[A recess was taken.]
THE MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, a report is made that the Defendant Göring is absent from this session of the Court.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Have you the Document 1650-PS, and have you read it?
KALTENBRUNNER: Yes, I have read it.
DR. KAUFFMANN: This, as emphasized, is the famous Bullet Decree. When did you hear of this?
KALTENBRUNNER: I did not know the actual decree; this must have been a decree issued long before I came into office. Neither had I seen this teletype copy of the document given to me here.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I am drawing your attention to the signature which reads “Müller.”
KALTENBRUNNER: Actually, the man was entitled to sign such a decree if it did in fact exist. But I have heard—this I would like to add—at the time of 1944-1945 from the liaison officer between Himmler and Hitler by the name of Fegelein when I made my report to headquarters, which at that time, I believe, was already in Berlin, I heard the name Bullet Decree, which to me was an absolutely strange conception. So I asked him what it was. He replied that this was a Führer order and that he knew no more than that, except that he had heard that this was a special type of prisoner-of-war.
I was not satisfied with that reply, and so, on the same day, I sent a teletype message to Himmler in which I asked him to look into an order of the Führer which was called Bullet Decree. At that time I did not know either that the State Police was concerned with the Bullet Decree.
Then a few days later, Müller came to see me on Himmler’s behalf, and gave me a decree to read which, however, did not come from Hitler, but from Himmler, in which Himmler stated that he was transmitting this to me as a verbal order of the Führer. Referring to this, I replied to Himmler that I noticed in this Führer decree that again the most elementary principles of the Geneva Convention were violated, although this had been going on from a time long before I had assumed office and there had been other violations following that. I asked him to intervene with the Führer, and I attached to this letter the draft of a letter from Himmler to Hitler, asking the Führer (a) to cancel that decree, and (b) at any rate, to relieve the subordinate departments of the burden on their conscience.