KALTENBRUNNER: It would be most unusual to have made a stamp with the words, “Dein.” It would be entirely out of the question. Therefore, the official himself must have written the signature. Everybody knew that I was on familiar terms with Blaschke and therefore the word “Dein” had to appear, if he used my signature at all.
Please look also at the figure 30 on the top. From many samples of my writing you can see that I do not write like that at all.
COL. AMEN: Defendant, is it not equally ridiculous to think that a person, or an official, as you term him, in signing such a letter on your behalf would try to imitate your signature?
KALTENBRUNNER: Quite right, but, sir, it would be a matter of course, when writing to the Mayor of Vienna, a man with whom the official perhaps knew quite well that I was on familiar terms, to put my name typewritten under a personal letter. That would be impossible as well. If I were not in Berlin he had only two possibilities open to him: either to type it in or to make it seem as though I, Kaltenbrunner, were actually there.
COL. AMEN: Is it not a fact that you are simply lying about your signature on this letter, in the same way that you are lying to this Tribunal about almost everything else you have given testimony about? Is not that a fact?
KALTENBRUNNER: Mr. Prosecutor, for a whole year I have had to submit to this insult of being called a liar. For a whole year I have been interrogated hundreds of times both here and in London, and I have been insulted in this way and even much worse. My mother, who died in 1943, was called a whore, and many other similar things were hurled at me. This term is not new to me but I should like to state that in a matter of this kind I certainly would not tell an untruth, when I claim to be believed by this Tribunal in far more important matters.
COL. AMEN: I am suggesting, Defendant, that when your testimony is so directly contrary to that of 20 or 30 other witnesses and even more documents, it is almost an incredible thing you should be telling the truth and that every witness and every document should be false. Do you not agree to that proposition?
KALTENBRUNNER: No. I cannot admit that because I have had the feeling each time a document has been submitted to me today, that it could at first glance be immediately refuted by me in its most vital points. I ask, and I hope that the Tribunal will allow me, to refer to single points and to come into closer contact with individual witnesses, so that I may defend myself to the last. Throughout the preliminary interrogations your colleague has always adopted the attitude unjustly that I was refuting and opposing insignificant points. The conception of expeditious trial proceedings has been unknown to me in this form. Had he talked to me in broad lines about the ways to find out the real truth, I believe he would have sooner arrived at considerably larger and more important issues. I am perhaps the only defendant who, on receiving the Indictment and being asked, “Are you ready to make any further statements to the Prosecution,” stated “Immediately,” and I signed it—please produce the signature—“from today on after receiving the Indictment I am at the disposal of the Prosecution for any information.” Is it not so? Please confirm it. That gentleman [pointing to an interpreter] interrogated me. I have always been ready, that is, during the last 5 months, to give information on any question, but I have not been asked any more.
THE PRESIDENT: You must try to restrain yourself. And when you see the light, speak slower. You know about the light, do you not?
COL. AMEN: Is it not a fact, Defendant, that on the occasion of your last interrogation you stated that you did not wish to be interrogated any more because the questions seemed to be designed to help the Prosecution rather than to help your case, and that you were told that in that event you would not be questioned any more; that you were also informed that there were other documents and other material with which you had not been confronted and that if you desired at any time to come back and be interrogated with respect to those matters, you should tell your lawyers so and send a note and that the interrogator would be very happy to continue interrogating you? Is that not a fact, “yes” or “no”?