KALTENBRUNNER: No camouflage was devised nor discussed in our office, but when Müller and Nebe said that they would have to reply to the Foreign Office’s inquiry and in that connection informed me of that dreadful order for the first time, I asked them who had given that order and they replied, “Himmler.” I told them that they ought to get in touch with this superior immediately and ask him how the case should be dealt with further. I refused to have any connection with that matter. It had been unknown to me up to that time, and I considered it a dirty affair.
DR. KAUFFMANN: But was it not mentioned in that connection that it would be said that the fliers had lost their lives through bombs or that they had been shot while trying to escape? What do you know in that respect? The witness Schellenberg has stated that there were such conversations.
KALTENBRUNNER: Such words may have been said, yes. It has been described here how the large-scale searches were handled; and in connection with these manhunts, there were shootings. Even Germans were shot in that connection. An SS Oberführer in Alsatian territory was shot when he did not answer a stop signal at a road block which had been erected in the course of this search. Two or three of the fliers were killed by bombs, as I was told. I think that was along the Baltic coast in Kiel or Stettin, and I understand that two Criminal Police officials also lost their lives in this accident. Their widows received pensions subsequently. That is something that ought to be ascertainable. In this connection bombing and losses through bombing were certainly mentioned, but a camouflage of the whole affair was not discussed in our office; in any case the answer was prepared by Müller, Nebe, and Himmler, in Himmler’s headquarters. I know that immediately after the inquiry from the Foreign Office these two left by air for Himmler’s headquarters.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Are you trying to say then that the statement according to which these fliers had lost their lives by bombs, or had been shot while escaping, did not originate from you?
KALTENBRUNNER: No, certainly not; it did not originate from me.
DR. KAUFFMANN: With reference to the church policy of Department IV, the Prosecution are charging you with the following: so-called Bibelforscher, or International Bible Students, had often been sentenced to death on the strength of their inner convictions, only because they refused to serve in the war in any way. My question to you is this: Do you know of this state of affairs, and in what manner did you participate in that matter?
KALTENBRUNNER: German jurisdiction used as a basis for proceedings against this sect of International Bible Students was the law for the Protection of the Defense of the German Nation. Under this law any one who was interfering with German defense strength by refusing to serve in the forces could be penalized with detention or death. According to this law, military as well as civilian courts pronounced even the death sentence also against these International Bible Students. Death sentences, of course, were not pronounced by the Secret State Police.
In this connection it was often spoken of as an unjust harshness against the attitude dictated to these sectarians by their creed. I approached the Party Chancellery as well as the Ministry of Justice and Himmler and Hitler during my reports, and pointed out these facts to them; during several conferences with Thierack I demanded that this kind of jurisdiction should be discontinued. As a result two things were done. On the occasion of the first conference, after Thierack had made an inquiry at the office of Bormann and Hitler whom he evidently did not see personally, a directive was at once issued to the Public Prosecutors’ offices stating that sentences which had already been pronounced were to be stayed.
During a further conference another step was taken, which was that the public prosecutors in general were given instructions not to demand the death sentence any longer.
The third step was that International Bible Students were no longer brought before the court.