Offices and spheres of activities of the individual departments were divided and separated. General matters were discussed by the kommando chief either in the officers: mess or in the offices of the chief, always with the man competent, to deal with the individual sphere of activity.
Q Did you have access to the officers? mess in Stalino, that is, were you able to take part in the discussions between the chief and the departmental chiefs, or could you only discuss matters with the kommando chief in his office?
AAs an NCO I had no access to the officers? mess. Discussions which I had with my kommando chief took place in his office. Even during the periodical visits of the chief in the Department 3, the discussions pertaining to my sphere of activity took place in my own office.
Q Could you never enter the cassino at all? there as an NCO. of the chief of Office 3? and asked questions concerning SD reporting which I had made and which were to go to the Einsatzgruppe, which had gone in fact to the Einsatzgruppe. Furthermore, he visited other authorities and offices, together with me and my collaborators, and he visited important plants and enterprises.
Q Did you only have to deal with SD reports exclusively in Stalino?
Q Did you make any observations in Stalino concerning executions? that arrests, interrogations had been carried out, and that in individual cases shootings had been carried out.
Stalino, were you them also in Stalino all the time? occasions. On the 20th of December, 1941, I got home leave for 21 days. For the journey there and back I needed about 18 days. On the 28th of January, 1942, I arrived in Stalino. Therefore, I was not with the kommando for five and a half weeks. That is 38 days. The second interrogations happened at the end of March, 1942. I fell ill of dysentery and I was delivered into hospital. During the second half of April, 1942, I was released from field hospital, and first of all I remained in medical treatment. Around about the 9th or 10th of May I got recreation leave of 21 days from which I returned at about the middle of July, 1942, to Stalino. This absence from my kommando therefore lasted for about three months.
Q When did the kommando leave Stalino? towards the east.
Q. did you move with the kommando?
A. No, by order of Einsatgruppe C for "Charles" I remained until further order at Stalino. I saw from letters from my wife that the Inspector of the Security Police and SD in Munich wanted me to be retransferred to my home country and had taken steps to do that and that I could reckon with return very soon. No marching order arrived from Kiev for me so that for almost the whole September I had to remain at Stalino.
Q. What was your activity in Stalino after the kommando had left, Kommando EK 6?
A. That is the new commander of the Security Police and SD in Stalino, for him I had to build up the SD reporting.
Q. What was your subordination?
A. As far as personnel is concerned, according to my knowledge I was a member of the EK 6. I was merely transferred, I was detailed for work in the SD.
Q. Did you ever return at all to the EK 6?
A. No.
Q. Therefore, your activity with EK 6 was practically over at the end of July or beginning of August, 1942, when the kommando left Stalino, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. In Document Book III-C of the prosecution, on Page 123 of the German, Page 74 of the English document book, that is Document NO-4855, Exhibit 146, that is your affidavit of the 28th July, 1947. In this affidavit it says under Paragraph 3, I quote: "In Einsatzkommando 6 I was until the 15th of October, 1942." That is the end of my quotation. How can you bring this in agreement with the statement you just made that your activity with Einsatzkommando 6 was over at the end of July or beginning of August, 1942?
A. As I have said, I did not move from Stalino with EK 6, but I was not active in the kommando since August, 1942, but as far as personnel is concerned, I was a member officially of Einsatzkommando 6. With this limitation the affidavit of the 28th of July 1947 is correct, or this statement.
Q. Were you an officer while you were a member of EK 6?
A. No.
THE PRESIDENT: Do we understand, witness, that you were physically with the kommando until the early part of September, 1942, and then were carried on the rolls of the kommando without active service until October 15, 1942?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed.
A. (continuing) At the beginning of the assignment in June, 1941 I was Unterscharfuchrer, which is corporal. After approximately a year I became a Scharfuehrer, which is sergeant, and a few months later I became SS-Oberscharfuehrer, which, perhaps, is first sergeant. I was promoted to this rank. These are ranks of the NCO rank and correspond to NCO ranks in the American Army. During my assignment in the East I was at no time an officer.
Q. (By Dr. Belzer) Did you, during any period whatsoever, during your activity in EK 6 or with the kommando of this Security Police and SD, hold any executive powers there?
A. No. I was never in charge of a kommando or a subkommando. Never was I entrusted with the leadership task.
THE PRESIDENT: Did an SS N.C.O. carry the same insignia of rank as a Wehrmacht N.C.O.?
THE WITNESS: No, your Honor, the insignia were slightly different. An N.C.O., exactly as in the Army, has a silver line at his collar, and he had one star on a black ground, one pip, but an N.C.O. of the Wehrmacht and Armed Forces did not have that. He had this line without a star or pip. An N.C.O. of the SS had the same shoulder pieces, the same as in the Wehrmacht with a white silver line.
THE PRESIDENT: How about the insignia of the Officers' ranks of the SS, were they similar in appearance to the insignia of the Army officers holding the same rank?
THE WITNESS: Similar, yes. The shoulder pieces were the same, but the insignia on the ground, on the collar, were different from the Wehrmacht ones. The different ranks of the SS could be recognized by the collar of the officer. An Untersturmfuehrer, for instance, had three stars on his black ground; an Obersturnfuehrer had three stars and a silver line, a silver bar; a Hauptsturmfuchrer had three stars and two silver bars and on the shoulder piece he had two buttons, which was exactly as in the Wehrmacht; a Sturmbannfuehrer had four stars, etc.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Thank you.
Q. (By Dr. Belzer) Did you ever have anything to do with a police interrogation?
A. No, I neither actually supervised an interrogation nor was I ever present in one.
Q. Did you at any period whatsoever have anything to do with executions carried out by the EK 6?
A. No. I have never been present at any execution, and I could therefore not say who ordered it or carried out such executions.
Q. Were you occupied at any time whatsoever with sifting and sorting out of prisoners in camps?
A. No, and I don't know anything of it.
Q. Did you, at any period whatsoever of your activity in the East, have anything to do with recruiting or with forced deportation of Russian workers to Germany?
A. Recruiting and deportation? No. I merely reported about transports of workers.
DR. BELZER: Your Honor, I think this would be the moment to have our recess before I begin with a new chapter.
DR. HOFFMANN: Defense Counsel Hoffmann for the Defendant Nosske. Your Honor, I should like the Defendant Nosske to be excused this afternoon and tomorrow - this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon in ordered in order for me to prepare his document book with him.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Nosske will be excused from attendance in court this afternoon and tomorrow, Thursday afternoon.
The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:45.
( A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
(The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 7 January 1948.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed, Dr. Belzer.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, theprosecution , in support of their charges against you, as far as your activity in Einsatzkommando 6 is concerned, has referred to three documents, Document No. 3240 in Document Book II C, page 65 of the German text, page 60 of the English text, Exhibit 80. Secondly, it has had reference to Document No. 3405 in Book IIA, page 61 of the German, page 67 of the English, Exhibit Number 42; and finally, to Document No. 3340, in Document Book I, on page 119 of the German text and page 86 of the English text. This is Exhibit Number 22. When the prosecution submitted these documents, it had the following to say, and I quote, "All these documents refer to the executions carried out by Einsatzkommando 6 during the time that Graf was a member of it." Can you say anything about these documents?
A. I can, first of all, only repeat that I did know of the carrying out of executions, but that I had no knowledge of details about how they were carried out. Whether, when and where the executions mentioned in these and other documents were carried out, I do not know. The reports were not made out by me, and I did not see them until I got here to Nurnberg. I was in no way concerned with matters dealing with the executive measures.
Q. Witness, you have read through all the prosecution documents?
A. Yes.
Q. And in other situation reports, too, I have read of executions which were carried out by the Einsatzkommando 6. Does your statement which you just made also refer to those situation reports?
A. Yes, likewise.
Q. Will you now briefly tell the Tribunal how you were finally relieved from the Eastern assignment?
A. The office of the commander of the security police and SD in Stalino was set up in August 1942, as far as I remember. As I said before, I had been transferred to this agency in order to build up the Department III, which is the information service. In the beginning the commander had very few officers. New subcommandos had to be set up. Because of this great lack of officers, noncommissioned officers were given the leadership of the subcommandos. Around the end of September 1942 I was to take over a subcommando, too. I rejected this, saying that I had only been ordered to set up Department III, that I had been furnished by the group for this purpose and I was onlya man who dealt with SD reports. Because of refusal to obey an order, a trasncript was immediately taken down and I was arrested. After eight days I was released from this custody; in the middle of October 1942 I was ordered to repor t to Kiev where a disciplinary proceeding was to be started against me. After long delay General Thomas decided that no disciplinary proceeding was to be started against me, and I was returned to Germany.
Q. Thus from Kiev you neither went to Stalino nor to Rostov to return to the Einsatzkommando 6 ?
A. No. After this stay in Kiev I rturned directly to Germany.
Q. While travelling from Stalino to Kiev did you stop in Rostov?
A. Yes, my orders read Stalino, Rostov, Kiev. I was to report to my unit, Einsatzkommando 6, in Rostov before leaving.
Q. Did you speak to the commando leader in Rostov?
A. No. I was told that the commanding officer was in Kiev.
Q. Who was the commanding officer of Einsatzkommando 6 at that time?
A. The co-defendant Biberstein.
Q. Were you not in Rostov on another occasion?
A. No. I was in Rostov only once.
Q. Did you have any special mission to carry out in Rostov?
A. No. During my trip to Rostov I had already been relieved because I disobeyed the order. I undertook the trip to Rostov in the accompaniment of the two responsible Ukrainian physicians of the civilian hospital in Stalino, who, because of a threatening epidemic of diphtheria, were in need of diphtheria serum. I accompanied these two physicians to the director of the bacteriological institute in Rostov where the physicians , on the basis of a requisition slip , which I obtained for them, were able to obtain a sufficient amount of vaccine.
Q. Did you voluntarily offer your aid to these two Ukrainian physicians, or did you have an order to do so?
A. I offered this assistance voluntarily. Of course, I had to notify my commanding officer to the effect that I wanted to help them.
Q. That was then your last activity in the assignment in the East in Russia?
A. Yes.
Q. I cannot leave the unsavory field of Russia without asking you a specific question. You need not answer this question.
THE PRESIDENT: What kind of a question is it, if it isn't to be answered.
DR. BELZER: I think that after I have asked the question, the Tribunal will understand why I made this preliminary remark.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, we are all in expectation. BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, do you know anything about a nickname which you had in the Einsatzkommando?
A. Yes.
Q. What was this nickname, and how do you explain that you were given this nickname?
A. I was named "the paper soldier", perhaps because I had more to do with paper and files than with military matters.
DR. BELZER: Thank you. BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Then we shall return back home. When did you get back home?
A. About the middle of November 1942.
Q. What was your activity back home?
A. After a short furlough I took over the leadership of the SD office in Kempten as a commissar. On the 15th of November 1944 I was given the commissar leadership of the SD office in Kaufbeuren. In Kempten, as well as in Kaufbeuren, I was occupied purely with SD intelligence service.
Q. Did you during your activity in Kempten and in Kaufbeuren send information to the police, and especially to the Gestapo?
A. No. No such information was asked of me.
Q. This morning you explained that before your assignment in Russia you had refused repeated requests to join the SD. I now ask you, did you become a member of the SD after you returned from Russia?
A. No, I remained a temporary employee for the duration of the war. On the 20th of April, 1944, I was promoted to SS Untersturmfuehrer, 2nd Lt., but this did not change anything in my position or in my pay in the SD.
Q. In order to clarify this, your promotion to SS Untersturmfuehrer, that is, to an officer's rank, took place, according to what you say, approximately one and one-half years after you returned from Russia, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, you told us you had left the SS in the year 1936. How is it possible that, as you have just stated now, you were promoted to an SS Untersturmfuehrer in April 1944?
A. After I was put on a war emergency status and drafted as a temporary employee for the duration of the war, I made an application in June 1940 to be taken back into the SS. The SS Personnel Office then asked me to present the papers of my family and my marriage certificate. I did so and I wrote out my biography, which is contained in Book III-D of the Prosecution, Exhibit 147, Document No-4801, page 125 of the English text.
Q. Witness, may I interrupt, please? You said, Document Book III-D?
A. Pardon me, it is Book III-C, English page 125.
THE PRESIDENT: What page number?
THE WITNESS: Document Book III-C, English page 125.
DR. BELZER: English page 75, Exhibit 147.
THE WITNESS: The biography is on page 4 of the original. made an application for re-entry. Here I made a mistake at the time. It should say in June 1940.
Q. Does this document contain any other mistakes which you would like to correct?
THE PRESIDENT: Which page was that, please?
DR. BELZER: Page 4 of the original, page 78.
MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD: Page 78 of the Document Book, your Honor, on the bottom of the page.
DR. BELZER: It is the last sentence.
A. In the biography itself it should read in the next to the last sentence, paragraph 2, "In 1925 I returned to Germany" and in paragraph 4 it should say, "on the 1st of May, 1933", not, "1935", when I went to the Party. That is on page 3 of the original, your Honor. That is page 3 of there original. It should say on page 3 of the original, "married since the 16th of September, 1936". On page 1 of the original it says "SS" and below it "16 September 1939". The comparison with other documents shows that this is a mistake in copying from the original. This date has nothing to do with the SS. It evidently is supposed to be the date of my marriage, which is incorrect in addition. I was married on the 16th of September 1936.
Q. What made you apply for re-entry into the SS?
A. The then personnel manager with the SD office in Augsburg, Hauptsturmfuehrer Junginger, persuaded me to make this application. After a long delay I finally agreed to do so, after this man, Junginger, had expressly assured me that I would not become a member of the SD in this way.
Q. Why didn't you want to become a member of the SD under any circumstances?
A. Because I Wanted to take advantage of the first opportunity to get away from the SD and in order to take up once more my profession as a businessman.
Q. And I shall now come to another document which the prosecution has submitted. This is also in Document Book III-C on page 123 of the German text, page 74 of the English text. This is Document NO-4855, Exhibit 146. This is your affidavit of 28 July 1947. In this affidavit it says under paragraph 2, and I quote, "In 1933 I joined the General SS, my membership number being 47,431". Did you, before signing this affidavit, demand that it be added here that you left the SS in 1936?
A. Yes.
Q. Why was this change not made?
A. When this affidavit was made out, you, my defense Attorney, were present. The interrogator, Mr. Wartenberg, and you told me that I could make this addition in my direct examination. That is why I was satisfied with that explanation and did not made the addition in the affidavit.
Q. You have repeatedly stated today that you left the SS in 1936. In the document which was discussed previously, NO-4801, Book III-C, on page 75 of the English, page 125 of the German, the date you mentioned as to when you left the SS, is listed as March 1937. How do you explain this discrepancy between these two statements?
A. I left in the summer of 1936. I received the confirmation of my leaving the SS in March 1937.
Q. After you once again had become a member of the SS in the year 1940, I now ask you, did you perform any service with the General SS after you re-entered the SS in 1940?
A. No, in no manner.
DR.BELZER: I thank you. I have no further questions, and I have completed the direct examination of the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: What about your document book, Dr. Belzer?
DR. BELZER: After my other witness has been heard, I Shall submit them. They are all ready and I am prepared to submit the documents, perhaps after the cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have another witness?
DR. BELZER: Yes, I have a woman witness, Mrs. Reimers. She is present, and the Tribunal approved of a third witness, but he is not able to come and I shall do without the witness Hasslinger who had been approved by the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: If you can obtain an affidavit from that missing witness, of course, it will be acceptable.
DR. BELZER: That cannot be done unfortunately, your Honor. According to the information I received, this witness is in a French prisoner-of-war camp, but I was not able to find him.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Does any defense counsel desire to cross-examine the witness: BY DR. FICHT (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT BIBERSTEIN):
Q. Witness, you said that you were transferred from Einsatzkommando VI in August 1942 and you were then active in a different agency in Stalino, while Einsatzkommando VI itself proceeded on to Rostov and you merely went to Rostov to report there before leaving the unit and that you had not met the then commanding officer of the kommando, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. I want to ask you this: As for the Defendant Biberstein, who was then the commanding officer of the unit, did you ever get to know him personally before you came to Nurnberg?
A. No.
Q. Who was your commanding officer when you were detailed from the unit in Stalino and when the unit left for Rostov?
A. That was Sturmbannfuehrer Mohr.
officer of the Einsatzkommando VI and when Biberstein became the commanding officer, do you have any knowledge about that? my comrade Dr. Hasslinger, that the kommando leader, Mohr, that is my kommando leader of Einsatzkommando VI, had been very briefly with the kommando of the Security Police and SD Stalino and that he had been relieved and that he was on his way home via Kiev. I cannot give you the exact date, unfortunately, because I did not speak to Mohr himself. Biberstein started as commanding officer?
DR. FIGHT: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Dixon has posed a question. Do you know why Mohr was relieved before Biberstein arrived?
THE WITNESS: No, Your Honor. I had no knowledge about that.
THE PRESIDENT: I see. Very well. Mr. Hochwald, are you ready to proceed? BY MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD: rejoined the SS in 1940, it was before you were assigned to an Einsatzgruppe, is that correct? deferred to the SD?
Q Can you tell the Tribunal in what capacity?
call, they merely told me that I was to be employed as an auxiliary war employee.
Q Did you receive a rank when you entered the SD?
A No, Mr. Prosecutor, neither a rank nor a uniform.
Q When did you receive the uniform? been between January and March 1941.
Q It was when you were still in Germany?
Q From whom did you receive the draft? Who informed you? Which was the office which informed you about your draft? labor office in Augsburg? to join the SD?
A No, Mr. Prosecutor, that is not the way it was. Somewhat later, via the labor kommando in Kempten, as far as I can recall it today, I received an official message that I was on an emergency war status and in this notification the inspector of the Security Police and the SD was mentioned as the agency which had put me on this war emergency call.
Q Did you try to evade this draft?
A Yes, Mr. Prosecutor, as I have already said this morning.
Q Did you make a written request to be released?
A No, not as far as I know. When I reported in Augsburg, I immediately made my objections orally and the personnel officer, I think it was a Major May, at the time, said that "there is no use for you to object to this. We realize that it is difficult for you, but there is nothing that can be done about it."
had you not? collusion between the SD and the Wehrmacht? Will you explain how the thing was handled that you just wont over from the Wehrmacht to the SD?
A This morning, Mr. Prosecutor, I said that before the beginning of the war, that is, on the 25th of August, I was drafted by the Service Command of the Army as an assistant driver. After the mobilization had been completed, if one may call it that, the motor pool was handed over to the Government Councillor there. Thus a military installation became a civilian one and that was probably the reason why a few days later, probably no more than two weeks I was released from there. I had not served previously. I was Age Group 1903 and on the basis of my medical examination which took place at that time I think I heard -- of course, we were not informed about it but I think I heard -- that I was not fit for military service at that time. called up?
A Mr. Prosecutor, I was a businessman. With great pains I had built up my own business without any help from anyone else and at that time I earned an average of 1,000 Marks a month. Because of my connections with manufacturers, merchandise continued to be delivered to me, so that at that time it wasn't a matter of having to try to make a sale. One had, first of all, to get hold of the merchandise.
question of your salary which made you reluctant to join the SD?
A Mr. Prosecutor, not quite. It was not a financial matter, but it was a matter of my existence, because I thought if I get out of my business, I will lose the contact with my customers, and furthermore it is better for a businessman if he stays away from politics.
Q Did you know what the SD was when you joined it? not say so. I merely knew it was an information service. That is all I know. the Nazi Party, did you not?
A Mr. Prosecutor, the Intelligence Department is not the right word. At this place here, right here, my codefendant Ohlendorf characterized the SD more aptly by calling it a type of Gallup Poll. I do not mean that this is the same thing new. Of course, it was an organization of the Nazi Party in addition, including everything that that term means, but it was not an Intelligence Office.
THE PRESIDENT: I did not quite catch the reference to the Gallup Poll. I know you meant it as an illustration, but I didn't get the significance of what you said.
MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD: If I understood the witness, he wanted to say that it was something like the Gallup Institute to find out about public opinion, obviously,
THE PRESIDENT: I see, thank you. Institute, the SD?
A Well, I couldn't determine that at that time.
Q You did not know that at that time? When you come to pretseh and Schmiedeberg, you did not hear about the Hitler order, is that correct?
