Court IV Case XI COMMISSION
QJust one further question. During the interrogation of March 6, 1947, wasn't it also suggested to you that you had been collaborating with a man - that is Ribbentrop - who was a murderer?
AI can't say that. I would have to read the records.
QWell, look at your interrogation of March 6, 1947, Doctor; question 49.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Mr. Magee, the document -
MR. MAGEE:This is the last question, your Honor, and then I am through. If I might put this one, I'm through.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:The last final.
Q (By Mr. Magee) Have you refreshed your recollection, Doctor?
AI was thinking the matter was solved. This utterance as I see now made here does not refer to Ribbentrop, but it refers to Albrecht. From a preceding interrogation which had happened a long time ago, I knew about this matter with the French General whose name I have forgotten about which I had not known before. I was told that the name of my deputy and successor, the ambassador Albrecht, had been mentioned in it. I did not know the case at the time. I had only just seen a picture in an illustrated paper when I was in prison wherefore I had no judgment of Albrecht's guilt according to this document or whether he was guilty or innocent.
QDoctor, I think you are looking at the wrong question. Have you read question 49? Look at question 49 as distinguished from the one in which he calls Albrecht a murderer; that's question number -
Court IV Case XI COMMISSION
AYes, of course, you're right. That is known to me. That utterance made to me, of course, was completely understandable to me. Because I believe that the prosecution at the time had not yet proper perspective of the kind of my functions and that in a certain way if I had been in charge of a very important department of the ministry, if I had done this and that, I would, of course, have been an abetter and helper, an aide of Ribbentrop, and of course that would have been logical.
QI merely asked whether you now remember that question having been put to you after having seen it?
AHow can I now find out psychologically after having discussed it so much now, whether it was put to me then. I am hearing it now; I do not know whether it is simultaneous recognition of the whole thing now or whether I actually remember.
MR. MAGEE:Your Honor, with special permission might I ask just one more question? I said that would be the last, but I see I have to follow it up with one more. Then I assure your Honor's I shall be through.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Go ahead.
Q (By Mr. Magee) Now, would you take a look at question 50? After having read statement 49 in which Ribbentrop was characterized as a murderer, wasn't it suggested to you that the way to save your head, that is to keep yourself from the gallows, was to tell the truth to the prosecution?
AI cannot remember this form of the utterance, but of course I was told to speak the truth. This, of course, is a matter of course. It happened very often too. In what words I was asked to tell the truth Court IV Case XI COMMISSION I do not remember, counsel.
I couldn't remember it.
MR. MAGEE:That's all.
EXAMINATION BY JUDGE POWERS:
QWitness, you speak of Ribbentrop being in the field. Did he have any military assignment of any kind?
AYour Honor, as for as I know he had a rank in the SS; I think the proper term is Obergruppenfuehrer. I do not know too much about the proper ranks in the SS. He did not hold proper military rank during the second World War. I only remember that he was a first lieutenant in the first World War.
QWell, was this field office of his, or field headquarters, in connection with the military operation?
AYour Honor, I believe, and I had the impression on various occasions as a matter of fact, that the expression Feldquartier, is very misleading. In the English translation which I saw or heard today or on Friday, field headquarters, of course gives you a completely wrong idea of the whole thing. Of course -
QWell, that's what I want to find out.
AOf course it was no official designation. In the course of the war years it became usual, for a very unimportant reason. When Ribbentrop was absent from Berlin and wrote personal or official letters, it was naturally forbidden to name the proper place. For instance, Ribbentrop for quite some time had his quarters in a little village of Eastern Prussic, Steinort. When he wrote he letter then for military or other reasons he could not say, "Steinort, the 17th of March, 1943." For thus purpose a number of terms were used; any technical or factual significance exceeding the one that it was the temporary location where the minister was stationed at the time did not exist. It had certainly no official character.
QWell, can you tell us were they selected merely to meet his greater personal convenience or were they selected with a view of bringing him close to the military operation? For instance, you speak about his being in Austria, near Vienna. Why was he there?
AYes, your Honor, I would express it thus and I think I am probably right. The quarters were not chosen by Ribbentrop in order to be near the fighting, but rather to be near to Hitler. In his whole way he was extremely anxious to be able to see Hitler every day and he thought if he could not be close to Hitler, to see him every day, that his influence could disintegrate. It was often criticized in our circles that without any apparent necessity every time, or almost every time, when Hitler left, he left immediately the day after, to be near him. The exact place of his quarter - but here again I am not authentically informed about it was not a entirely his free choice always. I have the impression that Hitler or military authorities had the order not to have him too near Hitler's headquarters.
For instance, in the West, and that I know, the fieldquarters of the Foreign Minister was about two hours by car from Hitler's headquarter. In Eastern Prussia, it might have been 50 or 30 kilometers. Then again, another residence of his which had been turned over to the Foreign Minister, a castle-like structure near Salzburg, assigned to the Foreign Minister, was also rather distant in kilometers from Obersalzberg; that was the name of the mountain where Hitler resided.
QWell, after the military operations began then are we to understand that he spent substantial portions of his time in the field?
AI think this term "in the field", your Honor, is not quite the correct one to choose for this. He was near the headquarters or shall we say relatively speaking, he was near to the headquarters.
QWould that mean absence from the office in Berlin?
AYes, your Honor, but ahead of time he made quite unusual technical preparations so that his personal absence from Berlin would not touch in any way his contact with the Foreign Office. I can't give you a figure now, but I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that in order to overcome the distance between his locality and the central office in Berlin, a technical staff of, I think, not less than a hundred people were assigned, teletypists, telegram workers, telephonists, and so on, and all kinds of professions that are usually in this field. I remember distinctly that a lot of people were always in or near this so-called field quarters who were only there for the purpose to overcome any difficulty or delay that might crop up. I think I can say that the Court IV Case XI COMMISSION traffic and contact between Ribbentrop and his ministry was exactly the same whether he was in Eastern Prussia or in Wilhelmstrasse 73.
I think the only essential difference was that when he wanted to see a high official for a personal report, this official was forced to use the service train which left Berlin every evening and to arrive in Eastern Prussia the next morning. It was our impression frequently that matters were more speedy when he was in Eastern Prussia than when he was in Berlin
JUDGE POWERS:That's all.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Are there any other inquiries? If not, the witness is excused. The witness may be excused.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:The order of proof that has so far been adopted by the Tribunal is that upon the termination of the cross-examination of the witness Gaus, the defendant Schellenberg would proceed with his case. It is now five minutes after 4:00. We had suggested to counsel that every effort should be made to have any documents or document books which the defendant Schellenberg might desire to offer, to have them ready for presentation before the defendant or witnesses took the stand. I wonder whether at this time counsel for Schellenberg are prepared with their documents and if so, to what extent?
DR. MINTZEL:Your Honor, following the instructions given to me after an oral negotiation, I can now submit all the documents. I have submitted them all into the translation departments and I was told a while ago that a number of English pages are still missing. I would like to ask the Commission's permission to introduce these documents after the direct examination of the defendant Schellenberg as I may hope that at the latest, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow morning; the documents will be available.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:The Commission appreciates the technical difficulties which counsel for the defendant has experienced and that will be satisfactory, I am sure. Am I correct in understanding that the prosecution has any of the documents, any have been served on them?
MR. HARDY:We have none, Your Honor, none at all. However, I will waive 24 hour rule on any Schellenberg documents and reserve my right to object later. It is immaterial to me when he puts them in.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Very well. Well now, Judge Christianson, as you know, has been ill. He has returned to the office today but we have finished up with this Commission without his being on the bench. He has not been feeling very strong, but he has been in the office. Do you expect to make an oral opening statement or will you rest upon the written statement which you have filed?
DR. MINTZEL:Your Honor, I want to make use of my right to make my opening speech which, incidentally, is very short.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Well, that is quite all right, but I think in view of the fact that Judge Christianson will be on the bench tomorrow morning and will desire, of course, to hear the entire proceedings against Schellenberg, that it is appropriate that we adjourn now until 9:30 tomorrow morning unless there be some reason which is not yet apparent.
MR. HARDY:Your Honor, I don't know the defense counsel's plan but if I could get to cross examination tomorrow, you will need document books 61, 71, 71-B and C, and document book 94.
PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE:Thank you very much. Now, there being Court IV Case XI COMMISSION no other matter to come before the Commission this afternoon the Commission now closes and the Tribunal will resume at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Commission adjourned at 1615 hours 10 May 1948.)
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal, in the matter of the United States of America, against Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 11 May 1948, 0930 the Honorable William C. Christianson, presiding.
THE MARSHAL:Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal IV. Military Tribunal IV is now in session. God save the United States of American and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, are the defendants in Court?
THE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the Courtroom except Keppler, Steengracht, Woermann, Ritter, and Lammers, who were excused by the Tribunal yesterday; and Stuckart is in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. Counsel, have you something?
DR.MIROW (Counsel for the defendant Darre') I would like my client to be excused from this afternoon's session, so that I can prepare his defense with him.
THE PRESIDENT:I presume there is no reason why defendant Darre' cannot be excused. You meant for the rest of the day, I take it?
DR. MIROW:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:This afternoon or all day?
DR. MIROW:No, just the afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT:The request will be granted. Are we now ready to commence with the case of defendant Schellenberg?
DR.GRUBE (Counsel for the defendant Kehrl) Your Honor, on 23 April 1948, I put in a request in which I explained my attitude to all the points against Kehrl and with the aid of this request I believe that I have proved that the evidence of the Prosecution to the alleged crimes and offenses of the defendant Kehrl has not been proved.
THE PRESIDENT:Just a moment, Counsel, before we go into that any further. I take it that you made a motion attacking the sufficiency of the Prosecution's case, is that true?
DR. GRUBE:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:And I take it that the Prosecution interposed an answer in the matter that probably is now receiving our consideration, is that true, Mr. Hardy?
MR. HARDY:I believe that is true, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:In view of that, counsel, we ask you to not go into this matter any further at this time. That motion will have its consideration in due time and is now receiving the consideration of the Court, together with other motions. We cannot take up the time of the Court at this time with an argument on that proposition.
DR. GRUBE:I would only request the Tribunal to comment on this, for the sake of the record.
THE PRESIDENT:Well, what comment do you wish? You have the motion filed and an answer has been interposed and the matter has our consideration. Further comment than that the Tribunal sees no occasion for making at this time. Let us not go into it any further.
DR. GRUBE:And then I have another request to the Tribunal. On 20 February 1948, in the correct manner, I filed three motions to the Tribunal, to the effect that I be permitted to obtain the following documents:
All the files of the Ministry of Speer; all stenographic notes of the Central Planning Board; and all the records and minutes of the Central Planning Board. As I had not received an answer to this motion I put it in a letter of 14 April 1948, and I reminded the Tribunal of these 3 motions and asked the Tribunal to approve that I obtain these files and documents. Up to this day I have not had an answer to these 3 motions. I may, perhaps, point out that I am very much curtailed in my defense. Very important exonerating material for my case is contained in these files, which are at Frankfurt at the moment. I would be grateful to the Tribunal if they could rule that this motion be complied with, although, of course, it is almost too late to deal with this exhaustively today.
THE PRESIDENT:All motions before the Court are receiving due consideration. There have been many motions and they all have required some time. Of necessity some of them we may be a little disappointing and slow in getting at, but they are receiving the Tribunal's consideration. We are glad to be reminded, of course.
Can we now go ahead with the defense of defendant Schellenberg?
DR.KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for the defendant Rasche) I would like the defendant Rasche to be excused from attendance in court this afternoon and Thursday, the whole day. I also would like the Tribunal to rule, as it has happened during the last days, the he be in Room 212, in order to go through his files of materials with me.
THE PRESIDENT:Is that for the rest of the day, or all day, or just this afternoon?
DR. KUBUSCHOK:This afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT:Defendant Rasche may be excused for the afternoon today and will be taken to room 212.
DR. KUBUSCHOK:And Thursday, the whole day.
THE PRESIDENT:And Thursday, the whole day. Very well.
MR.MAGEE (Counsel for the defendant von Weizsaecker) Your Honors, may I request that Baron von Weizsaecker be excused from Court for just this afternoon? We have some matters we would like to go over with him and I do not understand that there is any testimony today that will affect him, is that correct?
THE PRESIDENT:Unless there appears some reason to the contrary, defendant Weizsaecker may be excused this afternoon.
MR. MAGEE:Thank you, your Honor.
DR.MINTZEL: (Counsel for the defendant Schellenberg) Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT:Are you making an oral opening statement, or are you making an oral opening statement supplemented with a written one?
DR. MINTZEL:Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:You have approximately half an hour for an oral statement and you may file a written supplement if you so desire. Go ahead, Counsel. You have already filed, I think, a written...we have a written translation here of an opening statement. Is this the one that you are giving this morning?
DR. MINTZEL:Yes, your Honor, I would like to.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. Go ahead.
DR. MINTZEL:Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal. The Defense for the defendant Walter Schellenberg does not introduce its first statement in this proceedings with declarations about the lack of valid legal bases for this court and the proceedings. This is not perchance because it is convinced about the existence of these bases for the proceedings, but it leaves it to the fellow-defense counsels who have been appointed as representatives of the main defendants, to say that which is necessary in this connection.
Apart from these basic problems of this trial, however, I deliberately would like to make my client stand out from among the group of his co-defendants. For in defendant Walter Schellenberg the Prosecution apparently meant to bring the youngest alleged war-plotter and conspirator, and certainly also the one of the lowest rank, before a Nurnberg Military Tribunal: He was 29 years old in 1939, when the war broke out, and had become government councillor first in this year, and this rank is the first actual service rank of a public official following his passing of the legal state examination.
The Defense will briefly present the personal, professional, and political development of the defendant to this date. There it will clarify the nature of his participation in the few events, which the Prosecution will have to exploit, in order to prove its theory of a criminal participation on the part of Walter Schellenberg in war-plotting and in the carrying out of aggressive war.
First, with respect to the Venlo incident; secondly, relating to the formulation of the Wagner/Hendrich agreement concerning the conditions of command and competence between the Wehrmacht and the Einsatz-Gruppen.
It will be seen that this young man did neither participate in the planning, preparation, starting, and waging of aggressive wars and invasions of other countries in a manner justifying the Prosecution, nor did a truly responsible person collaborate with him in the making and executing of a common plan and a conspiracy in order to violate the peace, let alone did such a spirit of conspiracy originate with him.
However, it will also be shown that the participation of Schellenberg in the formulation of the Wagner/Heydrich agreement cannot show a participation in the perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity, even if the Prosecution attempts to establish a connection between the defendant and the agreement by means of a document book full of reports of events with which he never had anything to do.
Apparently realizing the instability of the structure of the Indictment, which was first erected on not more than two concrete facts, the Prosecution has submitted some additional documents, without the Indictment containing even a suggestion of the charges based on facts other than those mentioned thus far. The Defense will clarify the real meaning of these documents and in this connection take a more definite position on the so-called "final solution of the Jewish problem." It will be shown that the defendant was not connected with the criminal plans in this respect. On the contrary, his occupation in RSHA led him via working with the modus operandi of enemy agents serving abroad (Group IV ECounter Espionage of the RSHA) to the sphere of work which he had aimed for from the start, namely, the German agents' activity abroad. (Office VI - Foreign Intelligence Service of the RSHA.)
The Defense will take up the personal position of the defendant in RSHA in greater detail in this connection. In the discussion of the activity of the counter-espionage it will also state its views in regard to the fruitless attempts of the Prosecution to make Schellenberg a deputy of the Chief of Office IV, Mueller.
Finally, we also get to see Schellenberg as Chief of Office VI of the German Political Secret Service for Abroad. This secret service only under Schellenberg's direction, became, moreover, in the midst of the war, the instrument for information regarding the plans and intentions of other countries and their peoples, which is essential for every government administration. The Defense will show that the small segment from the activity of the secret service which the Prosecution drags into the limelight, namely, Operation Zeppelin, within whose framework Russian volunteers were employed as agents against Soviet Russia, had nothing to do with the segregation of Russian prisoners-of-war, which latter operation was carried out under the direction of Office IV, pursuant to special decrees.
But we cannot be satisfied with that. The Prosecution called Walter Schellenberg a "close cooperator of Hitler's and Heydrich's." At the period to which we come in our defense, it would be possible for the first time rightly to term Schellenberg in this way unless the defense would prove that he was not a "close" but just a simple cooperator, and this only with respect to his purely official activity and, step by step, likewise with respect to his rank, but certainly not in the meaning of a participation in any act which could be the subject of legal proceedings before this or any other Tribunal. In order to prove this fact, the defense, on its part, must bring to light before this court and also before the public:
the activities of the defendant in his capacity as Chief of the German Intelligence Service to the full of their extent.
This scrutiny will prove that this man who, according to the Prosecution, lent his talents with preference to the criminal aims of the National Socialist leaders of the State, actually endeavored:
to strive for a transformation of the regime in Germany, to stave off the terrors of war from Switzerland and the North of Europe, to bring about the end of the war by way of a compromise with the Western powers and by a more or less modified capitulation, eventually, and that he used all his influence in order to save Germans as well as the nationals of neutral and allied nations from persecution and, in many cases, from direct threats to their lives, and, most of all, to help Jews and other inmates of concentra tion camps again to their liberty and to save them from a cer tain death.
Most certainly, the Prosecution will have to tell us something which is apt to minimize and obscure these activities. But the very acts of the defendant will speak for themselves in such a way as documents will never be able to do, and the saved ones will speak through the mouth of competent witnesses.
In the course of the presentation of the evidence for the defense, the Court will see that the development of the defendant followed along straight lines. Not along the road of a so-called Old Fighter of the National Socialists, but along the path of a young German who had to find a goal for his life and profession in the particular political situation of his country, a situation into which he was born.
Walter Schellenberg found this goal in the creation of a sound and uniform German Intelligence Service abroad. To this end he devoted the full of his energy unto exhaustion. As soon as the defense will have given due consideration to the indictment with respect to the whole of the de facto activities of the defendant, and as soon as the defense will have shown that he kept aloof from any attitude of adherance to National Socialist doctrines, and that he avoided in his work all spheres which could have brought him into conflict with criminal law, then it will have been proved likewise that his membership in the SS and SD was not such as to brand him as a criminal member of a criminal organization.
At its end the indictment says that the suppression of the truth was the vilest poison of the Third Reich. The Court has granted its assistance to the defense to the effect that a number of foreign witnesses could be visited in their own countries. With this attitude the Court has proved its unequivocal intention to find the truth.
Perhaps for the first time in the history of modern states, the Chief of the political and military Secret Service of a country has been brought before a Court. In consideration of this unusual situation, the defense hopes not to be impeded in the presentation of evidence because certain facts must be mentioned which are still a part of the political history of the present days. The defense is convinced that the truth will be searched for and found and that the defendant will be granted all rights which are his, regardless of momentary political conditions.
THE PRESIDENT:Does that conclude your opening statement; Counsel? Do you wish now to proceed with your evidence?
DR. MINTZEL:May I now, your Honor, call the defendant into the witness stand?
THE PRESIDENT:You may.
WALTERSCHELLENBERG, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: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 will withhold and add nothing."
(The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated.
DR. MINTZEL:Your Honor, I would like to give the Tribunal a perspective about my evidence. First, my question to the witness will be to his professional training as far as they are the basis for the judgment of his attitude towards the offenses and the facts before this Tribunal; secondly, concerning his activity in the SD Main Office of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) Group IV-A, Office 6, as far as they are in connection with the points of the Prosecution; third, the activities of Shellenberg in those days in office 6 from which the actual political and humane attitude will be recognizable. The connection with the Prosecution I shall make evident by enumerating the essential points the Prosecution has raised in their indictment. The Prosecution says, at the beginning of the indictment, or at least that part of the indictment which is against the defendant Schellenberg, page 125 of the English record, that he had used his talents for activities of the SS and the Nazi government, op at least he had used his talents in a field connected with the SS and the Nazi Government, crimes which from their very nature had been connected with murder and other offenses and crimes of the Third Reich.
This is, I suppose, supposed to mean that Shellenberg's talents were in a direction which made him fit to support any criminal plans and tendencies of the Third Reich. Now, if you accuse a man of participation in criminal acts, then it is an old rule, in order to prove the truth, that the personality and the conditions of life of the defendant should be clarified generally. Hence, I am now dealing with the development of the personality of the defendant Schellenberg, which I would now like to proceed with.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MINTZEL:
Q.Witness, may I now ask you to give the Tribunal your personal data?
A.My name is Walter SCHELLENBERG. I was born on 16 January 1910, in Saarbruecken, as the son of a pianoforte manufacturer, Guido Schellenberg, and his wife, Lydia, nee Riedel. I am 38 years of age, married, and I have four children,
Q.Witness, please give us a short perspective of conditions in your parents' house, and your professional training.
A.I am the seventh child; I have three sisters and three brothers. From 1920 to 1929 I went to the secondary school, Reform real gymnasium, in Saarbruecken, a school which specialized in foreign languages and natural science, which were preparations for university studies.