KALTENBRUNNER: These were not the only attempts, there were numerous others.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I now come to your relations with the President of the Red Cross, Professor Burckhardt, and I ask you: Is it true that you had a conference with Professor Burckhardt in 1945 with the aim that camps—prisoner-of-war camps and concentration camps—should be opened to the Red Cross so that medical supplies could be taken into these camps?
KALTENBRUNNER: Yes, I tried for a long time to achieve this with Burckhardt. I was helped by the fact that he himself had asked for a meeting with Himmler. Himmler, however, did not get Hitler’s permission for such a meeting because he was, at the time, the Commander-in-Chief on the northern front of the Vistula River. A meeting with Burckhardt could have taken place only there at the front. I tried, therefore, to take it upon myself to arrange a meeting between Burckhardt and a responsible personality in the Reich. After a lot of ado and in spite of many difficulties I succeeded. A private meeting with Burckhardt was held on 12 March.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you come to an agreement, and within this agreement was any help really given and in what manner?
KALTENBRUNNER: Yes, considerable help was given. An agreement was reached, according to which all foreign civilian internees, with the help of the Red Cross, were to be taken from all camps in the Reich and released to their home countries. But in the first place, by granting Burckhardt’s request during these discussions I achieved the aim that the leading departments of the Reich were involved to such an extent that they could no longer detach themselves from this agreement, and I think that was my greatest success with Burckhardt.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it true that to get about 3,000 French and Belgian civilian internees through the front line at that time, you got in touch with General Kesselring’s headquarters?
KALTENBRUNNER: I sent a wireless message to the headquarters asking that as soon as the Americans and British would agree to this, it should also be allowed by the Germans that such internees go through the fighting lines.
DR. KAUFFMANN: That is enough.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, he said 12 March but he did not give the year.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I do not understand—Yes, 12 March.