THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished with Document L-51?
DR. KAUFFMANN: No, I am still concerned with Document L-51, but I am about to leave it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, ought you not to refer him to the particular incident which is referred to toward the end of the document, where it says, “Concerning the American military mission which landed behind the German front in the Slovakian or Hungarian area in January 1945”? It goes on, then, to say that the—I think it was adjutant of the camp said, “Now Kaltenbrunner has approved of the execution. This letter was secret and had the signature, ‘signed, Kaltenbrunner.’ ”
I think you should put that to him.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes, certainly. He knows the document, and I believe he knows every single word of this document, but I will put it to him again.
[Turning to the defendant.] It says here:
“I estimate the number of those persons captured to have been 12 or 15. They were wearing a uniform which was either American or Canadian, brown-green color, and blouse and beret. Eight to 10 days after their arrival, the order for their execution was received by means of a radio message, or a teletype. Standartenführer Ziereis—that is the Camp Commandant—came to see me in my office and said: ‘Now Kaltenbrunner has approved of the execution.’ This letter was secret and had the signature, ‘signed, Kaltenbrunner.’
“These men were then shot on the spot, and their valuables were given to me by Oberscharführer Niedermeyer.”
Would you, very briefly, go into this?
KALTENBRUNNER: It is completely out of the question that this incident was ever brought to my knowledge, or that it happened with my participation. This is not only plainly a crime against the laws of warfare, but it is, in particular, an action which could or necessarily had to produce the most serious foreign political consequences.