“...That the Gestapo ‘SS Standgericht’ frequently met in Auschwitz and you sometimes attended the trial of prisoners;”—in other words that he attended the executions—“that in 1942 and again in 1943, pursuant to orders by Gruppenführer Müller ... the Commandant of Auschwitz showed you”—that is Mildner—“the extermination installations; that you were acquainted with the extermination installations at Auschwitz since you had to send Jews from your territory to Auschwitz for execution.”
In my opinion, I could perhaps only be incriminated on one point. The question is this: “Did Mildner once, in the year 1943, see such installations or did he attend the shootings?” First of all, the Prosecution did not show whether this “one time” took place before or after I assumed office.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Will you please be a little briefer and more to the point.
KALTENBRUNNER: Excuse me, Doctor, but I have to be able to refute every single word.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, we do not want the witness to argue upon this document. If he has anything to say about the facts, then he can do it, but not argue on it.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes, that is my opinion, also.
[Turning to the defendant.] I am asking you—an especially important and incriminating point, it seems to me, is question Number 3; explain if you will, I read: “...did all orders for arrest...”—et cetera—“individual executions from the RSHA”; and then: “Was the regular channel from Himmler through Kaltenbrunner to Müller, and then to the concentration camp commandant?” And then the answer, “yes.”
Please answer briefly.
KALTENBRUNNER: I have already explained today that the authority and power to order executions rested only to a small extent with the Minister of Justice, and with Himmler. Nobody else in the entire Reich had the possibility or the authority to order that. Further, despite the official channels—Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Müller—such an order from Himmler was never forwarded to me; these orders must have gone from Himmler to Müller. To put this question to Mildner is wrong for the single reason that the man was not with me and cannot know whether I ever received such an order from Himmler. It is only a conclusion which he draws from the normal organizational set-up.
DR. KAUFFMANN: That is a matter for the Defense later on; you need not talk about that.