Q. I'll ask you if it wasn't divided up - the speech - into various categories, beginning first with what had happened since he, Hitler, had become the Fuehrer in Germany, and then, the other possibilities that could be attained in Europe, then the attack on Poland, then what the struggle would be like, then the question as to whether or not it would be a long or a short war, then a discussion as to England's weakness, then a discussion as to the consequences of what would take place, then a discussion as to the unrestricted use of all resources, then the plan of attack, then the working principles of how ultimate victory would be attained? Now, do you tell the Tribunal that you heard none of those things discussed in this speech?
A. Some of it had been discussed, but in a different sense from what the record says.
Q. Well, do you know who would have made such a record as this and kept it in the German files of the Reich Ministry?
A. I believe there was only one copy, which was with Hitler's staff. I don't believe that anybody else received a copy of the record.
Q. So you want the Tribunal to believe that Hitler would make a false copy of this speech and keep it in his headquarters, and that was the only thing that was done?
A. I say I don't believe that there was another copy, because I never heard anything about it, and Hitler never would issue any reports on his conferences, even in other cases, and it is my conviction that the report was put together later on, after the event, in order to falsify history.
Q. That's your opinion?
A. That is my opinion, yes.
Q. But if the Tribunal finds this report to be true, you were one of the planners, the instigators, and one who started the war, is that correct?
A. I'm not of that opinion.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right, that's all.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Just a few more questions. I might say that neither defendant nor counsel must assume that these questions by me are being put hostilely, but only for the purposes of arriving at the truth, for the utmost clarification. As one of you phrased it - I don't quite understand the meaning of the phrase - "You don't like to have the cat run around the hot porridge." I don't know what it means, but I presume it means you want clarification and that is what we are striving at.
DR. BERGOLD: I understood that already this morning.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q. Very well. Witness, you stated that it was a bad and ugly thing for prisoners of war to be used as they were used in the war?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Yes. And then you explained that Russia had denounced the Geneva Convention and, while that did not permit you to maltreat Russian prisoners of war, it did not prohibit you from using them in the war effort, that is correct?
A. Yes, it is. I'm not sure that the translation came through quite well. May I repeat that the fact that Russia no longer belonged to the Geneve Convention did not permit us to mistreat prisoners but it did permit us to use them for work.
Q. Yes, that is what I said. But how do you explain the use of the Polish prisoners of war and the Italian prisoners of war and the French prisoners of war, prior to the agreement with the Vichy government?
A. In the case of the French prisoners of war, the work concerned, as far as I know, because at that time I was not really connected with GL questions. After the Armistice --
Q. Well, I said prior to the arrangement with the Vichy government. Whatever prisoners you captured before the surrender of France.
A. I don't believe that they were assigned to work before that. Of course, I cannot say that precisely.
Q. Very well, then, let us exclude the French prisoners then, and direct our attention to the Polish prisoners.
A. The Polish prisoners of war, before I became GL, were made into civilian workers. That meant to them the end of their prisoner of war time.
Q. Very well, that's your explanation and that's all I desire. Now, you are not charged with being a lawyer -- not that necessarily is an offense -- but you have made reference to international law in some of your speeches. Now, you sent prisoners of war to Braunschweig which you knew was a target for air attack on the part of the Allies.
A. The barracks was not in Braunschwieg itself; it was about 15 or 20 kilometers outside the place. It was away from the attacks, and that the stay there was quite pleasant is shown by the fact that the troops which were there in the barracks did not wish to leave it, and the conversation quoted here refers to a dispute between one Luftwaffe Department that was responsible for the fighters, and myself who wished the barracks to be free in order to house the workers there.
Q. Well then, if I misunderstood your explanation as to why you sent them there, then there is no point in my pressing it. If I understand, as you say now, that you sent them there because it was such a lovely location, wonderful accommodations, good food, and they enjoyed it, and you did it out of a benevolent and humanitarian impulse and not as a matter of carrying on the war, then of course, there is no point to my interrogation on this subject.
A. Your Honor, the workers were to go there because outside Braunschweig a workshop was to be built near the barracks and that barracks were therefore so suitable, but there was no worry that the barracks would be attacked from the air.
Q. Very well. I will read to you, just because I happen to have the book here and you may or may not be familiar with this provision in the Geneva Convention, that "no prisoner may be sent to an area where he would be exposed to the fire of the fighting zone."
Now, whether living 15 kilometers away from a target is considered within the area or not is a matter of interpretation, and we will leave that subject.
A. May I make one point here?
Q. Certainly.
A. In Germany there was no place where bombing attacks might not be expected.
2268(a)
Q. Very well. Now, you were opposed to the war from the very outset. You said you did not believe in war as soon as 1920 or in that period you believed that a war in Europe would be a madness.
A. Yes.
Q. And yet in spite of this conviction you allowed yourself to join a Party that was war mad; you helped to build up a fighting air force; you yourself participated in 40 sorties; you led an air fleet over helpless Norway and you carried on right to the very end against what you knew to be inconsistent with your principles.
A. When I joined the Party in 1933 nobody said one word about a war. Nobody wanted war. If the Party had said it wanted war, the whole of the German people would not have joined the Party.
Q. You do not believe that Germany was preparing for war? You state that as a fact?
A. I state here that in 1933 and the following years, when the Party -- and even before 1933 --- when the Party received so many members, not one word of war was mentioned.
Q. Did you believe as late as 1937 that Germany was headed for war?
A. I am firmly convinced of that; Germany did not want war.
Q. And in 1938?
A. Even there I believe Hitler was so powerful at that time that his will could decide that question. And I was convinced that at that time Hitler did not want war; that he wanted by bluffing to obtain the extension of Germany.
Q. Well, you did not believe that Germany was prepared for war as late as 1933 and the early part of 1939?
A. That is my opinion, yes. Germany was not prepared -
Q. Germany was not prepared for war and yet Germany defeated Poland in 18 days; defeated the British forces in six weeks; overran Holland and Belgium in a few days; brought France to her knees in two months; defeated Denmark and Norway almost immediately, and this was all done without any preparation for war?
A. I didn't say that Germany wasn't armed. Germany had rearmed but armament does not necessarily mean that you intend war. According to the dictum, "Para Bellum" if you want peace, prepare for war. If you want peace, prepare for war. Be armed. That is how I thought the armament was meant. When I say that Germany was not prepared for war, events of this war proved this; that Germany was far too weak for a war because the politicians had to expect that they would not only have to fight a small part of their enemies; that even the more powerful nations than Germany would join in such a war. That had to be expected after the experiences of 1914, and against such a power Germany was not prepared.
I could give you any amount of examples of this, but I don't think that we have enough time for that.
Q. Very well. Now -
A. If I may say one point? All of us were extremely surprised that Polish resistance was so small and even more surprised that the French Army, which was numerically equal to the German Army, should have attacked us at the same time when we were busy in Poland.
Q. So when you saw that you could pluck one fruit easily, you then decided to pluck fruit from the whole orchard of Europe?
A. War went on, in the West in the spring, but all I can say, I personally had no influence on these events.
Q. You were a Field Marshal. How many Field Marshals were there?
A. I became a Field Marshal after the French campaign, and at that time twelve were appointed after that campaign.
Q. How many generals were there?
A. I am not able to give you the figures in detail, several hundreds I should say.
Q. Several hundreds. How many Hitlers were there?
A. One.
Q. One Hitler. Now all you generals and field marshals combined, with the reins 2270(a) of the war wagon in your hands.
Were you unable to unseat Hitler if they had a will to do so?
A No sir, that was not possible; firstly, because the German people at that time believed in Hitler. They had no idea what Hitler was to do later on, and the German people would never have understood if anything had happened to its Hitler, and the generals never discussed this point during the war. There was no conspiracy among the generals, not even against their own government. If I said this morning, that after Stalingrad there was the general conviction among the higher officers that the war would end badly, we did not discuss it at the time, but only when I was taken prisoner when I discussed this with other generals, I heard that they shared my view at that time.
Q So you were willing to follow this man ever the brink of ruin, rather than to do something to save your country and your people?
A I believe I said with emphasis, and I personally know that it is so, that I did what I could within my power in order to influence Hitler directly or through my superior officer, Goering, to give him my clear opinion irrespective of my person or what would happen to me. That I regarded as my duty as a soldier and a Field Marshal, but it was not my duty as a soldier for myself alone to start an action which would have been against my oath.
Q To whom was your oath?
A I swore this oath to Hitler and -- and to the German nation.
Q To one human being with all the frailties -
A The oath also applied to the whole of the German people. The German people had to have a chance to express their opinion, and as long as the German people followed Hitler, I could not leave my national community. Apart from that it would not have served any purpose if I had taken a step which you described this morning; nobody would have heard a word about that. The German press propaganda wireless would have referred with one word to it, that a general differed from his leaders and took the consequences.
Q It occurs to me, and we will leave the subject after this question, that with all your abilities and your energies, if you had hurled yourself into a movement to stop the war, as you directed all your efforts toward carrying it on, mercilessly, that you could have eventually convinced many of your brother generals who already shared your opinions to do something to throttle the man who in turn was strangling Germany.
A Sir, I think you overrate me. You overrate my possibilities and my abilities. If I may say one thing, it is not easy to describe the situation as it really was in our case, with a few words and answers. And as you yourself are unable to understand because conditions are so different in your own country; I know that you were more happy in your country, but I had to remain where I was.
I was a German, and I had to remain a German because I hoped that through my efforts I might be able to avoid the worst in Germany. I know that in this struggle I was, in a minor sense, a leading man because the others were unable to see the conditions so clearly as I did as far as bombing warfare was concerned. And up to the end of 1943; I never gave up hope that I could do a great service to my country which would have at least made it possible to stave off destruction of our homeland or keep it down to more modest limits. Many hundreds of thousands of people's lives would have been saved who were killed by bombs, and, also, I could hope that then peace might be concluded which would have been more bearable for the German people. Such were my hopes, my hopes. That was what directed me, and I believe that the German soldier can not act towards his country otherwise, and I would welcome it if you would have doubted if I had the possibility to speak on the general, situations calmly and sensible.
This morning I said that for two years I only thought about one idea: How could it have all been prevented and avoided?
Q Yes, you have answered that.
How many concentration camps were there in Germany, so far as you know, during the war?
A I can give you no information on this point. I knew only two names.
Q You knew of only two concentration camps?
A I knew the names of two concentration camps. I assumed that there would be more but I never heard of another one and never saw any thing of another one.
Q When Goering telegraphed Himmler for concentration camp inmates for the Air Industry, and Himmler replied on March 9, 1944 that 36,000 prisoners of war were already employed in the Air Industry; that he would furnish 90,000 more, you did not know where they were coming from?
A No, I did not, because they did not come through me; they did not go through our office at all.
Prisoners of war was mentioned here -- I should think you meant concentration camp inmates.
2273A
Q Perhaps so. The transcript actually carried it as "Prisoners of War," but that may have been an error. Now, one final question. You had this night-long conference with Hitler in March of 1943, and then in the spring of 1945 you say that Hitler was determined to be rid of you, and that it all went back to what you had so candidly told him two years before. Are we to understand by that Hitler withheld his hate, or his revenge against you for two years?
A I didn't say it like that. I said that Speer, in the spring of 1945 told me that Hitler wished to eliminate me, and I personally said, "I looked for reasons," and I said I thought that was to be explained by the fifth of March 43 because from that time onwards he behaved differently to me than he did earlier on.
Q And did the Gestapo conduct an investigation and find that you were utterly from their criterion of worth, blameless?
A No, that is also incorrect, sir. I said Hitler explained to Speer why he took action against me by saying that Kaltenbrunner of the Gestapo had told him there was an enormous amount of material against me, that I was an enemy of the State. And thereupon Speer asked -- as he was a friend of mine -- that he would like to look into the material before anything is done. Hitler gave permission and then it was shown by the inquiries of Speer that the Gestapo had no material against me.
Q That is all -
A Speer reported that to Hitler, and Hitler said, "I don't care whether there is material or not -- that man must be liquidated."
Q That is all -
A That is what it was.
BY DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I have a few questions.
Q Witness, you spoke of the German people not wanting war in 1939. Please describe to us the attitude of the Berlin population when, in March of 1939, the tanks moved towards Czechoslovakia?
A I believe on 13 March -- 13 March I left the Air Ministry in order to go to lunch. The streets had been blocked because through the Wilhelmstrasse, where our ministry was, a long column of tanks were marching.
I stood among the people and I was in civilian clothes. People were completely silent and no nobody saluted the soldiers, as was usual in Germany. People were very depressed. And I heard the same evening or next day that Goering said that Hitler had intentionally sent a tank division through Berlin because the people of Berlin did not approve his actions - or at least so it seemed. He wished to show people. He wished to put them under pressure, as it were. There is an expression "in order to fortify one's spine". I use that expression because I never forgot its peculiarity. It was such a strange impression to notice opposition on the people's faces although they didn't even know - nothing had been released. But it was feared there might be complications.
Q Witness, what did Hitler do after the Polish campaign as far as France and Britain were concerned?
A It was officially announced and I believe he explained this in the Reichstag, and then the papers and the wireless carried it, that he had made an offer of peace and that the peace offer was made in the first half of October. But no reply came back, or at least an insufficient reply, and it led to Hitler, giving the order on 12 October: "The War Goes On!" And now bombs must be manufactured which were still not available.
Q Witness, my last question - and I am referring back to the case of Braunschweig. When I examined you, you gave us reasons why you sent the prisoners of war to Braunschweig.
A First of all, we needed workers there. A manufacturing process was in full swing there about 15 or 20 kilometers north of Braunschweig, near those barracks. More workers should be sent there and as Sauckel had given us prisoners of war for that purpose, I was glad because prisoners of war, because young strong people, would help more efficiently in the work, particularly if something went wrong in the factories, for instance, if a fire broke out, etc.
because the old people and the women who were there at the time, were physically at a loss in such a situation.
Q After bombing attacks, were prisoners of war used to extinguish fires in order to help the German people?
2275 a
AAs far as I heard, in cases of many fires, prisoners of war helped very efficiently in extinguishing fires; very many prisoners of war were released by the government and sent home as a token of gratitude in order to reward a good deed. I know several cases, myself.
Q Thank you very much. I have no further questions of this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. The defendant may resume his place in the deck.
DR. BERGOLD: I would ask to be allowed to call the witness, Reinecke.
THE PRESIDENT: Marshal, please bring the witness, Reinecke, into the courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Has this witness been here before?
MR. DENNEY: The witness Reinecke before this Court? No, Your Honor, the witness Vorwald has; the witness Reinecke has not.
HERMANN REINECKE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me, please:
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.)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, will you please speak slowly and I will also ask you to make a little pause after each question put to you so that the translator can finish translating my question.
A Yes, sir.
Q Please give the Court your Christian name and second name.
A Hermann Reinecke.
Q When were you born?
A 14 February 1888.
Q Where?
A In Wittenberg.
Q What was your last rank in the Wehrmacht?
A General, Infantry.
Q Witness, what was your position in 1942 in the Wehrmacht?
A I was the chief of the General Wehrmacht Office with the OKW.
Q Was this office in charge of prisoners of war?
A Yes, to a certain extent. One of my departments was the department for prisoners of war.
Q Witness, I shall now ask you, in 1942, did the defendant Milch or General von Gablenz, or any other officer of the Luftwaffe approach you requesting you to give your agreement, or to give the order directing that French prisoners of war should be shot before the employees of the factory if they refused to work?
2277 a
A No, it is very difficult after five years to remember all single conferences and talks; but I should certainly remember such a question.
Q Do you know the General of the Luftwaffe von Gablenz at all?
A No, I do not know him.
Q Witness, were French prisoners of war always well provided for and looked after?
A Yes. The French Government had appointed the French ambassador Scapini to look after their own prisoners of war. Scapini was an old soldier himself and was blinded in the war and worked with me very intimately and zealously; and we discussed all questions concerning French prisoners of war.
Q Witness, is it correct that you together with Scapini released over a million of French prisoners of war?
A I can not give you the exact figures; but we certainly released a large number of prisoners of war, and sent them back home. Both of us on our own initiative released a large number of prisoners of war, off officers as well as NCO's and enlisted men, although I really wasn't justified in doing so.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions to ask this witness. Your witness, Mr. Denney.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNEY:
Q When did you assume the command of the office that dealt with prisoners of war?
A I took over as chief of the General Wehrmacht Office in 1938; and the Prisoners of War Department was formed when war broke out, roughly in September 1939.