Only with deep regret will the spectator see that under the pressure of political and military events this man did not observe the limitations desired by himself. His obedience to Hitler, and therefore also Himmler, submitted to the apparent necessity, in the years 1943-45, of guaranteeing the stability of conditions inside Germany through police compulsion. Thereby he became involved in guilt; for it is clear that he might count on a milder judgment on his guilt before the conscience of the world only if he could produce evidence that he actually effected a sharp separation from the unholy Amt IV of the Secret Police, if he had in no way participated in the ideas and methods, which I believe, eventually led to the institution of this whole Trial. I cannot deny that he did not undertake this separation. Nothing is clearly proved in this direction; even his own testimony speaks against him. Thus his statement at the beginning of his examination before the Tribunal may be explained, which I should like to define as the thesis of his guilt:

“Question: ‘You realize that a very special accusation has been brought against you. The Prosecution accuses you of Crimes against Peace as well as of your role of an intellectual principal or of a participant in committing Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war. Finally the Prosecution has connected your name with the terrorism of the Gestapo and with the cruelties in the concentration camps. I now ask you: Do you assume responsibility for these points of accusation as they are outlined and familiar to you?’ ”

And Kaltenbrunner answers:

“First of all I should like to state to the Court that I am fully aware of the serious nature of the accusations brought against me. I know that the hatred of the world is directed against me, since I am the only one here to answer to the world and to the Court, because a Himmler, a Müller, a Pohl are no longer alive ... I want to state at the very beginning that I assume responsibility for every wrong which from the time of my appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office was committed within the jurisdiction of that office as far as it occurred under my actual command, and I thus knew or should have known of these occurrences.”

Thus the duty of the Defense is automatically delineated by asking the questions:

(1) What did Kaltenbrunner do, good and evil, after his appointment as Chief of the Reich Security Main Office on 1 February 1943?

(2) To what extent is the statement justified that in the essential points he did not have sufficient knowledge of all the Crimes against Humanity and against the rules of war?

(3) In how far can his guilt be established from the viewpoint that he should have known about the serious crimes against international law in which Amt IV of the Reich Security Main Office (Secret State Police) was directly or indirectly involved?

What has Kaltenbrunner done? In this connection I am passing over the accusation brought against him by the Prosecution for his participation in the events surrounding the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, for no matter with what energy he followed his goal of seeing his Austrian homeland incorporated into the German Reich and used the SS forces under his command for the realization of this end, this aim cannot have been a criminal one according to the world’s conscience. Just as little could one reach a verdict of criminal guilt because of the forcible means employed at that time to accomplish the annexation of Austria, which was the outcome of history and desired by millions. Kaltenbrunner was still much too insignificant a man for that. Economic distress—Anschluss movement—National Socialism: That was the path followed by the majority of the Austrian people, not the National Socialist ideology; for Hitler himself was, from the standpoint of Austrianism, a spiritual and political renegade. Yet the Austrian Anschluss movement was a people’s movement before National Socialism had reached any importance in Germany. Austria wanted to protect herself against the Versailles and St. Germain ruling, which forbade the Anschluss, by holding a plebiscite in each province. After 90 percent had voted in Tyrol and Salzburg, the victorious powers threatened to discontinue the shipment of food supplies. Hitler’s seizure of power paralyzed the desire for Anschluss among those not sympathizing with the Party, but the distress in Austria became still more acute and isolated the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime. Incorporation into the economic sphere of Greater Germany, where the removal of mass unemployment seemed to be the source of hope, appeared to the greatly distressed Austrian people as the only way out. The wave of enthusiasm which on 12 and 13 March 1938 went through all Austria was real. To try to deny this today would be to falsify history. The Anschluss, not the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Government, was based on democracy.

Just as little can one, I believe, according to the reasons mentioned above, reach a verdict of guilt for Kaltenbrunner because of his alleged activity in the question of Czechoslovakia. In my opinion, the question of guilt and expiation arises only for the time after 1 February 1943. The indignation of the German people over one of the most infamous terroristic measures, the imposition of protective custody, had already become immense before this date. Is it correct to say that Kaltenbrunner himself, of whom many orders for protective custody bearing his signature are in evidence before the Court, inwardly abhorred this type of suppression of human liberties?