DR. KAUFFMANN: Do you know Giesler?
KALTENBRUNNER: The last time I saw Giesler was in 1942, in September.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Was an order of Hitler in existence regarding the destruction of concentration camps?
KALTENBRUNNER: No.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Will you give a reasonable explanation regarding this document?
KALTENBRUNNER: To give a reasonable explanation for that document is almost humanly impossible, because from the beginning to the end it is an invention and a fake. I brand this document a complete and utter lie coming from Gerdes, and I can only refer you to the deposition supporting my statement by the Higher SS and Police Leader who was the sole competent authority in Bavaria, Freiherr Von Eberstein, who himself calls Gerdes’ statement completely incredible. I would like to refute these accusations in detail as follows: He says:
“On a Tuesday in the middle of April 1945 I had a telephone call from the Gauleiter ordering me to keep myself available for a night conference.”—He—“... disclosed ... that Kaltenbrunner had given him instructions, in accordance with an order from the Führer ...”—and so on.
Nobody in the Reich knew better than Hitler who was responsible for concentration camps and how he had to give an order. He would never have given me such an order and he could not have given it to me because I was, on Hitler’s personal order, in Austria from 28 March until 15 April. As to the time from 10 April until 8 May, when I was captured, including the few days when I was in Berlin I can state exactly just where I have been and what I have done, so that the question of giving an order in this connection is impossible. And, anyway, it must have happened earlier, if the witness is talking about the middle of April, which would mean that I would have had to talk to Hitler about this before the middle of April, since otherwise he could not have been asked to be available for a night conference by the middle of April.
The existence of Jewish work camps in Bavaria as branches of Dachau, was completely unknown to me. And I am asking you to recognize the absurdity of my sponsoring in April of 1945 such an order, when I tried in March 1945 to start discussions with the President of the International Red Cross, Burckhardt, regarding the release and help to be given to all Jews, and when I made all efforts to have him personally look after the Jewish camps—in which I succeeded.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you have any possibility at all to exert influence on the German Air Force in this respect?