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.
In the last sentence it says there, in June 1939, I 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:
DIRECT EXAMINATION 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.
QDo you know how long this Major Mohr Was commanding officer of the Einsatzkommando VI and when Biberstein became the commanding officer, do you have any knowledge about that?
AIn the first days of September, I heard, I think from 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.
QWell, can you give any date as to when the co-defendant Biberstein started as commanding officer?
ANo, I cannot, unfortunately.
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?
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD:
QMay it Please the Tribunal, Herr Graf, when you rejoined the SS in 1940, it was before you were assigned to an Einsatzgruppe, is that correct?
AYes.
QYou have told the Tribunal that you were draft deferred to the SD?
AYes.
QCan you tell the Tribunal in what capacity?
AI was not told this when I was put on this emergency call, they merely told me that I was to be employed as an auxiliary war employee.
QDid you receive a rank when you entered the SD?
ANo, Mr. Prosecutor, neither a rank nor a uniform.
QWhen did you receive the uniform?
AI cannot give you the exact date, but it must have been between January and March 1941.
QIt was when you were still in Germany?
AYes.
QFrom whom did you receive the draft? Who informed you? Which was the office which informed you about your draft?
AThe SD sector Augsburg told me about it.
QDid you have any dealings in this connection with the labor office in Augsburg?
AAs far as I know, I did not.
QSo the SD office directly informed you that you had to join the SD?
ANo, 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.
QDid you try to evade this draft?
AYes, Mr. Prosecutor, as I have already said this morning.
QDid you make a written request to be released?
ANo, 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."
QYou had been drafted previously by the Wehrmacht, had you not?
AYes.
QDid somebody release you from this draft or was it 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?
AThis 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.
QWhy did you not want to join the SD when you were called up?
AMr. 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.
QDo I understand you then correctly that it was a question of your salary which made you reluctant to join the SD?
AMr. 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.
QDid you know what the SD was when you joined it?
AAs far as an exact knowledge is concerned, I would not say so. I merely knew it was an information service. That is all I know.
QYou knew that it was the Intelligence Department of the Nazi Party, did you not?
AMr. 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.
QWas it a little bit less harmless than the Gallup Institute, the SD?
AWell, I couldn't determine that at that time.
QYou 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?
QWhen did you hear about this order for the first time?
AWhen in the year 1946 I came here as a witness in the IMT trial, I heard through the then counsel for the SD, Dr. Gawlik, about the Prosecution's material against the SD, and this was the first opportunity when I became acquainted with the Fuehrer Order.
QWhen did you learn for the first time that Jews, Gypsies and other people, insane people and other people not liked by the Nazi Regime were deliberately killed by the Einsatzgruppen?
AI didn't hear this at any time in this form in which you put it.
QYou were in Russia one and a half years, is that correct?
AThis morning I already said with how many interruptions.
QAre you telling the Tribunal that all the time that you were in Russia you never learned that there was a general policy, or a general program to exterminate those people?
AMr. Prosecutor, I neither heard this in Russia, nor did I hear that later, from the documents which have been submitted against Einsatz Kommando-VI. This morning I said that once in Dnepropetrowsk I heard from the population that the SS and police Leader - - - rather, I heard this from my commanding officer, but I heard from the population that Jews were shot.
QDid you hear why the Jews were shot?
AThis morning I already said that my commanding officer told me this was a special operation by the Police.
QI do not think that you answered my question. I didn't ask you by whom. I am asking you whether you heard why these Jews were shot. Were they shot for the simple reason that they were Jews?
AI don't know, Mr. Prosecutor, and did'nt know it at the time either. I merely knew that Jews were being shot.
QWould that indicate that you knew at the same time that they were shot for the reason that they were Jews?
ANot in my opinion, Mr. Prosecutor, because I was an Intelligence-man, and the only duty which I had as an SDExpert was to report any influence the German occupation Forces had on the morale of the population to my superior officer, but it was not my duty to ask my superior, "Colonel, why were these Jews shot?"
QHow often during the time when you were in Russia did you hear about mass executions? Or about executions at all?
AOf specifically Jewish executions I only heard in Dnepropetrowsk.
QAnd about other executions?
AI heard about other executions in Dnepropetrowsk, Kriwoirog and Stalino.
QSo it was known to you that an outfit of which you were a member had as its main task to kill people, is that correct?
ANo. Mr. Prosecutor, in my position, in my field of work I could not establish this. I never made the observation that, for example, in a new garrison Jews were put into a Ghetto, or that any other measures were taken against the Jews.
QYou told the Tribunal, if I am not mistaken, that the Einsatzkommando VI was about one-hundred sixty to onehundred eighty men strong, is that right?
AAt the beginning, yes, Mr. Prosecutor.
QYou had lived with the men for one and one-half years.
What did they tell you about their activities?
AMr. Prosecutor, I didn't Speak with my fellow soldiers about this subject. I didn't go to my fellow worker in Department-IV and ask, "What are you doing?" What I heard was the conversations which took place between comrades, but gneerally my activity allowed me little contact with the other man.
QYou were an NCO, and I do think I can presume that you were gating with them in the same mess hall, and that you word sleeping in the same quarters, that you shered your offtime with them. You must have known something about their activity?
ARight, Mr. Prosecutor, I confirmed that in my direct examination.
QAnd you never asked anybody why these people were executed by the unit of which you were a member?
ACertainly, I did ask them. In the course of the conversation this was quite natural, and down to the last day of my membership in Einsatzkommando VI I was of the opinion that every single case was investigated, and that only guilty people would be convicted and shot.
QWhy did you have this impression? Did you see or were you present at some of these investigations?
ANo, Mr. Prosecutor, this opinion stems from the conversations which I had with my comrades. It was discussed that Partisans, Saboteurs, Looters, and various other clements who had violated the regulations of the Army would be investigated and convicted.
QYou told the Tribunal just a while ago that you were not able to state from the documents here that there was a general program to kill the Jews. Would you please turn to Document Book II- A, and the quotation is from page 57, Your Honor.
It is Document No. 3445, Prosecution's Exhibit No. 42, the page is 67 I am quoting from, from the top of the document. Here it says very clearly that between the 24th and the 30th of November 274 people were killed, and not less than 226 of those 274 were killed, as the document says, for the simple reason that they were Jews?
ARight, Mr. Prosecutor.
QDo you know about these executions?
AI said this morning when my attorney questioned mc about these document that I knew nothing about it.
QHow do you explain that you don't know anything about it? The number in your Einsatzkommando was one-hundred sixty to one-hundred eighty men, and most of the men must have killed in those six days two people each, and you have been living among them without knowing a thing, is that what you are going to tell the Tribunal?
AMay I call your attention to the fact that the date and the number are listed there, but not the place.
QIt is in that document.
AOf course, Mr. Prosecutor, the Einsatzkommando VI, always was divided into three or four sub-commandos. I only had to concern myself with information work, and, therefore, I could not know what the commando and its sub-commandos were doing.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Hochwald, I don't think you got an answer on your question. I am sorry. I don't think you got an answer to the question which you put. You said that the witness had indicated that even the reports didn't show that Einsatzkommando VI had ever shot any Jews. Then you called his attention to this report. Well, that observation of yours was not commented on, and then you went to something else.
THE WITNESS:Your Honor, may I say something about this. I think there is a mistake here. I didn't understand then Prosecutor to say that I didn't know anything about Jewish executions, but Mr. Hochwald spoke of mass executions.
THE PRESIDENT:Well, did you say, witness, that you didn't know about executions of Jews, nor do the reports show that Einsatzkommando VI executed Jews as Jews, did you make that statement here?
THE WITNESS:Pardon me, Your Honor, that is not the way I wanted to express myself.
THE PRESIDENT:Just what did you say about the reports?
THE WITNESS:The debate started with the question of the Prosecutor, as to whether my knowledge is the only one about mass executions in Dneproptrowsk.
MR. HOCHWALD:I do think you are mistaken,witness. I asked you, when did you learn for the first time that the general policy existed to kill the Jews, and, if I am not mistaken, you answered that "I didn't learn that during all the time I was in Russia, and I didn't learn it later, and even the documents, sofar as Einsatzcommando VI is concerned, do not show that such general policy existed." So I am asking now - - -
THE PRESIDENT:Well, first, let's find out if hc said that. My recollection is he said it in answer to his own counsel's question.
MR. HOCHWALD:He also said it in answer to my question, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:Yes, let's find out if he confirmed that; that the reports do not show that Einsatzcommando VI killed Jews because they were Jews.
THE WITNESS:I didn't mean to say that, Your Honor. I think the whole thing can be traced to the mistake that I assume Dr. Hochwald was speaking of mass executions.
MR. HOCHWALD:All right, do you consider the shooting of 226 Jews not a mass execution?
THE WITNESS:Right, right, Mr. Prosecutor.
THE PRESIDENT:Well, that right, right does not make it it very clear. Your question is put in the negative, and you got two affirmatives, so now we don't know just what really it is.
QYou do regard the killing of 226 Jews as a mass execution?
AYes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:All right, suppose we take up from this point, Mr. Hochwald, after recess.
MR. HOCHWALD:Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will now be in recess for fifteen minutes.
THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
(recess)
THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.
Dr. VOEKEL for the defendant Six: Your Honor, I have to make the request for the defendant Six to be excused tomorrow from the session because I would like to discuss his defense with him.
THE PRESIDENT:The defendant Six will be excused from attendance in Court all day tomorrow.
DR. VOELKEL:Thank you.
PRESIDENT:You are welcome.
CROSS EXAMINATION - continued BY DR. HOCHWALD:
Q.May it please the Tribunal, before the recess Herr Graf spoke about the document in Document Book II-A on page 67, your Honors, No-3405. It is Prosecution Exhibit 42. If you look farther into this document you will see that up to 12 November 1941 Einsatzkommando-6 shot 800 insane people. What do you know about the shooting of these 800 people?
A.I do not know anything about this shooting.
Q.Nothing at all. Herr Graf, what was your rank at that time?
A.I was an NCO.
Q.You were an NCO in this outfit. You had quite an important position. You are an intelligent person, you are not blind, you are not deaf, people are killed in your presence by the thousands. Nevertheless, you don't know a thing. Is that what you want the Tribunal to believe?
A.Mr. Prosecutor, I really do not know anything about the shooting of these persons.
Q.About how many executions did you know in all the time you were in Russia?
A.As I said this morning I learned from my comrades that people were arrested, interrogated, and shot, but I never learned any figure.
Q.You have never asked "How many did you shoot?" "How many execution do you carry out regularly, or usually?" You have never asked that?
A.That was not my task.
Q.I know that it was not your task but it doesn't stand to reason, Herr Graf.
An execution is not an everyday thing in a soldier's life. It's only in an executioner's life an everyday thing. You were surrounded by these executions. You heard by the population, from the population, about these executions, and you are still maintaining here as a witness that you did not know the number, you did not know the reason, and you did not know anything about these executions. That is what you are going to tell the Tribunal here?
A.Mr. Prosecutor, the state of affairs was this. First, executions were not publicly carried out. Secondly, those persons who had orders to deal with these matters resented to discuss these matters. And, I had no reason whatsoever to ask my comrades about this and I never did so, because after all, as you quite rightly put it, an execution is not a very agreeable matter.
Q.In other words, now you want to tell us that you did not ask as you did not want to know - you just did not want to know what was going on.
A.That is not what I wanted to say. But as an NCO in the position I held I merely dealt with my own SD tasks and I did not bother about the tasks of Department 4.
Q.But you yourself have volunteered this statement, that from the part of the population you had been informed about these executions which were carried out in Dnjepropetrowsk.
A.Yes.
Q.You know that by EK-6 people were executed. It's impossible, Herr Graf, that you knew that but refused to know on the other hand how many and why the people were executed. I do know that you did not know possible, the number 226 Jews which appears in the document, but you must have known by then that approximately 200 Jews were shot by your Kommando. You must have known that approximately 800 insane were shot by your Kommando. This is not 2, this is not 1, these certainly are mass executions.
AHerr Hochwald, may I draw your attention to the fact that with my former way of putting it I did not express myself very well. What I really wanted to say was that it does not become evident from the documents when - or at least it does become evident when, but not where these executions took place. In this document, for instance, it only says that those eight hundred people were shot in the lunatic asylum Igrin, but the remaining 274 shootings, I do not know, whether those were carried out in Dnjepropetrowsk or Vasilkowska, or were they carried out by another subkommando of EK 4?
QThis perfecty correct. I do not want to say that I do know that these people were killed in Dnjepropetrowsk, but they were killed by your unit. This unit was a small unit, 160 to 180 men, as you said yourself. You have been living with these people for one and a half years. The record is full of documents which show that executions were carried out by Einsatzkommando 6, not only once, not only twice, but many times, and I ask you now, how often did you hear about executions carried out by the unit of which you were a member?
ATo give you an exact figure, Mr. Prosecutor, is impossible for me. Out of my own free will, I told you this morning that I heard about shootings through comrades, but I have not heard exact figures or exact dates.
QCan you estimate how often you heard about executions?
AAny figure that I might give you, Mr. Prosecutor, might be wrong. I said that on various occasions I heard several times about it, but I don't know how many times.
QAll right. Possibly I can ask you something else. Did you hear once a week usually when you were in Russia, or more often then once?
AMay I say something else to this, Dr. Hochwald? The Einsatzkommando itself was only in the rarest cases - I do not know of any such case -in the same buildings as the prisoners were housed.
For instance, in Stalino the distance from the prison to the kommando office was at least two kilometers. Therefore, for somebody who actually has this office with the kommando it is not possible to find out when executions are to take place, and it was similar in Dnjepropetrowsk, the prisoners were in the building of the kommandantura, so were the interrogation rooms, so I could not find out about it.
QBut you have seen the men coming back from an execution exhausted and nervous?
AMay I say something else to this, Mr. Prosecutor? The office routine, which employed at least thirty people of the armed SS and the Ukrainian auxiliary police, was carried on in such a way that I could not find out about such matters. They were partly in another building and I did not see them come or go.
QI would believe what you are telling me here, Graf, if you had been in Russia for three weeks, but you have been there for one and a half years. During this one and a half year Einsatzkommando 6 had as its main task the extermination of people; and you tell the Tribunal that you heard about its extermination program as late as in 1946. Do you stand to this testimony?
AMr. Prosecutor, you say that Einsatzkommando C-6 had as its main task to exterminate people. I can assure you, Mr. Prosecutor, that during the whole time in which I was with Einsatzkommando 6 I was certainly not of the opinion and as far as I can reconstruct happenings I could not have had this opinion, that exterminatings were concerned. I knew that persons were arrested; that they were interrogated; and I knew that after a procedure they were shot, but I did not know anything of exterminations.
QYou want to say that you knew that these people were tried. Did you know it?
AYes, from what I heard from my comrades.