THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahmer, I have the original document in my hands now, together with the certificate of an officer of the British Army stating that the document was delivered to him in the above capacity, in the ordinary course of official business, as the original of a document found in German records of files captured by military forces under the command of the Supreme Commander. Under these circumstances it is in exactly the same position as all the other captured documents. The defense, of course, can bring any evidence which it thinks right, to criticize the authenticity of the document. The document stands on exactly the same footing as the other captured documents, subject to any criticism to support which you may be able to bring evidence.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Witness, I want you to deal with the sentence in paragraph 6.
Now, this paragraph is certainly directed to all administrative levels down to the Kreisleiter, county leaders of the Nazi Party, and it assumes they knew all about the running of concentration camps. Are you telling the Tribunal that you, who up to 1943 were the second man in the Reich, knew nothing about concentration camps?
GÖRING: First of all, I want to say once more that I do not accept this document, and that its whole wording is unknown to me, and that this paragraph appears unusual to me. I did not know anything about what took place and what methods were used in the concentration camps later, when I was no longer in charge.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Let me remind you of the evidence that has been given before this Court, that as far as Auschwitz alone is concerned, 4,000,000 people were exterminated. Do you remember that?
GÖRING: This I have heard as a statement here, but I consider it in no way proved—that figure, I mean.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If you do not consider it proved, let me remind you of the affidavit of Hoettl, who was Deputy Group Leader of the Foreign Section, of the Security Section of Amt IV of the RSHA. He says that approximately 4,000,000 Jews have been killed in the concentration camps, while an additional 2,000,000 met death in other ways. Assume that these figures—one is a Russian figure, the other a German—assume they are even 50 percent correct, assume it was 2,000,000 and 1,000,000, are you telling this Tribunal that a Minister with your power in the Reich could remain ignorant that that was going on?
GÖRING: This I maintain, and the reason for this is that these things were kept secret from me. I might add that in my opinion not even the Führer knew the extent of what was going on.
This is also explained by the fact that Himmler kept all these matters very secret. We were never given figures or any other details.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But, Witness, haven’t you access to the foreign press, the press department in your ministry, to foreign broadcasts? You see, there is evidence that altogether, when you take the Jews and other people, something like 10,000,000 people have been done to death in cold blood, apart from those killed in battle. Something like 10,000,000 people. Do you say that you never saw or heard from the foreign press, in broadcasts, that this was going on?