Transcript for NMT 8: RuSHA Case

DEFENDANT SCHWALM:I have.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?

DEFENDANT SCHWALM:Not guilty.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: you may be seated.

SECRETARY GENERAL: MAX SOLLMANN

JUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?

DEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Yes.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German served upon you at least 30 days ago?

JUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?

JUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?

DEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Not guilty.

SECRETARY GENERAL: GREGOR EBNER:

DEFENDANT EBNER:Yes.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?

DEFENDANT EBNER:Yes.

DEFENDANT EBNER:Yes. I have.

DEFENDANT EBNER:Not guilty.

SECRETARY-GENERAL: Guenther Tesch.

DEFENDANT TESCH:Yes.

DEFENDANT TESCH:Yes, it was.

DEFENDANT TESCH:I have.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead the indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?

DEFENDANT TESCH:Not Guilty.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.

SECRETARY GENERAL:Inge Viermetz.

DEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Yes.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment.

DEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Not Guilty.

JUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.

THE PRESIDENT:For the benefit of counsel both for the prosecution and the defense, the Tribunal desires to make certain announcements.

On account of the time required for the translation of documents and final pleas, it appears to be necessary that they filed at some date in advance of the conclusion of the trial of the case. For that reason, after the case begins, a date will be fixed, of which you will have due notice, after which no documents or final pleas will be received.

For that reason it becomes necessary that you get your documents and your final picas in order and ready to be presented early in the trial of the case. After this deadline date had been fixed, of which you will be notified,--that is, somethime after the beginning of the trial,-after that date, no documents or final pleas will be received.

There will be no recess after the conclusion of the presentation of the evidence on the part of the prosecution. We will move immediately after the prosecution had finished, into the hearing of the evidence on behalf of the defendants.

The Tribunal is of the opinion that reading excerpts from documents introduced in evidence will not be helpful to the Court. You will simply indentify your documents,-both for the prosecution and defense,-introduce them in evidence, and then in your briefs, call the attention of the Court to those portions of the documents you considered to be material.

The Trial will begin on the 20th of this month so that the Court will now be recess until 10 o'clock on the 20th of October.

THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will be in recess until Monday, the 20th of October, 1947.

(Court in recess until 10 o'clock, Monday Morning, October 20, 1947)

Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I, in the matter of the United States of America against ULRICH GREIFELT et al, defendants sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 20 October 1947, Justice WYATT, Presiding.

THE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I Military Tribunal I is now in session.

God save the united States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.

There will be order in the court.

THE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?

THE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.

THE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.

The Prosecution will proceed with the opening statement.

MR. MCHANEY:May it please the Tribunal, the crimes of these defendants, thirteen men and one woman for which they stand here accused, are the result of a vast and premeditated plan to destroy national groups in countries occupied by Germany. This program of genocide was part of the Nazi doctrine of total warfare, war waged against populations rather than against states and armed forces. Hitler once said that:

"The French complained after the war that there were twenty Germans too many. We accept the criticism. We favor the planned control of population movements. But our friends will have to excuse us if we subtract the twenty millions elsewhere. After all these centuries of whining about the protection of the poor and lowly, it is about time we decided to protect the strong against the inferior. It will be one of the chief tasks of German statesmanship for all time to prevent, by every means in our poser, the further increase of the Slav races. Natural instincts bid all living beings not merely to conquer their enemies, but also destroy them." 1/ -----------------1/ Rauschning, The voice of Destruction, 1940, P.G. Putnam's A.. of these defendants played an active and leading role in carrying out this broad program which had the two-fold objective of weakening and eventually destroying other nations while at the same time strengthening Germany at their expense, territorially and biologically, in order to secure German domination first of Europe and finally of the world.

This program was based primarily upon the two Nazi concepts of Race and Lebensraum. Belief in German racial supremacy is not new in German thought. At the end of the 19th century it became crystallized in the theory of Aryan supremacy. The "Aryan" had long been used to denote that family of languages to which ancient Norse, Greek, and Sanskrit belonged. Now the term Aryan was applied to a mythical race which was creator of all the culture existing in the world.

As Hitler himself said in Mein Kampf:

"All the Human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan". 1/

This theory of race played a prominent role in the rise to power of the Nazis. It convinced the German masses of Aryan supremacy and taught them that the Germans were more entirely Aryan than any other race. They were the "Nordic Germanic race", the Master Race. Thus, the German people, by purifying themselves, casting out Jews, Slavs, and other non-Aryans, were to become the foremost race on earth. Himmler, in a speech to high-ranking Army officers in 1935, said:

"I am a convinced supporter of the ieda that what matters in the world ultimately is only good blood... I have approached my task from this angle. It means that actually the only good blood, according to our reading of history, is the leading creative element in every state, and in particular, the blood engaged in military activity, and, above all, Nordic blood." ----------------1/ Mein Kampf, 1943 Edition, Haughton, Miflin &bCo. p. 290.

This reconstituted Aryan people was to be the strongest race in the world. Therefore, in accordance with nature's law of survival of the fittest, the Aryan race would conquer the world, enslave all other races, and everywhere spread Aryan culture (for Aryans only, of course) in a new Pax Germanica.

Inside Germany this racial theory coordinated everything in public and private life according to the tenets of Nazism. In foreign affairs, it became the slogan for the unification of all Germans, holding out to them a glittering vision of world mastery as both a possibility and a right.

This theory of race matched with the theory behind Lebensraum. The Nazis made much of Germany's over-population with respect to its area. But they were not really concerned with over-population. In fact, the Nazis constantly proclaimed the duty of all food Germans to have an many children as possible. Lebensraum was not, as many think it, a cry of an under-privileged people for the possibility of existence. It was a demand for more and more land, in fact, for more land that the German People could use at the time. The Nazis felt that only by expansion into a great State territorially could Germany proceed to become mistress of the world. In short, Lebensraum was a slogan for an aggressive drive by the German people under the Nazi leadership to expand its borders regardless of economic need. This culminated in wars of aggression to gain territory and populations at the expense of neighboring countries.

In the course of the war, as the Nazis overran Poland and most of the rest of Europe, they gained the opportunity to put these theories of Race and Lebensraum, this crime of genocide, into practice. The main drive for expansion was in the East. Himmler, in 1942 explained it as follows:

"It is not our task to Germanize the East in the old sense, that is, to teach the people there the German language and German law, but to see to it that only people of purely Germanic blood lived in the Ease."

In November 1939, the Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party put forth a treatise with the weighty title of, "The Problem of the Manner of Dealing with the Population of the formerly Polish Territories on the Basis of Racial-Political Aspects". In this treatise, which formed in part the basis of actions taken by these defendants, it stated:

"The aim of the German policy in the new Reich territory in the East must be the creation of a racial and therefore intellectual-psychical as well as national-political uniform German population. This results in the ruthless elimination of all elements not suitable for Germanization.

"This aim consists of three interwoven tasks.

"First, the comp]etc and final Germanization of the population which Seems to be suitable for it.

"Second, deportation of all foreign groups which are not suitable for Germanization, and "Third, the re-settlement by Germans."

It must be realized that under the Nazi theory of race, non-Aryans simply did not matter. Hitler stated this clearly in Mein-Kampf when he said, "All who are not of good race in this world are chaff". 1/ This is again clearly brought out in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal, whore it is stated:

"When the witness Bach-Zelewski was asked how Ohlendorf could admit the murder of 90,000 people, he replied:

'I am of the opinion that when, for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached that the Slav race is an inferior race, and Jews not even human, than such an outcome is inevitable'." 2/

It may seem somewhat inconsistent for the Nazis to prate of race and purity of blood on the one hand and on the other to take Poles, Czechs, and nationals of many other countries and decide, upon the basis of physical characteristics such as blue eyes and blond hair, that these -----------------1/ Mein Kampf, 1943 Edition, Haughton, Miflin, & Co. p. 296. 2/ Trial of who Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 248.

people can be Germanized. This was a measure to which the Germans were forced because they found that their own population was not sufficient to fulfil the Nazi schemes of expansion. This taking of non-Germans and calling them Germans was also justified on the ground that Germany was thereby taking the best blood from the other nations and thus weakening them as well as strengthening itself.

The seemingly insurmountable theoretical barrier of race was avoided very neatly. It was obvious, they said, that for a thousand years and more, Germanic peoples had gone forth over the map of Europe. Thus, when a Polish family showed no signs of any German ancestry for hundreds of years, if the physical characteristics were compatible with these of the mythical super race, it meant that sometime in the dim past Nordic blood had forgotten its heritage and become Polonized. Nevertheless, they said, this blood was still valuable blood and could be reclaimed and this Polish family could be Germanized. There was to be a gradual sifting of the peoples in the East Until finally all the Aryan blood had been reclaimed. Himmler, in a report distributed to Hitler and the defendants Greifelt, Creutz, MeyerHetling, and Hildebrandt among others, and entitled "Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East", was quite clear about the means and aims of this process. He said:

"---- There must be no centralization towards the top, because only by dissolving this whole conglomeration of peoples of the General Government amounting to fif teen millions and of the eight millions of the Eastern provinces, will it be possible for us to carry out the racial sifting which must be the basis for our consid erations; namely, selecting out of this conglomeration the racially valuable and bringing them to Germany and assimilating them there.

"Within a very few years - I should think about four to five years, the name of the Cashubes, f.i. must be un known, because at that time there won't be a Cashubian people any more (this also goes especially for the West Prussians)....What has been said for these fragments of peoples is also meant on a correspondingly larger scale for the Poles."

"A basic issue in the solution of these problems is the question of schooling and thus the question of sifting and selecting the young.

For the non-German population of the East there must be no higher school than the four grade elementary school.

The sole goal of this school is to be:

Simple arithmetics up to 500 at the most; writing of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious and good.

I don't think that reading should be required.

Apart from this school there are to be no schools at all in the East.

Parents, who from the beginning want to give their children better schooling in the elementary school as well as later on in a higher school, must take an appli cation to the Higher SS and Police leaders.

The first consideration in dealing with this application will be whether the child is racially perfect and conforming to our conditions.

If we acknowledge such a child to be as of our blood, the parents will be notified that the child will be sent to school in Germany and that it will per manently remain in Germany.

Cruel and tragic as every individual case may be, this method is still the mildest and best one if, out of inner conviction, one rejects as un-German and impossible the Bolshevist method of physi cal extermination of a people.

The parents of such children of good blood will be given the choice to either give away their child; they will then probably produc no more children so that the danger of this subhuman people of the East obtaining a class of leaders which, since it would be equal to us, would also be dangerous for us, will disappear - or else the parents pledge themselves to go to Germany and to become loyal citizens there.

The love towards their child, whose fu ture and education depends upon the loyalty of the parents will be a strong weapon in dealing with them."

In 1942 the defendant Meyer-Hetling drew up a broad plan for the ethnic reconstruction of Eastern Europe which was entitled the "General Plan East". According to this plan the regions around Leningrad, the Crimea and Cherson in Russia, and Memel and Narew in Lithuania were tobecome German colonies, and within 25 year to be resettled with a large German population. This plan was forwarded by the defendant Greifelt to Himmler who gave his wholehearted approval to it, and asked the defendant Meyer-Hetling to draft also a plan embracing the incorporated Polish territories, Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia, Alsace and Lorraine in France, and Upper Carniola and South Styria in Yugoslavia. This was to be a 20-year plan, so Himmler said, and was to bring about a thorough Germanization of Esthonia and Latvia, as well as of the General Government in Poland.

This then was the program of genocide. It was a coordinated plan aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups.

This destruction can be and was accomplished with the help of these defendants by a number of different means, which may be broadly classified as physical, political, biological, and cultural. They sought the "disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups,"1 In another courtroom of this same building, 23 leaders of the notorious Einsatzgruppen of Security Police and SD are being tried for the mass annihilation of Jews and Russians.

While a number of the defendants in this dock also participated in those very same crimes and others of similar nature, their main efforts were devoted to the destruction of national groups by other methods. The technique of these defendants was the mass deportation of oppressed peoples, the deprivation of their means of livelihood by the wholesale confiscation of property, the forced Germanization of citizens of occupied countries, and the destruction of their national culture, folkways and educational facilities, the creation of conditions which increased the mortality rate and prevented increase of the population, and the kidnapping of children.

These techniques of genocide, while neither so quick nor perhaps so simple as outright mass extermination, are by the very nature of things far more cruel and equally effective. If crimes such as these are allowed to go unpunished, the future of humanity is in far more danger than if an occasional murderer goes free. It is the enormity and farreaching effects of these crimes that give this case its significance.

THE RISE TO POWER OF THE SS These ruthless aims needed ruthless executioners.

Hitler found them in Heinrich Himmler and his SS. In this dock are four Lieutenant 1 Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), p. 79.

Generals (Obergruppenfuehrer), three Senior Lieutenant Colonel (Obersturmbannfuehrer), and two Majors (Sturmbannfuehrer) of the SS. They committed the crimes with which they are charged as leading members of three Main Offices (Hauptamt) and a department of the SS. It is therefore, necessary to understand something of the history and organization of the SS in general and in particular of the Main Staff Office (Stabshauptamt) of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism (commonly known as the "RKFDV"), the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (commonly known as RuSH A), and the Well of Life Society (commonly known as "Lebensborn"). To assist the Tribunal in this regard the prosecution has prepared and delivered to the Tribunal a brief containing basic information on the SS and the aforementioned offices thereof. This has also been made available to defense counsel in both German and English. It includes a glossary of German words and expressions which will be used frequently in the course of the trial, a table of equivalent ranks between the American Army and the German Wehrmacht and the SS, a map of those parts of Europe of interest in this case, and two charts showing the organization of the SS and the interrelation of the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RuSHA, and Lebensborn.

The Schutzstaffeln or SS was the protective guard of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP). It was formed in 1925 to protect leaders and speakers at Party meetings and above all to protect the person of the Fuehrer. As the "Fuehrer" or leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler was the "Oberste Fuehrer" or supreme leader of the SS.

In January 1929, Heinrich Himmler was appointed Reichsfuehrer SS. As such he was the commander of the SS and subordinated directly to Hitler as head of the Nazi Party. At that time, the SS numbered only about 280 men and was much less important than the Sturmabteilung or SA, which was a Nazi pari-military unit under the ambitious Captain Ernst Roehm. Patiently and unobtrusively, Himmler set about creating out of the SS an aristocracy within the Nazi Party. He called this aristocracy the German Order of Mon (Deutsche Maennerorden). Selection for member ship in the SS was based on the doctrine of "Race and Blood."

At the time of the seizure of power by the Nazi Party in January 1933, this self-proclaimed "racial elite" was 52,000 strong. Not, however, until the Roehm purge of 30 June 1934 did the SS become the ruling caste within the Party. On that bloody "Night of the long Knives", it was the brutalized in the SA who were said to be dissident elements in the Party. Thenceforth, the SS assumed the duty of ensuring the continued power of the Nazi regime, or, as it was officially stated, of "protecting the internal security of the Reich."

The subsequent development of the SS was based primarily upon the tremendous increase in power of Himmler. Whereever Himmler went, the SS went with him. In June 1936, he was appointed Chief of the German Police (Chef der Deutschen Polizei) in the Ministry of Interior with authority over the regular uniformed police (Ordnungspolizei) as well as the Security Police, which was defined to include both the Criminal Police (Kripo) end the notorious Gestapo or State Secret Police.

In this connection, mention should also be made of the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsfuehrer SS or SD, which worked closely with the Gestapo. The SD was the espionage agency first of the SS, and, after June 1934, of the whole Nazi Party. Reinhardt, or as he was known abroad "Hangman", Heydrich was the Chief of the SD. Himmler, in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS and the Chief of the German Police, appointed Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police on 26 June 1936. This amalgamated the Security Police, a State organization, with the SD, a Party organization.

By a decree of 27 September 1939, the various State and Party officers under Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police and SD were united into one administrative unit, the Reich Main Security Office or RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) which was at the same time both one of the Main Offices of the SS Supreme Command under Himmler as Reichsfuehrer SS and an office in the Ministry of Interior under Himmler as Chief of the German Police.

On a regional level, Himmler appointed Higher SS and Police Leaders (Hoehere SS-und Polizeifuehrer) for each Wehrkreis who coordinated the activities of the Security Police and SD, Oder Police, and Allgemeine SS within their jurisdictions.

In 1939 the SS and police systems were amalgamated by taking into the SS all police officials at equivalent ranks.

This unification of the SS and police enhanced the power of the SS. Its power and influence was further increased by the appointment of Himmler in August 1943 as Reich Minister of the Interior, a position which controlled the greater part of the vast German bureaucracy. Finally, in July 1944, he succeeded General Fromm as Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army (Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres) and Chief of Military Armament (Chef der Heeresruestung). He then controlled all forces on the home front.

Parrellel with this developement of the SS, its influence was increased by the practice of appointing important State officials and other public figures to high rank in the SS. Industrialists, bankers, and business men were prevailed upon to contribute substantial sums of money to the SS in order to stand in well with the Party aristocracy. Through infiltration, the SS gained influence in every branch of German life.

By 1939, the Allgemeine SS, the original formation of the SS, numbered approximately 240,000 men. In addition, there were two other SS formations - the Special Service Troops (SS Verfuegungstruppen) and the Death's Head Formations (SS Totenkopf Verbaende) which together had a strength of about 40,000 men. The special Service Troops constituted a force of SS men who volunteered for four years' military service in lieu of compulsory service with the Army. It was organized as an armed unit to be employed with the Army in the event of mobilization. The Death's Head Formations were selected from SS volunteers and were used to guard concentration camps.

After the outbreak of war, units from both the Special Service Troops and the Death's Head Formations were used in the Polish campaign.

These troops came to be known as the Waffen or Armed SS. By 1940 the Waffen SS contained 100,000 men, 56,000 coming from the Special service Troops, and the rest from the Allgemeine SS and the Death's Head Troops, Concentration Camp Guard duties came to be performed primarily by members of the Allgemeine SS, The Waffen SS fought in every campaign with the exception of those in Norway and Africa. By the end of the war it is estimated to have comprised about 600,000 men. Thus, it was numerically by far the larger branch of the SS, the Allgemeine SS having declined in strength to around 200,000.

The Waffen SS, including the Death's Head Formations, was in effect a part of the Wehrmacht and its expenses were a charge on the State. The Allgemeine SS, on the other hand, was an independent branch of the Party and its finances were ultimately controlled by the Party Treasurer (Reichsschatzmeister der NSDAP).

Subject to the controlling authority of the Reichsfuehrer SS the work of directing, organizing, and administering the whole body of the SS was carried out by the Supreme Command of the SS (Reichsfuehrung SS). This Supreme Command consisted of twelve Main Offices (Hauptaemter). The more important of the Main Offices were the Reich Main Security Office or RSHA, the Operational Headquarters (Fuehrungshauptamt), the Economic and Administrative Main Office or" WVHA, the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, VOMI, and RusHA.

I have already described brieflythe amalgamation of the SD and the GESTAPO and Criminal Police under Heydrich as Chief of the RSHA. After the assination of Heydrich in 1942, Kaltenbrunner was made chief of the RSHA. For his criminal activites in that position, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal. The Gestapo, among other things, was responsible for the commitment of political prisoners to concentration camps. Our proof in this case will show the close cooperation between the Security Police and SD and these defendants.

The SS Operational Headquarters was the main office of the SS which was responsible for the training, organization and, to a certain extent, the operational employment of the Waffen SS and the Allgemeine SS.

The SS Economic and Administrative main Office or WVHA was in charge of the finance, supply, and administration of the whole of the SS. It also was engaged in large scale building projects and the operation of various industries in connection with concentration camps. The surviving leaders of this Main Office have been recently tried before Military Tribunal II. The defendant Lorenz had especially close connections with the WVHA , as VOMI received from it largo quantities of clothes of Jews murdered in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Other important Main Offices were the SS Central Office (SS-Hauptamt), which handled recr uiting for the Waffen SS, propaganda, education physical training, and so-called Germanic affairs; and the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS (Persoenlicher Stab RFSS) which was an advisory and coordinating body responsible for all matters not within the province of the other Main Offices and for liaison with Government and Party officials.

Main Staff Office, Vomi, RuSHA, and Lebensborn Iturn new to a description of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, VOID, RuSHA, and Lebensborn and the positions of these defendants in those organizations.

Perhaps the most important organization involved in this trial is the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Chief of the German Police, was appointed the RKFDV by Hitler's decree of 7 October 1939. In this decree Hitler said:

"The consequences which Versailles had on Europe have been removed.

As a result, the Greater German Reich is able to accept and settle within its space German people who up to the present had to live in foreign lands and to arrange the settlement of national groups within its spheres of interest in such a way that better dividing lines between them are attained.

I commission the Reich-Fuehrer SS with the execution of this task in accordance with the following infractions:

"Pursuant to my directions the Reich Fuehrer SS is called upon:

1. to bring back those German citizens and racial Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return into the Reich.

2. To eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community.

3. To create new German colonies by resettlement , and especially by the resettlement of German citizens and racial Germans coming back from abroad.

"The Reich Fuehrer-SS is authorized to give such general orders and to take such administrative measures as are necessary for the execution of these duties."

In order to establish an agency to perform these new duties, Himmler transformed an immigration office, which had been set up earlier in 1939 under the defendant Greifelt for the resettlement of Germans in Southern Tyrolia, into the "Office of the Reich Sommissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism." (Dienstelle" RKFDV). In his order of 17 October 1939 establishing the Office of the RKFDV, Himmler said:

"I wish to mention particularly some of these tasks as well as the institutions and agencies which are charged with the solution and execution of these tasks;

a) VOMI and Foreign Organization (Auslandsorganization) bring in the Germans and ethnic Germans.

b) Reich Health Leader and RuSHA examine all Germans from the Reich and abroad in the new areas in town and country.

c) The Security Police in cooperation with the Chief.

of the Civil Administration establishes and takes care of foreign elements dangerous to the German Folkdom.

d) The settlement of farmers will be carried out by the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture.

e) Municipal building of apartment houses and suburban settlements will be handled by the Reich Labor Minister and the German Tabor Front.

....."

On June 11 1941, Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV established the Office of the RKFDV as a Main Office of the Supreme Command of the SS with the name Main Staff Office ("Stabshauptamt") of the RKFDV. The Chief of the Main Staff Office was the defendant Greifelt and his deputy was the defendant CREUTZ. The Main Staff Office was divided into Three Amtsgruppen or departments: A, B, and C, each of which was further subdivided into aemter or offices. The defendant GREIFELT was also head of Amtsgruppen B. The defendant Creutz was Chief of Amtsgruppen A and Amt Z thereof, which was concerned with such matters as personnel, statistics, legal advice, propaganda, and reparations, among others. The defendant Schwarzenberger was chief of Amt V in Amtsgruppe B and was in charge of financial matters for both the RKFDV and Vomi. The defendant Meyer-Hetling, alias Meyer, was the chief of Amtsgruppen C and Amt VI thereof. Meyer-Hetling prepared the plans for the settlement work of the Main Staff Office as well as the "General Plan East", to which reference has already been made. Amt VIII, the Central Land Office of Amtsgruppen C under Meyer-Hetling, was concerned with the executive work in connection with the mass confiscation of land for resettlement.

The defendant Huebner was Chief of the Branch Office Posen of the Main Staff Office and a local representative of RuSHA in the Warthegau. He was in charge of the expulsion of Poles and resettlement of ethnic Germans in that area , among other things.

Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV had jurisdiction over all matters connected with the Strengthening of Germanism, such as resettlements, racial screening, deportations, confiscations, and the like. In addition to the members of the Main Staff Office, Vomi , and the other offices of the SS, numerous government and party officials were subject to Himmler's authority insofar as their activities related to the Strengthening of Germanism. Thus, Himmler as RKFDV, and in practice the defendant Greifelt as his deputy, could give orders to the Gauleiters and Reich Governors. The Main Staff Office also had its own branch offices in the occupied territories and the General Government.

The Main Staff Office was in charge of planning and earring out the resettlement of so-called ethnic Germans in the Reich and in territories occupied by Germany. This included also all cultural and administrative planning and propaganda concerning resettlement. The Main Staff Office dealt with all questions concerning the assignment of ethnic Germans for settlement in Germany and in the occupied territories, and with all questions of administrative and economic character connected with resettlement. Its activities included the transfer of populations, Germanization of foreign nationals, deportation to slave labor, kidnapping of children, abortions on Eastern workers, plunder and murder. The resettlement of ethnic Germans was carried out by the Main Staff Office in cooperation with Vomi and RuSHA.

The Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Vomi) existed long before the outbreak of the war. The defendant Lorenz was appointed the head of Vomi on 1 January 1937 by Rudolf Hess and was subordinated to him and the Chief of the Foreign Office, Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Shortly after the appointment of Himmler as RKFDV in 1939, Lorenz was commissioned by Himmler with the task of carrying out the registration and evacuation of ethnic Germans fromtheir former homes and their transportation to collecting camps for Germanization. On 11 June 1941, the section of Vomi which was engaged in this activity was established as a Main Office of the SS, the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans, with Lorenz as its Chief. The defendant Brueckner was the head of Amt Vi of Vomi. He frequently acted as a liaison officer between Vomi and other offices and was connected with numerous resettlement and deportation actions.

Vomi was responsible for the registration of ethnic Germans, their evacuation from their homes, their transportation to Vomi camps, their care in the camps, and their indoctrination with Nazi ideology. Frequently resettlers were kept in these camps for months and even years awaiting the promised resettlement. In the middle of 1944 there were still one million ethnic Germans and Poles in the Vomi camps. In addition, it participated in the expulsion of citizens of Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, and France in AlsaceLorraine. Its activities also included plunder of property, conscription of enemy nationals into the German Armed Forces, compulsory Germanization of foreign nationals, slave labor, and the kidnapping of alien children.

The Main Race and Settlement Office (RuSHA) was one of the oldest Main Offices of the Supreme Command of the SS. Before the war, the main function of RuSHA was the translation into practice of the racial theories of the SS. It concerned itself with checking the proof of Aryan descent of candidates for admission into the SS. An SS Officer was required to provide a family tree going back to 1750 to prove his "Nordic" or at least "Aryan" descent. RuSHA also processed marriage applications of SS men, as they were not allowed to marry until the bride-to-be was approved.

Such approval was based upon "racial purity" and physical compatibility between the two partners likely to result in a fertile marraige. All this was part of Himmler's desire to make the SS a "racial elite".

RuSHA's concern with and experience in racial matters made it the logical agency to take over the racial problems in herent in Himmler's program of genocide and Germanism.

It was apparent that someone had to screen the millions of people about to be uprooted from their homes and tossed about the map of Europe.

The activities of RuSHA in connection with the selection and welfare of SS men and their depen dents became of secondary importance to this new task.

The Race Office of RuSHA under Prof.

Bruno Kurt Schultz and his deputy Walther Dongus, both of whom We shall hear of frequently during the course of this trial, was particularly important.

Guenther Pancke, now about to be tried in Denmark, was Chief of RuSHA in 1939 and 1940, The defendant Hofmann was Chief from July 1940 to 1 April 1943 when he was succeeded by the defendant Hildebrandt. Hofmann and Hildebrandt also served as Higher SS and Police Leaders at various times. The defendant Schwalm became chief of the Litzmannstadt Field Office in 1941 which, among other things, carried out racial examinations in connection with Germanization and resettlement actions. Later, he became Staff Leader of RuSHA in which capacity he acted as deputy to the Chief of RuSHA.

There were also RuSHA Field Leaders ("Fuehrer in Rasse und Siedlungswesen") who represented RuSHA on the staffs of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the various districts. The defendant Huebner served as the RuSHA Field Leader for the SS Administrative District "South West", with headquarters in Stuttgart and later was Field Leader in the Warthegau, with headquarters in Posen. RuSHA , through these Field Leaders and their racial examiners, decided the fate of hundreds of thousands of people in part upon the basis of whether the subject had high cheek bones and blue eyes, a proper "political attitude", and perhaps a great-grandfather of German nationality.

Transcript for NMT 8: RuSHA Case

Defendants