KALTENBRUNNER: I do not consider such a statement probable. If he did say it, then it can have been only in connection with...
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not think that is a possible question to put to the witness.
DR. KAUFFMANN: [To the defendant.] In the trial brief a document of this kind has been presented and charged against you but, if the President does not wish that question, I shall be glad to withdraw it.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to be merely a matter of argument, and you cannot criticize this affidavit, if the affidavit is in evidence.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I now come to the last question. I ask you whether the possibility existed that you, after you gradually became aware of conditions within the Gestapo and concentration camps, et cetera, could have brought about a change? If that possibility did exist, can you say that by staying on in your position you achieved any alleviation in this sphere and an improvement of conditions?
KALTENBRUNNER: I repeatedly asked to join troops at the front, but the most burning question which I personally had to decide was: Will conditions be thus improved, alleviated? Or will anything be changed? Or is it my personal duty in this position to do everything necessary to change all these sharply criticized conditions?
Upon repeated refusals to my request to be detailed to the front, I had no other alternative than to try myself to alter a system, the ideological and legal basis of which could not be altered by me, as had been proved by all the orders issued before my time and offered in evidence here. All that I could do was to try to modify these methods while striving to have them abolished altogether.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Did your conscience permit you to remain in office in spite of it?
KALTENBRUNNER: When I considered the possibility of exerting again and again influence on Hitler and Himmler and other persons, my conscience would not allow me to leave my position. I thought it my duty to take, personally, a stand against wrong.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Mr. President, I have no further questions.