DR. FRITZ: Did you inquire about these reservations into which the Jews were allegedly being taken?
FRITZSCHE: Of course I did that. For instance, I learned of various things from a former co-worker of mine who had been transferred into the administration of the Government General and who had an administrative position in the region Biala-Podlaska. He said that the area under his control had become a Jewish area, and he repeatedly pictured the arrival and the housing of these transportees. He also mentioned the difficulties and the employment of Jews as workers or on plantations. His entire description bore witness to his humane point of view. He told me that under him the Jews fared better than they had in the Reich.
DR. FRITZ: What was the name of this man?
FRITZSCHE: Oberregierungsrat Hubert Kühl.
DR. FRITZ: Did you hear unfavorable reports about these deported Jews?
FRITZSCHE: Yes. Sturmbannführer Radke of the staff of the Reichsführer SS reported, perhaps in the winter of 1942, that the mortality rate of the Jews in the eastern ghettos was abnormally high due to the changeover from mental work to manual labor. He mentioned there were even some isolated cases of typhus.
Apart from that, Dr. Tauber, who was head of the section dealing with Jewish questions in the propaganda department, told me in 1941, if I remember correctly, that there had been pogroms during the occupation of Lvov and Kovno, but they were carried out by the local population. He assured me at the same time that the German authorities had taken steps against these pogroms. Nevertheless the references to such things caused me to criticize matters severely, even though these things today look almost insignificant compared with what we know of today. My criticism was directed against my superiors, particularly Dr. Goebbels, and also against co-workers and members of the Gestapo and of the Party. I referred repeatedly to the legal, political, and moral necessity of protecting these Jews, who, after all, had been entrusted to our care.
DR. FRITZ: Did you learn anything else about the fate of these Jews?
FRITZSCHE: On several occasions Jews or relatives or friends of Jews appealed to me because of discrimination or arrests. A large number of non-Jews also did this as my name had become well-known to the public. Without exception, I made their pleas my own and I tried to help through various offices such as the RSHA, through the personnel section of my Ministry, through individual ministers and Gauleiter, et cetera.
DR. FRITZ: Why did you turn to so many different authorities and offices?