The prosecution furthermore charge the defendant Bohle with two other activities, namely, participation in the execution of hostages and participation in the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question. In these cases it will be the task of the defense to prove that the defendant Bohle and the AO had nothing to do with these crimes. The only evidence produced by the prosecution with respect hereto are a few documents in which the defendant's office is one of a large number shown on the distribution list. The Tribunal has already heard abundant evidence showing how shaky such evidences based merely on distribution lists is, and I shall therefore refrain from dwelling any further on this point at the present moment.
I shall now consider Count VIII of the Indictment. It is the first and probably the only occasion that a defense attorney in Nuremberg submits a plea in mitigation after the defendant has pleaded guilty to the count as charged. The reasons which prompted the defendant to do so are primarily his reflections that a National Socialist leader should consider it his duty and a matter of personal integrity to stand to the responsibility he held for his activities during the Third Reich, simultaneously accepting such responsibility for his collaborators and subordinates who carried out his instructions in good faith. At this point the defense would like to observe that the theory of group criminality is alien to Western legal thinking both as regards the Angl-Saxon and the continental mode of thought. This theory was established by the IMT as an absolutely novel one and there have been many divergences of opinion all over the world with respect to it. However, the defendant Bohle in pleading guilty has accepted the theory of membership crime as defined by the IMT judgment and the com mon practice of the Nuremberg Tribunals.
According to Anglo-Saxon penal procedure the character of the defendant and his personality are the decisive factors of a plea in mitigation. Therefore, in presenting my evidence I would like to direct the special attention of the Court to the personality of my client, his personal background, and all the influences which were predominant in shaping his life. It is my position that Bohle's political career is understandable only by taking into account that he was a German born in England who spent his entire youth in the Union of South Africa, but was brought up by parents who were most patriotic and ardent Germans. The defense will show how the passionate love of the Bohle family for their home country, Germany, led E.W. Bohle's father, a noted scientist and professor at the University of Captown and Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, to become the first regional leader of the NSDAP in South Africa, and how it led the son, a graduate of the South African College High School, to become the Head of the Foreign Division of the National Socialist Party in Germany. The defense will furthermore endeavor to portray the ideas and guiding principles Bohle had in building up the AO as a world-wide association of the communities of German citizens abroad, and how strongly British ideals and their admirable spirit of national solidarity influenced the young man of 29 when he was confronted with this tremendous task.
In presenting their case the defense will set forth before this Tribunal the positions of the defendant, his spheres of activities, the powers vested in him, and their limitations. The defense will especially stress the fact that the defendant Bohle, in contrast with other National Socialist leaders of equal or similar rank, held no executive power. The defense will furthermore draw attention to the unique position that Bohle held within the framework of the National Socialist hierarchy, both as regards his personal background as well as the methods he employed in the implementatation of his duties.
The defense will also clearly set forth, with respect to Bohle's membership in the SS, that he held nothing but an honorary rank and was merely a member who had no functions whatever, nor any power of command in the SS.
The defense will furthermore give the Tribunal an exact account of Bohle's knowledge of the criminal activities of the Nazi regime. In this connection it will become evident that even a National Socialist leader of Bohle's rank was not informed of such activities to the extent later established by the IMT and other disclosures. In giving this account I will produce evidence showing the reasons why the defendant Bohle remained in his office as leader of the AO after he had gained knowledge of certain criminal activities of the Nazi regime. At this point I would like to emphasize that these reasons will not be shown to the Tribunal in order to contest his built, but only with the object of giving an explanation.
The defense consider it imperative to conclude their Opening Statement with a few observations of a principal nature regarding the question of legal judgment with respect to National Socialist leaders in general. The problem is undoubtedly one of the most difficult of the many problems that have arisen in Germany since 1945. The viewpoint of the defense is as follows:
The IMT, and the disclosure of the truth subsequent to Germany's collapse have established the fact beyond any doubt whatever that the Nazi regime was guilty of numerous criminal activities, which have horrified the German people no less than the rest of the world. However, in judging the deeds of a National Socialist in the Third Reich the defense are of the opinion that it cannot be presupposed in each and every case that a National Socialist viewed the regime in the manner which is to-day possible.
There is, therefore, a great discrepancy between the facts of the Nazi regime and the conception of the National Socialist government as held by many of its representatives during the Third Reich. It would thus seem to be a grave mistake to place a National Socialist in each case on the same level with a criminal. The impression may easily be gained both in Nuremberg and generally in Germany that this equation is widespread. Otherwise it would not be comprehensible that so many persons who were doubtlessly adherents and collaborators of the regime today refuse to admit that they ever were or even desired to be National Socialist. The defense of Bohle take the position that the words "National Socialist" and "criminal" are not necessarily and ipso factor synonymous. It cannot be denied that there were many criminals in the National Socialist Party and it is an established fact that the Naxi regime committed a great number of unprecendented atrocities. But it is also an undeniable fact that very may National Socialists were not connected with the criminal side of the Nazi regime and it is likewise just as true that many participants in Nazi criminal activities were certainly not National Socialists.
In this connection I would like to give expression to my experience in collecting evidence in favor of my client. I do not wish to draw a comparison in general between the possibilities of the defense and the advantages of the prosecution as these facts have repeatedly been the subject of discussions before this Tribunal. I only wish to limit myself to the statement that the respective situations of the defense and the prosecution were definitely unequal, with respect to German witnesses. I can best express what I mean by saying that the prosecution were swimming with the tide and the defense against it. It has proved to be a possibly understandable, although not very fair inclination on the part of many Germans to denazify themselves by unloading everything that was bad onto the Party and claiming for themselves whatever good points there were.
This widespread tendency to thereby cover up their own weaknesses and cowardice has been a strong impediment to so many attempts to establish the truth. I believe this is best demonstrated by stating that the defense sometimes had a feeling not very dissimilar to that of a person in the Third Reich who desired to help a Jew. The defense have, in certain instances, even experienced more fairness from quarters which had reasons to be antagonistic than from numerous German fellow countrymen.
In conclusion I should like to state the following: The Nuremberg trials and other evidence of a manifold nature have without doubt revealed to more than one National Socialist that he served a system which in its ultimate an now recognizable effects has proved guilty of numerous crimes. In the light of Control Council Law No. 10 such service implies a certain guilt which finds its expression in count VIII of the indictment. The defendant Ernst Wilhelm Bohle has openly and honestly pleaded guilty hereto. He thereby recognizes and acknowledges without reserve that by having continued to render such service after he had gained knowledge of certain violations of International Law by the Political Leadership Corps or the SS he has transgressed in the eyes of the law. However, it will be the earnest endeavor of the defense to demonstrate to this Tribunal their deep conviction that the rendering of such service at no time emanated from any criminal intent on his part, and that this fact, in conjunction with his frank declaration of penance, embodied in his plea of guilty, is deserving of mitigation.
Your Honors, this concludes my opening statement.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. Now you may proceed with your presentation as you desire.
DR. GOMBEL:Thank you, Your Honor.
MR. LEWIS:May it please your Honors, the defense is about to present evidence in the case against Bohle, and based on document books that were just gone through and marked for identification yesterday. The prosecution gathers that practically two-fifths or perhaps a half of the case to be presented before the Tribunal might not be necessary if the Prosecution's viewpoint is shared by the Tribunal. The plea of guilty that was made to Count VIII only requires now a matter of petition to the Court for mitigation or possibly for clemency upon the sentence. We do not believe the Court needs to have before it, unless it so desires, two or three witnesses besides the character affidavits to present the character of this defendant. But we do say there is no issue left to be bringing evidence before this Tribunal for decision with respect to Count VIII, and therefore we believe that the proof to be adduced in defense in favor of the defendant Bohle should be limited to defending the only open count, Count V of the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will hear evidence on Count V and it will also hear evidence in mitigation on Count VIII. Now we will rule accordingly, as we go along, of course, in the matter, but we will hear evidence in mitigation. It may become the obligation of this Tribunal to pass sentence with respect to Count VIII, and the Tribunal desires to get evidence that might be helpful to it with respect to that count.
Dr, Gombel, you may proceed.
DR. GOMBEL:Thank you, your Honor.
In compliance with the desire of the Court not to hear the two witnesses before the Court for the time being, I would now like to call the defendant Bohle to the witness box.
THE PRESIDENT:The defendant Bohle may take the witness stand.
ERNST WILHELMBOHLE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT:I take it the witness will testify in German?
DR. GOMBEL:No, sir; with the Court's permission we would prefer English.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well.
The witness will raise his right hand and be sworn:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and that I will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GOMBEL:
Q.Witness, for the record, please give the Tribunal your full name.
A.Ernst Wilhelm Bohle.
Q.When and where were you born?
A.On 28 July 1903, at Bradford, Yorkshire, England.
Q.Are you married?
A.Yes, since 1925. I have one child, a boy of 20.
Q.Were you parents German?
A.Yes, my parents were both German and German born. They emigrated to England at the end of the last century.
Q.What was your father's profession?
A.When my father went over to England he was about 21 years of age, and he first worked as an electrician and a mechanic in Birmingham. After he had acquired a complete command of the English language within a few years, he managed to get a position as lecturer at the Technical College of Bradford, and a few years later the position of Chief Lecturer for Electrical Engineering at that college. In 1906 he was appointed professor of Electrical Engineering at the South African College, so that the whole family, my parents and five children, left for Capetown the same year.
In 1910 the South African College became the University of Capetown, after the foundation of the Union of South Africa, and my father retained his position as Professor of Electrical Engineering at that university until 1935, when he was pensioned and returned to Germany to settle down in the old country. During this period he was several times elected Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, and was likewise advisor to several government agencies and municipalities in the Cape province.
Q.Mr. Bohle, would you please give the Court a short synopsis of your youth and educational background?
A.I spent my entire youth, from 1906 on, and until the end of 1919, in South Africa. I attended the South African College schools, at first the Junion School and subsequently the South African College High School. In 1917 I passed the Junior Certificate Examination and was awarded a Queen Victoria Scholarship. In 1919, in December 1919. I was graduated with honors from the south African College High School.
Q.What was your nationality?
A.Owing to my birth in England, my status was that of a natural born British subject; but I simultaneously derived German nationality from my father, who had been naturalized with the stipulation in his naturalization papers that he could retain his German citizenship when in Germany. I therefore had dual nationality.
Q.Do you still have dual nationality?
A.No; I renounced my British nationality in August 1937, in a sworn declaration before the British Consul General at Berlin.
Q.So you had dual nationality from 1933 to 1937 in spite of your position in the party?
A.Yes, that is correct, and I would probably have had dual nationality even longer if I myself had not thought fit to give up my British citizenship. I had discussed the matter several times with members of the British Embassy at Berlin, and with the Ambassador himself, Sir Eric Phipps, who told me that they saw no reason whatsoever for my giving up my British citizenship.
However, especially after my appointment to the German Foreign Office, I thought it correct to give up my British nationality because I did not wish to serve two masters.
Q.Mr. Witness, what were the main impressions that engraved themselves upon your mind as a German boy in South Africa?
A.These impressions were, as a matter of course, duplex. My environment, my whole outdoor life, my playmates and my schooling were British. My teachers were almost, without exception, English, from well known institutions in England. On the other hand, our home life was exclusively and uncompromisingly German in all aspects. We were never Allowed to speak a word of English with our parents.
Q.What were your experiences at school during World War Number 1.
A.It was pretty rough to be the only German boy at a British school during World War 1. At least the only German boy who had been taught by his father to stand up for Germany at all costs. I got many a hidign in those years because I was a German. At that time the word German had practically been abolished and superceded by the word, "Hun." The Kaiser was called the "Super-Hun," or the "War Lord," and my nickname at school was "Kaiser Will," because one of my first names happened to be Wilhelm, and it was therefore natural that all these attributes were also applied to me.
Q.What were the reasons for this strong anti-German attitude of the schoolchildren and other people in South Africa?
A.The English boys at school were absolute jingoes. They had been brought up that way by their parents and of course they were incited by all the stories of German atrocities which were disseminated by that wonderfully efficient British propaganda machinery in World war 1. There were especially two stories which the kids actually believed; one being the story that the Germans were chopping off the hands of the Belgian children, and the second one that the Germans were making soap out of the bodies of dead soldiers. It was quite natural that I personally was held responsible for that at school. Later, after the war, the British frankly admitted that these stories had been conducted solely for propaganda purposes, and were, of course, absolutely untrue.
Q.What other impressions did you gain in your youth which you believed strongly influenced your political line of thought later on?
A.In a country with such a variagated population as South Africa, there were, of course, many problems and influences which pressed their imprint upon my mind. First of all there was the problem of racial discrimination and segregation. The Negro and the Indian question. Apart from a natural contact in outdoor life, I had many playmates who were colored. My nurses and our housemaids were exclusively colored, and incidentally, the best we could ever have had. In the Cape province, the handling of the Negro question was very liberal, whereas in the old Boer Republic, the situation was entirely different, and had remained so until the present day. Then there was the problem, in south Africa, of governing and appearing an only recently conquered people who spoke a different tongue. I mean the Boers. The way the British handled this question is undoubtedly one of the most magnificant achievements of British colonial policy. I need only refer to two of England's fiercest enemies in the Boer War -- the Boer Generals Botha and Smuts, who very soon after their defeat were placed in charge of the South African provinces, and it is well known that the present day Field Marshal Smuts is one of the most outstanding and loyal of British statesmen, and in fact, one of the pillars of Empire.
Q.Now, witness, would it not have been the normal thing if all these influences and impressions, coupled with the fact that you were English born, and a British subject, had made a British boy out of you?
A.That would probably have been the case, if my parents, especially my father, had not been so passionately German.
Q.Mr. Bohle, retrospectively, what would you say were the practical deductions you drew from all these experiences and impressions you have been just referring to.
A.All this gave me a profound admiration for this wonderful. I might even say. for one of the most wonderful political set-ups that we have ever seen in the world--the British Empire--and I was absolutely fascinated and dominated by the conception of a German Reich which, in spite of a completely different structure, would in every respect, enjoy absolute equality with England in the concert of world powers.
Q.But what did you think entitled you to entertain such a conception?
A.The fact that there were some seventy million Germans in Europe, and that they were one of the most industrious and highly gifted nations in the whole world. I felt entitled to that conception if only by reviewing the innumerable names--among the most famous scientists, explorers, musicians, philosopher, poets, inventors, and soldiers in world history.
Q.But did your conception not entail strong competition between Germany and England and possibly another war?
A.Apart from a natural competition in the economic field, and there will always be competition in world trade, I saw no reason whatever for a political rivalry between the two countries. On the contrary, I thought that a friendly understanding and even closer ties between England and Germany should be possible.
Q.Mr. Bohle, what did you do after leaving school?
A.In spite of very favorable offers from an English uncle in Birmingham to study at Oxford and Cambridge and later on to join a very prosperous manufacturing concern as junior partner, I preferred to go to Germany. I studied political science and national economy at the Universities of Cologne and Berlin, and took my degree of Bachelor of Commerce, "Diplomkaufmann" in December 1923 at Berlin University of Economics.
Q.What profession did you take up after completing your studies?
A.I was in the export and import trade, chiefly as an English correspondent, From 1924 to 1931, mostly with Canadian and American firms. My last position, up to 1931, was that of a managing clerk with E.L. Cohrs, Hamburg, the German agency of the Chrysler automobile corporation. In 1931 I went into business on my own and in February 1933 I took up a position as interpreter at the Egyptian Consulate at Hamburg, and held that position until May of the same year.
Q.Were you engaged in politics before 1933?
A.No, not until December 1931. I was always very interested in German and world politics--did a lot of reading, and visited political meetings of all kinds of political parties, but I found no platform for my own political conceptions in any one of the forty odd parties who were fighting each other in Germany and whose disgusting strife did not give me the notion that Germany was ripe for a democracy on Anglo-Saxon lines.
Q.What happened in December 1931?
A.In that fateful winter it had become clear to everybody that the battle for supremacy in Germany politics would be decided, not by the so-called bourgeoise middle class parties, whose electorate was dwindling into insignificance, but by one of the extremes--National Socialism or Communism, National Socialism, in all its utterances was national and patriotic on the one side, and on the other hand it advocated social justice for the masses. That appealed to me. In December 1931 I read an advertisement in one of the Hamburg newspapers that the Foreign Division of the National Socialist Party wanted people who had been in South Africa as collaborators in their Africa section. I applied for the position and received it. It was, of course, an unpaid position, and a sideline in evening hours. That is all, your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT:That concludes. This will be a convenient point to break off and we will now recess until 1:30.
(The Tribunal reconvened at 1340 hours, 23 July 1948).
THE MARSHAL:Military Tribunal IV is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, will you report with respect to the presence of the defendants?
THE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, the defendants are all present in the courtroom, except Woermann, Pleiger, Koerner, Keppler and Krosigk, who are excused by the Tribunal; Rasche, Stuckart, Schellenberg and Berger, in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well, for this afternoon's session Judge Powers will preside.
PRESIDING JUDGE POWERS:Are you ready to proceed, Dr. Gombel?
DR.GOMBEL: (Counsel for defendant Bohle): Yes, sir.
PRESIDING JUDGE POWERS:Very well, you may proceed with the examination.
DR. GOMBEL:Thank you.
DIRECT EXAMINATION, Continued.
WILEHELM BOHLE (Resumed) BY DR. GOMBEL:
Q.Mr. Bohle, before the recess we stopped at your first contact with the National Socialist party. After having taken up this job at the Foreign Division, did you then join the party?
A.I tried for party membership in December, 1941, and became a member on 1 March, 1932.
Q.What was your Party number?
A. 999, 189.
Q.At this point, Mr. Bohle, I would like to interpose a question. Will you please in a few sentences tell the Tribunal which reasons prompted you to join the Nazi party?
A.I was twenty-eight years old when I decided to become a National Socialist. At that time I was convinced that internal strife in Germany and the disgusting fighting that was going on between innumerable German parties was driving the whole nation into chaos.
We had some six- to seven million unemployed at that time, and I saw no other party of which I believed that it would be in a position to restore law and order and at the same time to apply social justice to the masses. For that reason I joined the National Socialist Party because in it I saw a good synthesis between a sound nationalism and just social order.
Q.When did you become the chief of the Foreign Division of the NSDAP?
A.On 18 May, 1933.
Q.Who appointed you to that position.
A.A man by the name of Schmeer, S-c-h-m-e-e-r, who belonged to the Party directorate. He was not authorized at the time to appoint me head of the AO, but my appointment was confirmed in July, 1933, by Rudolf Hess.
Q.But weren't other Gauleiters usually appointed by Adolf Hitler Himself?
A.Yes, all of them were, but at that time I had no contact at all with Hitler, who scarcely knew me by name, and Rudolf Hess, who was especially interested in the welfare of German citizens abroad, appointed me of his own.
Co urt IV - Case 11
Q.I revert to the question before last, and ask you: Then you were not the founder of the AO?
A.No, the AO was founded on 1 May, 1931 at a time when I was not yet a member of the Party. It was founded by Dr. Hans Nieland, at Hamburg.
Q.When you took over the AO, in May 1933, were there already many groups of the Party abroad?
A. yes, in most countries.
Q.Did you have to change the Structure and the working methods of the AO?
A.Not so much the set-up of the AO as the working methods. My predecessor and his closest collaborators were inland Germans Who had never been abroad and who were not acquainted with foreign matters in any respect. They, therefore, tended to apply the domestic Party viewpoint to the work among German citizens abroad, and completely neglected the specific necessities of our Germans communities in foreign countries, with whom they were not acquanited by own personal experience.
Q.Did you make any changes in personnel?
A.Yes I had to make quite a number of changes in personnel. There were quite a number of radically inclined Party members who may have meant well but whose methods did not tend to unify our German communities abroad but rather to disrupt them. It was very difficult for me to replace them because I was a young Party member, both with respect to age as well as to membership, and always had to ward off the influence of domestic party agencies who were attempting to interfere in my work and who, of course, sponsored the old party members abroad, most of whom had been in the Party much longer than myself.
Q.Did you succeed to make the necessary changes in personnel before the war broke out?
A.No, that was not possible. I was located at Hamburg, and from 1935 on at Berlin. Our functionaries abroad were to ninety-nine percent working in an honorary capacity and it took me years to get to know them personally and to be in a position to judge their to get to know them personally and to be in a position to judge their qualifications. I had not completed the changes of personnel I thought necessary even at the outbreak of war.
Q.What were your guiding principles in the setting-up of the AO?
A.The one big guiding principle I had was my firm determination to unify our German communities abroad in the same spirit of national solidarity which I knew prevailed among Britishes abroad, and which I tried to copy. I had no pattern on which to build up the AO -- at least not at first. There were a number of organizations of other countries relating to their citizens abroad, for instance, in Switzerland, in Poland: the so-called World League of Poles, which included no only Polish citizens but at the same time so-called ethnic Poles, that is, Poles with a foreign nationality. It was one of my principles to include in the AO exclusively German nationals, that is, Germans who either held Germans passports or were entitled to a German passport.
Q.You made a statement at the same time that you wanted to unify the German communities abroad. What do you precisely mean by the word "unify"?
A.In order to explain that I shall have to give a short account of what the situation among German communities aborad was like before 1933. After the defeat of 1918, which deeply shocked the Germans abroad, they were practically without any connections to their homeland. The Germans abroad were for the most part monarchists. They had experienced the great German empire under the Kaiser. They knew from their own experience that the passport of Imperial Germany was worth something, and now experienced that the passport of the Weimar Republic was visiting card of no international weight at all.
The overwhelming majority of foreign Germans were true to the old imperial colors -- black, white and red -- and it is a well-known fact that these colors only were shown at national festivals in our communities in foreign countries. The flag of the Republic -black, red and gold -- was hardly ever shown at all, and mostly only by our embassies, legations and consulates, and even then the Germans knew that our diplomatic and consular representatives did not like this flag either. However, in the course of years the republican spirit began to grow, which naturally led to internal strife among the communities.
On the one hand the Monarchists, with their flag -- black, white and red -- and on the other the Republicans -- with their flag, black, red and gold. So, by unification I mean the abolition of this state of affairs, in fact the abolition of all national strife among our Germans abroad which presented a very undignified picture of German patriotism to foreigners.
Q.But did not the Germans abroad have their clubs, associations and societies, like other foreign communities abroad, too?
A.Yes, they did, but first of all these societies were far to numerous because whenever three or four Germans get together they think they must form some sort of a society or club, and the chief object of these societies seemed to be to fight one another, thereby forgetting altogether the question of national patriotism as such. The multitude of German societies aborad in no way tended to unite our German communities.
Q.Then did these societies tend to create respect for Germany, and a national spirit of solidarity among the German citizens abroad?
A.No, they did not. They were practically cut off from any connections in Germany, and mostly had only local interests.
Q.And did you try by your AO to foster a Greater spirit of solidarity among the Germans abroad in order to bring them into closer touch with the home country?
A.That was the prime objective of the AO. The AO as such was a political organization, and as I have said before, I wanted to unify our Germans abroad and make them proud of their country, and bring them they lacked almost completely.
Q.Now, Mr. Witness, how did you try to bring this solidarity about? By what means?
A.There were numerous means of doing this. In the first place, the AO did everything to provide facilities for giving German children abroad a German education. We therefore established or helped establish German schools. We sent out teachers and educational material of all kinds. We urged German parents not to neglect the use of the German language at home. We assisted in every possible way the establishment of German libraries. We were very closely connected to the Foreign Trade Division of the AO with the establishment and sponsoring of German Chambers of commerce, and did everything we could to extend German trade and to help German business. Furthermore, we had very extensive social welfare division which took care of all Germans who were in need, Wholly independent of whether they were Party members or not.
Our section of the German Labor Front handled all matters pertaining to employees, to questions of wages, vacations, sick funds, and so on. We had a special division for providing seamen's homes for sailors of the German mercantile marine in foreign ports. That is about as much as I can think of at the moment.
Q.What did the AO organize with respect to the celebration of national holidays?
A.Whereas formerly -- and I experienced that myself at Cape Town -- every German society celebrated national holidays on its own and independent of one another, the AO brought them together and in every way assisted the worthy celebration of patriotic festivals of all kinds.
Q.Did you also support German hospitals abroad?
A.Yes, we supported German hospitals, nursing homes, maternity homes, and helped them in every possible manner.
Q.Did you also support or establish German newspapers and other periodicals for the use of the German communities abroad?
A.We established very few German newspapers abroad, but we encouraged those already in existence.
Q.What was the responsibility of the AO with respect to those Germans who wanted to return to their home country?
A.We had a special division at the AO headquarters in Berlin for returnees, that is, those German who wished to return home and settle in the old country. We not only helped them to come back but especially assisted them in settling in Germany in questions of employment, housing and so on.