First, did I participate in the experiments directly and actively?
Second, did I at least have any knowledge of the criminal character of the experiments on human beings?
Third, what, if I had known, could have been my attitude towards Himmler?
What my basic opinion is of crimes against humanity I did not only declare myself on the witness stand but this has also been testified to by a very competent foreign witness, a Swedish medical counsellor, Felix Koersten.
Before this Tribunal and in the full knowledge of what I say I confess that I abhor—and did abhor—any crime against humanity in the years past and during my activity as a so-called personal Referent of Himmler. But I also frankly declare that perhaps during the course of these last years my way of thinking was not always in my conscious mind as it is today. But I never participated in a crime against humanity knowingly, intentionally, or with premeditation when passing on the letters, orders, etc., which Himmler issued to third persons, and the result of which was the commission of cruelties on human beings.
I am confident that from the evidence and from the content of the various defense affidavits the Tribunal will be convinced that in truth my real sphere of power did in no way correspond to the face value of my official position. My real sphere of power was extremely small. It did not exceed that of a well-paid stenographer in the office of an influential man in Germany. If the Tribunal were to start from this fact, it would approach reality much closer than the prosecution did in its indictment.
I got into contact with Himmler when I was a young, immature man who came from a family in modest circumstances. Nothing else but my ability as a stenographer, which I had obtained through my industry, was the reason for that, and this was my position until the last days of the German collapse, in spite of promotions in rank. At that time I was only too glad to get that job because it enabled me to support my parents financially.
When I started work with Himmler, I got, without intermediate stages, into an agency, the chief of which was to combine, among other functions, the highest executive powers in his hands a short time afterwards.
I am convinced that I would not sit here under a grave indictment if I had had the opportunity to continue my education, if I had made a start in a subordinate agency, and had risen little by little into a higher position. Unfortunately, I have always been a lone wolf as long as I lived, and I never was fortunate enough to have an older friend who could have corrected my political inexperience and my gullibility.
If, however, through all those years, I represented Himmler’s ideology, I did so only because I did not know the criminal part of Himmler’s character. Since I lived, so to speak, divorced from the world around me and was only devoted to my more than plentiful work, I only learned after the collapse what stupendous crimes are to be booked on Himmler’s account.