandant at Buchenwald, one Koch, along with his wife, was condemned to death for having committed precisely these atrocities, this business of tanning the skin and preserving the head. And in the course of the discussion before the Tribunal the Record reveals that counsel for the Defendant Bormann, in addressing the Tribunal, stated that it was highly probable that the Prosecution knew that the German authorities had objected to this camp commandant Koch and, in fact, knew that he had been tried and sentenced for doing precisely these things. And there was some intimation, we feel, that the Prosecution, having this knowledge, withheld it from the Tribunal. Now, I wish to say that we had no knowledge at all about this man Koch at the time that we offered the proof; didn’t know anything about him except that he had been the commandant, according to the affidavit. But, subsequent to this objection we had an investigation made, and we have found that he was tried in 1944, indeed, by an SS court, but not for having tanned human skin nor having preserved a human head but for having embezzled some money, for what—as the judge who tried him tells us—was a charge of general corruption and for having murdered someone with whom he had some personal difficulties. Indeed, the judge, a Dr. Morgen, tells us that he saw the tattooed human skin and he saw a human head in Commandant Koch’s office and that he saw a lampshade there made out of human skin. But there were no charges at the time that he was tried for having done these things.
I would also point out to the Tribunal that, we say, the testimony of Dr. Blaha sheds further light on whether or not these exhibits, Numbers USA-252 and 254, were isolated instances of that atrocious kind of conduct. We have not been able to locate the affiant. We have made an effort to do so, but we have not been able to locate him thus far.
THE PRESIDENT: Locate whom?
MR. DODD: The affiant Pfaffenberger, the one whose affidavit was offered.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Mr. Dodd.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): The statement just made is undoubtedly significant, but it would be of importance to have the documents which served to convict the commandant and his wife at the time. Kaltenbrunner told me that it was known in the whole SS that the commandant Koch and his wife had been taken to account also—I emphasize “also”—on account of these things and that it was known in the SS that one of the factors determining the severity of the sentences imposed had been this proved inhuman behavior.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. As you were the counsel who made the allegation that the commandant Koch had been put to death for his inhuman treatment, it would seem that you are the party to produce the judgment.