HERR BÖHM: Witness, did you notice that SA men were arrested and that SA men were also put into concentration camps?
GISEVIUS: I saw that many times. In 1933, 1934, and 1935, that was in the years when it was my official duty to deal with these matters, many SA men were arrested by the Gestapo, beaten to death, or at least tortured, and put into concentration camps.
HERR BÖHM: Could a man, who was in the SA, or anyone outside for that matter, judge the SA as a whole from the activity of its members, or from individual cases, and gather that the SA intended to commit Crimes against Peace?
GISEVIUS: No. When I consider what efforts even we in the High Command of the Wehrmacht had to make to try and discover whether or not Hitler was planning a war, I naturally cannot attribute to a simple SA man knowledge of something which we ourselves did not know for certain.
HERR BÖHM: The Prosecution asserted that the SA incited the youth and the German people to war. Did you observe anything of that nature? You were a member of the Gestapo and such activities could not have escaped your notice.
GISEVIUS: That is another extremely general question, and I do not know to what extent certain songs, and other things, can be considered a preparation for war. At any rate I cannot imagine that the mass of the SA was of a different frame of mind than the mass of the German people in the years up to 1938, and the general trend of opinion beyond a doubt was that the mere thought of war was absolute madness.
HERR BÖHM: Was there anything that made you think that the SA intended to commit Crimes against Peace, or that they had committed such crimes?
GISEVIUS: As far as the ordinary SA man is concerned, I must say “no” again, and I say the same for the mass of the SA. I could not say to what extent the higher leaders were involved in plotting all the horrible things we have heard about here, but the majority undoubtedly did not know of such things and were not trained for them.
HERR BÖHM: Witness, it cannot be denied that mistakes were made by a number of SA men, and criminal acts were committed for which these people certainly should be punished.
You know the SA and know what took place during the revolutionary period and afterwards. Are you in a position to estimate or to give a proportional figure as to what percentage of the numerous members of the SA conducted themselves in a punishable manner? I call your attention to the fact that up to, perhaps 1932 or 1933, the SA...