DR. KAUFFMANN: Unheard of acts of cruelty were perpetrated in the concentration camps. Did you come to hear of them and, if so, when did you first hear of them?
MILCH: On the day on which I was captured it was revealed to me for the first time when internees from an auxiliary camp in the vicinity were led past the place where I was captured. This was the first time I saw it for myself. The rest I learned in captivity from the various documents which we were shown.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Then it was completely unknown to you that more than 200 concentration camps existed in Germany and in the occupied territories.
MILCH: It was completely unknown to me. I have already mentioned the two camps whose existence was known to me.
DR. KAUFFMANN: It could be held against you that it must have been impossible not to know of these facts. Can you explain to us why it was not possible for you to obtain better information regarding existing conditions?
MILCH: Because the people who knew about these conditions did not talk about them, and presumably were not allowed to talk about them. I understand this to be so from a document in the Indictment against the General Staff, in which Himmler—also erroneously considered as one of the high-ranking military leaders—had issued an order to this effect. This document dealt with some conference or other of high-ranking police leaders under Himmler, in 1943, I believe.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Am I right in saying that any attempt to disclose conditions prevalent in the concentration camps was impossible unless the person in question was ready to risk his life?
MILCH: In the first place the large number of concentration camps was unknown to everybody, as it was unknown to me. Secondly, nobody knew what went on there. This knowledge was apparently confined to a very small circle of people who were in [on] the secret. Further, the SD was very much feared by the entire population, not only by the lower classes. If anybody tried to gain access to these secrets he did so at the peril of his life. And again, how could the Germans know anything about these things, since they never saw them or heard about them? Nothing was said about them in the German press, no announcements were made on the German radio, and those who listened to foreign broadcasts exposed themselves to the heaviest penalties, generally it meant death. You could never be alone. You could depend upon it that if you yourself contravened that law, others would overhear and then denounce you. I know that in Germany a large number of people were condemned to death for listening to foreign broadcasts.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did it ever come to your knowledge that there had been mass deportations of Jews to the Eastern territories? When did you first hear about it?
MILCH: I cannot give the exact date. Once, in some way or other, I can no longer remember how, the information did reach me that Jews had been settled in special ghetto towns in the East. I think it must have been in 1944 or thereabout, but I cannot guarantee that this date is exact.