This document also speaks for itself. I do not want . . .
GÖRING: Just a moment, I must read it first; there is some ambiguity in here.
GEN. RUDENKO: I should like to refresh your memory with still another subject, that is, a short comment. It is taken from an order concerning the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Here it is said that prisoners of war who are trying to escape should be shot without warning. The same subject is also mentioned in the memorandum concerning the treatment of the Russian prisoners of war.
GÖRING: The trouble here was the language difficulty; hence the guards were instructed to use their arms immediately against persons attempting escape. That is more or less the meaning of it, and that errors might occur in this connection can be understood.
GEN. RUDENKO: I am not talking about the purport of the document which speaks for itself. I want to know whether you knew about this document.
GÖRING: This is a document dealing with the treatment of prisoners of war, and it was passed directly to my department which was concerned with prisoners of war. I did not know of this document, neither did I know of the one which contains the opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Department on the matter.
GEN. RUDENKO: You did not know about this document? Very well. Now one other, Number 884-PS, already submitted. It deals with the extermination of political leaders and other political personalities. This is a document . . .
GÖRING: In explanation of this, I should like to point out that the Air Force did not have any camps for Soviet prisoners of war. The Air Force had only six camps in which the air force personnel of other powers were confined; but it had no camps under it with Soviet prisoners of war.
GEN. RUDENKO: I have asked you these questions and shown you these documents because as the second man in Germany, you could not possibly have been unaware of these things.
GÖRING: I apologize if I contradict you. The higher the office I held, the less would I be concerned with orders dealing with prisoners of war. From their very nature, these were departmental orders and not orders of the highest political or military significance. If I had held a much lower rank, then I might have had more knowledge of these orders. I am now looking at the document which you submitted to me—Department of Home Defense. It says on the left, “Reference: Treatment of Captured Political and Military Russian Functionaries.” That is the document I am looking at.