THE PRESIDENT: Now you wish to call the defendant?
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes.
[The Defendant Kaltenbrunner took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please?
ERNST KALTENBRUNNER (Defendant): Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
THE PRESIDENT: Repeat this oath after me: “I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing—so help me God.”
[The defendant repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. KAUFFMANN: During the last 2 years of the war, since 1943, you have been the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service and the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA. You are aware, of course, that you are under extremely serious charges. The Prosecution charge you with having committed Crimes against Peace, and with having intellectually aided and abetted or participated in the crimes against the law of war and against humanity, and finally, the Prosecution connect your name with the Gestapo terror and the atrocities of the concentration camps. I now ask you, do you assume responsibility for the Counts charged as outlined and which are known to you?
KALTENBRUNNER: In the first place, I should like to state to the Tribunal that I am fully aware of the serious character of the charges against me. I know the hatred of the world is directed against me; that I—particularly since Himmler, Müller, and Pohl are no longer alive—must here, alone, give an account to the world and the Tribunal. I realize that I shall have to tell the truth in this courtroom, in order to enable the Court and the world to fully recognize and understand what has been going on in Germany during this war and to judge it with fairness.