As I have already emphasized, up to the year 1943 Kaltenbrunner was, by comparison with the other defendants at this Trial, hardly known in Germany; at any rate, he had hardly any associations with either the German public or the high officials of the regime. In those days, when the military, economic, and political fate of the German people was already swinging with great velocity toward the abyss, hate and abhorrence of the executive powers were at their peak, the more so as the paralyzing sensation of the hopelessness of any resistance against the terror of the regime began to disappear, for people had by then finally turned away from the legend of invincibility preached by propaganda. Up to that point Kaltenbrunner had led a retired life and, in spite of the Austrian Anschluss, his record was clear of offenses against international law. I should like to say here that he was an Austrian—I might almost say, a bona fide Austrian. Suddenly, so to speak, and not on account of any special aptitude, much less through any efforts of his own, he was drawn into the net of the greatest accomplices of the greatest murderer. Not of his own free will; on the contrary, he repeatedly attempted to resist and to have himself transferred to the fighting front.
I can well understand that I might be told that I should, in view of the sea of blood and tears, refrain from illuminating the physiognomy of this man’s soul and character. But deep in my heart—and I beg you not to misunderstand me—while exercising my profession as counsel, even of such a man, I am moved by the universal thesis of the great Augustine, which is hardly intelligible to the present generation: “Hate error, but love man.” Love? Indeed, insofar as it should pervade justice; because justice without this virtue becomes simple revenge, which the Prosecution explicitly disavows. Therefore, for the sake of justice, I must show you that Kaltenbrunner is not the type of man repeatedly described by the Prosecution, namely, the “little Himmler,” his “confidant,” the “second Heydrich.”
I do not believe that he is the cold-hearted being which the witness Gisevius described in such unfavorable terms, although only from hearsay. The Defendant Jodl has testified before you that Kaltenbrunner was not among those of Hitler’s confidants who always gathered around him after the daily situation conferences in the Führer’s headquarters. The witness Dr. Mildner, on the basis of direct observation, made the following statement, which was not shaken by the Prosecution:
“From my own observation I can confirm this: I know the Defendant Kaltenbrunner personally. His private life was irreproachable. In my opinion he was promoted from Higher SS and Police Leader to Chief of the Security Police and of the SD because Himmler, after the death of his principal rival Heydrich in June 1942, did not want any man near him or under him who might have endangered his own position. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner was no doubt the least dangerous man for Himmler. Kaltenbrunner had no ambition to bring his influence to bear through special deeds and ultimately to push Himmler aside. He was not hungry for power. It is wrong to call him the ‘little Himmler.’ ”
The witnesses Von Eberstein, Wanneck, and Dr. Hoettl have expressed themselves in a similar manner.
And yet this man took over the Reich Security Main Office; indeed, he took it over to the fullest extent, despite his agreement with Himmler. I know that today this man is suffering a great deal in thinking of the catastrophe that has overtaken his people and from the uneasiness of his conscience; nothing is more understandable than that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, knowingly, can no longer face the fact that he actually was in charge of an office under the burden of which the very stones would have cried out if that had been possible. The personality and character of this man must be judged differently from the way the Prosecution has judged it.
For the psychologist the question arises how a man, with, let us say, a normal citizen’s virtues, could take under his control an office which became the very symbol of human enslavement in the twentieth century, as far as Germany is concerned. Yet there may have been two reasons for taking over this office, nevertheless. One is based on the fact that Dr. Kaltenbrunner, although closely connected with the political and cultural interests of his Austrian homeland, supported National Socialism in its larger sense. For before he turned into the side path with its secrets, he marched with thousands and hundreds of thousands of other Germans, who desired nothing else than delivery from the unstable conditions prevailing at that time, on that wide road into which the eyes of the entire world had insight. Therefore, for example, he was without a doubt a disciple of anti-Semitism, however, only in the sense of the necessity of putting an end to the flooding of the German race with alien elements; but he condemned just as emphatically the mad crime of the physical annihilation of the Jewish race, as Dr. Hoettl definitely assures us.
Certainly Kaltenbrunner also admired Hitler’s personality as long as it did not, little by little, give expression to its absolutely misanthropic and therefore un-German nature. Also, he approved in principle, as he himself admitted during his interrogation, of measures which implied more or less severe compulsion, for example, the organization of labor training camps. For this reason no sensible person will want to question the fact that he deemed the establishment of concentration camps fundamentally quite proper, at least as a provisional measure during the war, as had been the case for a long time beyond the German borders. Sine ira et studio.
The establishment of concentration camps, or whatever one wishes to call those places at the mention of which the listener involuntarily is reminded of the words of Dante, is unfortunately not unknown in many states. History knows of their existence in South Africa some decades ago, in Russia, England, and America during this war, for the admission, among others, of persons who for reasons of conscience do not want to serve with arms. In Bavaria, in the land in which the Tribunal at present sits, this sort of camp is also known; also known is the so-called “automatic arrest” category for certain groups of Germans. Under the heading “Political Principles,” in Point B-5 of the text of the mutual declaration of the three leading statesmen on the Potsdam Conference of 17 July 1945, the statement is contained that, among others, all persons who are a threat to the occupation or its aims shall be arrested or interned.
The apparent necessity for camps of this sort is thereby recognized. I myself detest those institutions of human slavery; but I state openly that these institutions also lie on the road which, when followed to the end, can and does bring suffering to persons holding different views to those desired by the state. By this the crimes against humanity in the German concentration camps are not in the least to be minimized.