THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn until 2 o’clock.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
Afternoon Session
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): Mr. President, I request permission to ask one question which I could not ask before. The Russian Prosecutor asked whether the witness had discussed the question of the Danish policemen with Kaltenbrunner. In this connection it remained entirely unanswered how Kaltenbrunner himself behaved. I simply want to ask this one question.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Kauffmann.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Witness, would you please tell the Tribunal how Kaltenbrunner behaved when you discussed with him the question of the Danish police who had been inhumanly treated—how Kaltenbrunner behaved in this connection and what he did.
VON STEENGRACHT: The question is perhaps not quite correct the way you put it when you say “who had been inhumanly treated,” for they could not have been dealt with. They had just been turned over to the concentration camp. So the moment I heard about it I went to Kaltenbrunner and told him that these people could not be put into a concentration camp. They had to be treated either as prisoners of war or as civilian internees.
Kaltenbrunner listened to this and said he was also of that opinion, and in my presence gave the order that these men should be transferred from the concentration camp to a prisoner-of-war camp. I therefore assumed that the matter was thereby settled and then found out a fortnight later that they were still in the concentration camp. I appealed to Kaltenbrunner earnestly. Kaltenbrunner said he could find no explanation for it. I could not find any either, since the order to transfer these people had been given in my presence. We subsequently carried on many negotiations regarding this matter. I had the impression that other influences were at work there and that Kaltenbrunner could not enforce his opinion.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Was he against this inhuman treatment?