THE PRESIDENT: I am told that that has been read already.
COLONEL STOREY:I had it checked, and we didn't catch that, Your Honor. I'll pass on then.
Now, if Your Honor please, we will pass to document 2273 PS next. I offer in evidence now just portions of document 2273 PS, which is US Exhibit 487. This document was captured by the USSR and will be offered in detail by our Soviet colleagues later. But with their consent, I want to introduce in evidence a chart which is identified by that document, and we have an enlargement which we would like to put on the board and pass to the Tribunal photostatic copies.
If your Honor please, this chart is identified by the photostatic copy attached to the original report which will be dealt with in detail later. I want to quote just one statement from Page 2 of the English translation of that document. It is the third paragraph from the bottom on Page 2 of the English translation:
"The Esthonian self-protection movement formed as the Germans advanced did begin to arrest Jews, but there were no spontaneous programs. Only by the Security Police and the SD were the Jews gradually executed as they became no longer required for work. Today there are no longer any Jews in Esthonia."
That document is a top secret document by Einsatz Group A, which was a special projects Group. This chart, of which the photostatic copy is attached to the original in the German translation on the wall, shows the progress of the extermination of the Jews in the area in which this Einsatz Commando Group operated.
If your Honors will refer to the top next to Petersburg, or Leningrad as we know it, and down below you will see the picture of a coffin, and that is described in the report as 3600 having been killed.
Next over at the left is another coffin in one of the small Baltic States, showing 963 in that area have been put in the coffin.
Then next down near the capital of Riga, you will note that they have 36,238 that were put away in the coffins, and it refers to the Ghetto there as still having 2500.
You come down to the next square or the next state showing 136,421 were put in their coffins, and then in the next area near Minsk, and just above Minsk there were 41,828 put in their coffins.
THEPRESIDENT: are you sure they were put in the coffin in the one of 136,000?
COLONEL STOREY:I beg your pardon, sir.
THE PRESIDENT:Are you sure that they were executed, the 136,000, because there is no coffin there.
COLONEL STOREY:Here are the totals from the documents.
THE PRESIDENT:These photostatic copies are different to what you have got there. In the area which is marked 136,421 there is no coffin.
COLONEL STOREY:Well, I am sorry. The one that I have is a true and correct copy up there.
THE PRESIDENT:Mine hasn't got it and Mr. Biddle's hasn't got it.
COLONEL STOREY:Will you hand this to the President, please?
THE PRESIDENT:I suppose the document itself will show it.
COLONEL STOREY:I will turn to the original and verify it. Apparently there is a typographical error. If your Honor please, here it is, 136,421, with the coffin.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Parker points out it is in the document itself too.
COLONEL STOREY:Yes, sir, it is in the document itself. There is an error on that.
The 128,000 at the bottom shows at that time there were 128,000 on hand, and the literal translation of the statement, as I understand, means "Still on hand in the Minsk area."
I next refer to Document 1104-PS, Volume 2, U.S. Exhibit 483, which I now offer in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT:Colonel Storey, did you tell us what the document was? There is nothing on the translation to show what the document is.
COLONEL STOREY: If your Honor please, it is a report of the special purpose Group A, a top secret report, or the Einsatz Group A, in other words, making a record of their activities in these areas, and this chart was attached showing the areas covered.
THE PRESIDENT:Special group of the Gestapo?
COLONEL STOREY:The special group that was organized of the Gestapo and the SD in that area. In other words, a commando group.
As I mentioned, your Honor, they organized these special commando groups to work in and behind the armies as they consolidated their gains in occupied territories, and your Honors will hear from other reports of these Einsatz groups as we go along in this presentation. In other words, Einsatz means special action or action groups, and they were organized to cover certain geographical areas behind the immediate front lines.
THE PRESIDENT:Yes, but they were groups, were they, of the Gestapo?
COLONEL STOREY:The Gestapo and SD.
THE PRESIDENT:Well, that is part of the Gestapo.
COLONEL STOREY:There were some of the Kripo in it too.
Now, the next document is 1104-PS, dated October 30, 1941. This document shows on that date the Commissioner of the territory of Sluzk wrote a report to the Commissioner General of Minsk, in which he severely criticized the actions of the Einsatz Commandos of the SIPO and the SD operating in his area for the murder of the Jewish population of that area, and I quote the English translation on page 4 of that document, beginning at the first paragraph:
"on 27 October in the morning at about 8 o'clock a first lieutenant of the police battalion Number 11 from Kauen appeared and introduced himself as the adjutant of the battalion commander of the security police. The first lieutenant explained that the police battalion had received the assignment to effect the liquidation of all Jews here in the town of Sluzk within two days.
The battalion commander with his battalion in strength of four companies, two of which were made up of Lithuanian partisans, was on the march here and the the action would have to begin instantly. I replied to the first lieutenant that I had to discuss the action in any case first with the commander. About half an hour later the police battalion arrived in Sluzk. Immediately after the arrival the conference with the battalion commander took place according to my request. I first explained to the commander that it would not very well be possible to effect the action without previous preparation, because everybody had been sent to work and that it would lead to terrible confusion. At least it would have been his duty to inform me a day ahead of time. Then I requested him to postpone the action one day. However, he rejected this with the remark that he had to carry out this action everywhere and in all towns and that only two days were allotted for Sluzk. Within these two days, the town of Sluzk had to be cleared of Jews by all means."
That report was made to the Reich Commissioner for the Eastern territories through Gauleiter Heinrich Lusch at Riga. lour Honors will recall that he was referred to in other presentations.
Now, skipping over to Page 5: The first paragraph, I'd like to quote it:
"For the rest, as regards the execution of the action, I must point out to my deepest regret that the latter bordered already on sadism. The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality on the part of both the German police officers and particularly the Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, but also among them white Ruthenians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. The White Ruthenians were in greatest distress to free themselves from the encirclement. Regardless of the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also tradesmen, were mistreated in a terribly barbarous way in the face of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians themselves were also worked over with rubber clubs and rifle butts. There was no question of an action against the Jews any more. It rather looked like a revolution."
And then I skip down to the next to the last paragraph on that same page:
"In conclusion I find myself obliged to point out that the police battalion has looted in an unheard of manner during the action, and that not only in Jewish houses but just the same in those of the White Ruthenians. Anything of use such as boots, leather, cloth, gold and other valuables, has been taken awry. On the basis of statements of members of the armed forces, watches were town off the arms of Jews in public, on the street, and rings were pulled off the fingers in the most brutal manner. A major of the finance department reported that a Jewish girl was asked by the police to obtain immediately 5,000 rubles to have her father released. This girl is said to have actually gone everywhere in order to obtain the money."
There is another paragraph with reference to the number of copies, and that is on the first of the three pages of the translation that I'd like to call your Honors' attention to. The last paragraph on Page 3 of the translation:
"I am submitting this report in duplicate so that one copy may be forwarded to the Reich Minister. Peace and order cannot be maintained in White Ruthenia with methods of that sort. To bury seriously wounded people alive who worked their way out of their graves again is such a base and filthy act that the incident as such should be reported to the Fuehrer and Reich Marshal.
"The civil administration of White Ruthenia makes very strenuous efforts to win the population over to Germany in accordance with the instructions of the Fuehrer. These efforts cannot be brought in harmony with the methods described herein."
Signed by the Commissioner General for White Ruthenia.
And then on the 11th of November 1941, he forwards it to the Reich Minister for Occupied Countries, in Berlin.
THE PRESIDENT: Who was there at that time?
COLONEL STOREY:The Reich Commissioner I believe it was shown for the Eastern occupied country was the Defendant Rosenberg. I think that is correct. On the same date by separate letter the Commissioner General of White Ruthenia to the Reich Commissioner for the Eastern Territories that he had received money, valuables, and other objects taken by the police in the action at Sluzk, and other regions, all of which had been deposited with the Reich Credit Institute for the disposal of the Reich Commissioner.
On 21 November 1941 a report on the Sluzk incident was sent to the personal reviewer of the permanent deputy of the Minister of the Reich with a copy to Heydrich, the Chief of the Security Police and SD. That is shown on the first page of document No. 1104.
The activities of the Einsatz Groups continued throughout 1943 and 1944 under KALTENBRUNNER as Chief of the Security Police and SD. Under adverse war conditions, however, the program of extermination was to a large extent changed to one of rounding up slave labor for Germany.
I next refer to document No.3012-PS, which has heretofore been introduced as U.S.A. Exhibit No.190, which is a letter from the Headquarters of a Sondercommando, a group or section known as Einsatz Group C, dated 19 March 1943. This letter summarizes the real activities and methods of the Gestapo and SD, and I would like to refer to the additional portion of the letter, to those previously quoted on page 2, of document 3012-PS, and I believe I will read the first page, the beginning of the first paragraph:
"It is the task of the Security Police and the Security Service, SD, to discover all enemies of the Reich, and fight against them in the interest of security in the zone of operations, especially to guarantee the security of the Army. Besides the annihilation of active opponents; other elements who by virtue of their opinions that their past may appear in part as enemies under favorable condi-tions are to be eliminated through preventive measures.
The Security Police carries out this task according to the general directives of the Fuehrer with all the required toughness.
Energetic measures are especially necessary in territories endangered by the activity of hostile gangs?
The competence of the Security Police within the zone of operations is based on the Barbarossa decrees."
The Tribunal will recall the famous barbarossa code, namely, the decrees that were issued in connection with the invasion of Russia:
"I deem the measures of the Security Police carried out on a considerable scale during recent times necessary for the two following reasons:
1. The situation at the front in my sector had become so serious with the population partly influenced by Hungarians and Italians who streamed back in chaotic condition and take openly positions against us.
2. That the strong expeditions by hostile gangs who came especially from the Forest of Brvansk were another reason.
Besides that, other revolution groups formed by the population appeared suddenly in all districts.
The providing of arms evidently provided no difficulty at all.
It would have been irresponsible if we had observed this whole activity without acting against it.
It is obvious that all such measures bring about some harshness."
I want to take up the significant point of harsh measures.
1. Shooting Hungarian Jews.
2. Shooting of Agronoms.
"3. Shooting of children.
4. Total burning down of villages.
Service SD prisoners.
Chief of commitment group C confirmed once more the correctness of the measures taken, and expressed his recognition for the energetic action.
With regard to the current political situation, especially on the permanent industry in the Fatherland, the measures of the Security Police have to be subordinated to the greatest extent to the recruiting of labor for Germany.
In the shortest possible time the Ukraine has to put at the disposal of armament industry one million workers, five hundred of whom have to be sent from our territory daily."
Your Honor, please, I believe the rest of the numbers have been quoted before by Mr. Dodd.
I refer to the next page, and to the first order in quotes, as sub-paragraph "1. Special treatment is to be limited to the minimum.
2. Listing of communist functionaries' activities, and so on, is to take place by roster only for the time being without arresting anybody.
It is, for instance, no longer feasible to arrest all the close relatives of a member of the Communist Party, although members of the Komsomalz are to be arrested only, and if they are active in a leading postition."
The next paragraph has been read into evidence, 3 and 4, in a previous presentation.
I will read.
"No. 5. The reporting of hostile gangs, as well as drives against "them is not effected hereby.
All drives against these hostile gangs can only take place after my approval has been obtained.
The prisons have to be kept empty as a rule, and we have to be aware of the fact that the Slavs will interpret the soft treatment on our part as weakness, and that they will act accordingly right away.
If we limit our harsh measures of the Security Police through the above orders for the time being, that is only done for the following reasons.
The most important thing is the recruiting of workers.
No check of persons to be sent into the Reich will be made.
No written certificates of political reliability check, or similar things, will be issued.
Signed by the SS Major Christiansen and commanding officer." I understand that Your Honor wants to adjourn at four o'clock, and I believe that I can introduce one more statement. It was the Einsatz Groups of the Security Police and SD that operated the infamous death vans. The previous document 501-PS, which was received as USA Exhibit 288, referred to this operation. The letter from Becker, which is part of this exhibit, was addressed to Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff at Berlin. I now refer to Document L-185. I simply refer to Document 501-PS in reference to the death vans. The Document L-185, USA No. 184, is the one I am now offerering in evidence, page 7 of the English translation, L-185. It will be observed that the Chief of AMT II D of the RSHA in charge of Technical Matters was Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff. Mr. Harris advises me that the one point to be proved by that is that Amt II of the RSHA, who made this report on Technical Matters, was the Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, and then he refers in the same connection to Document 2348-PS, which is USA Exhibit 485.
The previous one was to identify Rauff, and then to offer his affidavit which is Document 2343-PS, second volume.
Reading from the beginning of the affidavit which was made on 19 October 1945 in Ancona, Italy, as follows:
"I hereby acknowledge the attached letter written by Dr. Becker on 16 May 1942, and received by me on the 29 May 1942, as a genuine letter.
I did on 18 October 1945 write on the side of this letter a statement to the effect that it was genuine.
I do not know the number of death vans being operated, and cannot even give an approximate figure.
The vans were built by the SAURER WORKS, Germany, located, I believe, in Berlin.
Some other firms built these vans also.
Insofar as I am aware those vans operated only in Russia.
Insofar as I can state these vans were probably operating in 1941, and I personally feel that they were operating up to the termination of the war."
Unquote. Your Honor please, I don't believe that we will have time to go into the next exhibit.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. Then the Tribunal will now adjourn until Wednesday, the 2nd of January.
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S (Whereupon at 1600 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene 2 January, 1946, at 1000 hours). Official transcript of the International Military Tribunal, in the matter of:
The United States of America, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, against Hermann Wilhelm Goering, et al, Defendants, sitting at Nurriberg, Germany, on 2 January 1946, 1000-1245, Lord Justice Lawrence, presiding.
THE PRESIDENT:I call on the Counsel for the United States.
COL. STOREY:If the Tribunal please, when your Honors adjourned on 20 December we were presenting the Gestapo and had referred to the use of the death vans by the Einsatz Groups in the Eastern Occupied Territories, and had almost concluded that phase of the presentation. Your Honors will recall we had referred to the use of some death vans made by the Saurer Works, and the final reference that I want to make in that connection is to a telegram attached to Document 501-PS, which is not necessary to read, which establishes the fact that the same make of truck or vans was the death van used by the Einsatz Groups.
The final document in connection with the Einsatz Groups in the Eastern Occupied Territories we desire to offer is Document 2992-PS, and I believe it is in the second volume of the document book. This is an affidavit made by Hermann Graebe. Hermann Graebe is at present employed by the United States Government in Frankfurt. The affidavit was made at Weisbaden, and I offer excerpts from affidavit 2992-PS, US Exhibit 494.
This witness was at the head of a construction firm that was doing some building in the Ukraine, and he was an eye-witness to the antiJewish actions at the town of Rowno, R-o-w-n-o, Ukraine, on 13 July 1942, and I refer to the part of the affidavit which is on page 5 of the English translation - 2992. Beginning at the first:
"From September 1941 until January 1944 I was manager and engineerin-charge of a branch office in SDOLBUNOW, Ukraine, of the Soligen building firm of Josef Jung. In this capacity it was my job to visit the building sites of the firm. The firm had, among others, a site in ROWNO, Ukraine.
"During the night of 13th July 1942 all inhabitants of the Rowno Ghetto, where there were still about 5000 Jews, were liquidated.
"I would describe the circumstances of my being a witness of the dissolution of the Ghetto, and the carrying out of the pogrom during the night and morning, as follows:
"I employed for the firm, in ROWNO, in addition to Poles, Germans, and Ukrainians about 100 Jews from Sdolbunow, Ostrog, and Mysotch. The men were quartered in a building, 5 Bahnhofstrasse, inside the Ghetto, and the women in a house at the corner of Deutsche Strasse,-98.
"On Saturday, 11 July 1942, my foreman, Fritz EINSPORN, told me of a rumor that on Monday all Jews in ROWNO were to be liquidated. Although the vast majority of the Jews employed by my firm in ROWNO were not natives of this town, I still feared that they might be included in this pogrom which had been reported. I therefore ordered EINSPORN at noon of the same day to march all the Jews employed by us - men as well as women - in the direction of SDOLBUNOW, about 12 km from ROWNO. This was done.
"The Senior Jew had learned of the departure of the Jewish workers of my firm. He went to see the Commanding Office of the Rowno SIPO and SD, SS Major (SS Sturmbannfuehror) Dr. PUTZ, as early as the Saturday afternoon to find out whether the rumor of a forthcoming Jewish pogrom which had gained further credence by reason of the departure of Jews of my firm - was true. Dr. PUTZ dismissed the rumor as a clumsy lie, and for the rest had the Polish personnel of my firm in Rowno arrested. Einsporn avoided arrest by escaping from Sdolbunow. When I learned of this incident I gave orders that all Jews who had left Rowno were to report back to work in Rowno on Monday, 13 July 1942, On Monday morning I myself went to see the Commanding Office, Dr. PUTZ, in order to learn, for one thing, the truth about the rumored Jewish pogrom and secondly to obtain information on the arrest of the Polish office personnel. SS Major PUTZ stated to me that no pogrom whatever was planned. Moreover, such a pogrom would be stupid because the firms and the Reichsbahn would lose valuable workers.
"An hour later I received a summons to appear before the Area Commissioner of ROWNO. His deputy, Stableiter and Cadet Office BECK, subject me to the same questions as I had undergone at the SD. My explanation that I had sent the Jews home for urgent delousing appeared plausible to him.
He then told me - making me promise to keep it a secret - that a pogrom would in fact take place in the evening of Monday 13 July 1945. After lengthy negotiation I managed to persuade him to give me permission to take my Jewish workers to Sdolbunow - but only after the pogrom had been carried out. During the night it would be up to me to protect the house in the Ghetto against the entry of Ukrainian militia and SS. As confirmation of the discussion he gave me a document, which stated that the Jewish employees of Messrs. Jung were not affected by the pogrom."
And this original which I hold in my hand, I will now pass to the translator for reading. I call the attention of your Honors to the fact that it has the letterhead of Dr. Gebiets, Commissar in Rowno, and it is dated the 13th of July 1942, and it is signed by this area commissioner. I now read this document:
"The Area Commissioner" - which means Gebietskommissar - Rowno".
"Secret.
Addressed: "Messrs. JUNG, Rowno.
"The Jewish workers employed by" - I beg your pardon. This part is previous to that on page 4 of the English translation. It is just the page before. I continue reading:
"The Jewish workers employed by your firm are not affected by the pogrom" - in parentheses "Aktion". As I understand, that means action.
"You must transfer them to their new place of work by Wednesday, 15 July 1942, at the latest." Signed by the Area Commissioner Beck. And then, the stamp - the official stamp of the Area Commissioner at Rowno.
Now just the following paragraph on the original, page 5 or 6, I believe it is, one more paragraph I would like to read after the reference "Original attached."
"On the evening of this day I drove to ROWNO and posted myself with Fritz EINSPORN in front of the house in the Bahnhofstrasse in which the Jewish workers of my firm slept.
Shortly after 22,00 the Ghetto was encircled by a large SS detachment and about three times as many members of the Ukrainian militia.
Then the electric arclights which had been erected in and around the Ghetto were switched on.
SS and militia squads of 4 to 6 men entered or at least tried to enter the houses.
"Where the doors and windows were closed and the inhabitants did not open at the knocking, the SS men and militia broke the windows, forced the doors with beams and crow bars and entered the houses.
The people living there were driven on to the street just as they were, regardless of whether they were dressed or in bed.
Since the Jews in most cases refused to leave their houses and resisted, the SS and militia applied force.
They finally succeeded, with strokes of the whip, kicks and blows with rifle butts in clearing the houses.
The people were driven out of their houses in such haste that small children in bed had been left behind in several instances.
In the street women cried out for their children and children for their parents.
That did not prevent the SS from driving the people along the road, at running pace, and hitting them, until they reached a waiting freight train.
Car after car was filled, and the screaming of women and children, and the cracking of whips and rifle shots resounded unceasingly.
Since several families or groups had barricaded themselves in especially strong buildings, and the doors could not be forced with crowbars or beams, these houses were now blown open with handgrenades.
Since the Ghetto was near the railroad tracks in Rowno, the younger people tried to get across the tracks and over a small river to get away from the Ghetto area.
As this stretch of country was beyond the range of the electric lights, it was illuminated by signal rockets.
All through the night these beaten, hounded, and wounded people moved along the lighted streets.
Women carried their dead children in their arms, children pulled and dragged their dead parents by their arms and legs down the road toward the train.
Again and again the cries "Open the Door!" "Open the door!"
echoed through the Ghetto."
I will not read any more of this affidavit. It is a very long one.
There is also a second affidavit, but the part I wanted to emphasize is the fact that the original exemption was signed by the Area Commissioner, and that the SD and the SS participated in this action.
THE PRESIDENT:Oughtn't you to read the rest of that page, Colonel Storey?
COL. STOREY:All right, sir. I really had eliminated that because I thought it might be repetitious.
"About 6 o'clock in the morning I went away for a moment, leaving behind Einsporn and several other German workers who had returned in the meantime.
I thought the greatest danger was past and that I could risk it.
Shortly after I left, Ukrainian militia men forced their way into 5 Bahnho strasse and brought 7 Jews out and took them to a collecting point inside the Ghetto.
On my return I was able to prevent further Jews from being taken out.
I went to the collecting point to save these 7 men. I saw dozens of corpses of all ages and both sexes in the streets I had to walk along.
The doors of the houses stood open, windows were smashed. Pieces of clothing, shoes, stockings, jackets, caps, hats, coats, etc.
, were lying in the street.
At the corner of a house lay a baby, less than a year old with his skull crushed.
Blood and brains were spattered over the house wall and covered the area immediately around the child, The child was dressed only in a little shirts.
The commander, SS Major Putz, was walking up and down a row of about 80 - 100 mule Jews who were crouching on the ground.
He had a heavy dog whip in his hand. I walked up to him, showed him the written permit of Stabsleiter Beck and demanded the seven men whom I recognized among those who were crouching on the ground.
Dr. Putz was furious about Beck's conclution and nothing could persuade him to re lease the seven men.
He made a motion with his hand encircling the square and said that anyone who was once here would not get away.
Although he was very angry with Beck, he ordered me to take the people from 5 Bahnhofstras out of ROWNO by 8 o'clock at the latest.
When I left Dr. Putz. I noticed a Ukrainian farm cart, with two horses.
Dead people with stiff limbs were lying on the cart.
Legs and arms projected over the side boards. The cart was making for the freight train.
I took the remaining 74 Jews who had been locked in the house to Sdolbunow."
"Several days after the 13th of July 1942 the Area Commissioner of Sdolbunow, Georg Marschall, called a meeting of all firm managers, railroad superintendents, and leaders of the Organization Todt and informed them tha the firms etc.
, should prepare themselves for the "resettlement" of the Jews which was to take place almost immediately.
He referred to the progra in ROWNO where all the Jews had been liquidated, i.e. had been shot near KOSTOLPOL."
Finally, his signature is sworn to on the 10th of November 1945.
THEPRESIDENT:..What nationality is Graebe?
COL. STOREY:He is a German. Graebe was a German, and is now in the employ of the Military Government at Frankfurt -- the United States Military Government.
Your Honor, in that connection there is another separate affidavit attached to this which is a part of the same document, which I will not attempt to read.
But it has to do with the execution of some people in another area, and is along the same line.
I am not reading it because it Would be cumulative, but it is a part of this same document.
I not pass from that subject to the next subject.
The Gestapo and SD stationed special units in prisoner-of-war camps for the purpose of screening out racial and political undesirables and executing those who were screened out.
The program of mass murder of political and racial undesirables carried on against civilians was also applied to prisoners of war who were captured on the Eastern Front.
In this connection I call the attention of the Tribunal to the testimony of General Lahousen, which your Honors will recall, on the 30th of November, 1945.
Lahousen testified to a conference which took place in the summer of 1941, shortly after the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union, which was attended by himself; and I want to emphasize this, because we will later have a document that emanated from this conference, attended by himself, General Reinecke, Colonel Breuer, and Mueller, the head of the Gestapo.
At this conference the command to kill Soviet functionaries and Communists among the Soviet prisoners of war was discussed.
The executions were to be carried out by Einstaz Commandos of the SIPO and the SD.
Lahousen further recalled that Mueller, who was the head of the Gestapo, insisted on carrying out the program, and that the only concession he made was that, in deference to the sensibilities of the German troops, the executions would not take place in the presence of the troops.
Mueller also made some concessions as to the selection of the persons to be murdered; but, according to Lahousen, the selection was left entirely to the commanders of these screening units.
I refer to page 633 of the Official Transcript.
Now I offer Document 502-PS as the next exhibit, US Exhibit 486. This document is a Gestapo directive, 502-PS, in the first document book.
This document is a Gestapo directive of the 17th of July, 1941.
If you will recall, Lahousen said this conference was in the summer of 1941.
It is addressed to commanders of the SIPO and SD stationed in camps, and provides in part as follows, and I read from the first page of the English translation.
Now, if the Tribunal Please, our colleagues, the Soviet Prosecutors, will Present most of that document, and I am only going to read enough to show that the Gestapo were the ones that took part in it.
From the beginning:
"The activation of commands will take place in accordance with the agreement of the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service and the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as of 16 July 1914.
Enclosure 1.
"The commands will work independently according to special authorization and in consequence of the general regulations given to them in the limits of the camp organizations. Naturally the commandos will keep close contact with the camp commander and the defense officer assigned to him.
"The mission of the commandos is the political investigating of all camp inmates, the elimination and further treatment -
"a. Of all political, criminal, or in same way other undesirable elements among them;
"b. Of those persons who could be used for the reconstruction of the occupied countries."
Now I skip to the beginning of the 4th paragraph:
"The commandos must use for their work as far as possible at present, and even later, the experiences of the camp commanders which the latter have collected; meanwhile, from observation of the prisoners and examination of the camp inmates. Further, the commandos must make efforts from the beginning to seek out among the prisoners elements which would appear reliable, regardless if there are communists concerned or not, in order to use them for intelligence purposes inside of the camp, and, if advisable, later in the occupied territories also.
"By using such informers, and by use of all other existing possibilities, the discovery of all elements to be eliminated among the prisoners must succeed step by step at once. The commandos must learn for themselves in every case by means of short questioning of the informer, and eventual questioning of other prisoners. The information of one informer is not sufficient to designate a camp inmate to be a suspect without further proof. It must be confirmed in some way, if possible.
Now I skip to page 4, the 3rd paragraph of the English translation, quoting:
"Executions are not to be held in the camp or in the immediate vicinity of the camp.
If the camps in the general government are in the immediate vicinity of the border, then the prisoners are to be taken for special treatment, if possible, into the former Soviet territory."
And then the 5th paragraph:
"In regard to executions to be carried out, and to the possible removal of reliable civilians and the removal of informers for the Einsatzgruppe in the occupied territories, the leader of the Einsatzkommandos must make an agreement with the nearest state police office, as well as with the commandant of the Security Police unit and Security Service, and beyond these, with the Chief of the Einsatzgroup concerned in the occupied territories."
Proof that persons so screened out of the prisoner of war camps by the Gestapo were executed, is to be found in Document 1165-PS, from which I did not intend to quote, and which has been previously introduced as U.S. Exhibit 244. Document 1165-PS shows that those that had been screened out were executed.
The first page of that document, without reading it, is a letter from the Camp Commandant of the concentration camp Gross Rosen to Mueller, who was the Chief of the Gestapo, dated the 23rd of October, 1941, referring to a previous oral conference with Mueller, and setting forth the names of 20 Soviet prisoners of war executed the previous day.
The second page -- I'm still referring to 1165 but not reading from it, because it has already been quoted from -- is a directive issued by Mueller on the 9th of November, 1941, to all Gestapo offices, in which he ordered that all diseased prisoners of war should be excluded from transports to concentration camps for execution, because five to ten percent of those destined for execution were arriving in the camps dead or halfdead.
I now offer Document 2542 -PS, U.S. Exhibit 489, 2542-PS is in the second volume. This is an affidavit of Kurt Lindow, a former Gestapo official, which was taken on the 30th of September, 1945, at Oberursel, Germany, in the course of an official military investigation by the United States Army, and I quote from that document from the beginning:
"I was Kriminaldirektor in Section IV of the RSHA" I call Your Honors' attention to the chart on the board that he was Director of Section IV and head of the Sub-section IV A 1 (continuing) "from the middle of 1942 until the middle of 1944.
I have the rank of SS-Sturmbannfuehrer.
"From 1941 I until the middle of 1943, there was attached to subsection IV A 1 (which is not shown on this chart, but has previously been described in the beginning) a special department that was headed by the Regierungsoberinspektor, later Regierungsautmann, and SS-Hauptsturmbannfuehrer Franz Koenigshaus. In this department were handled matters concerning prisoners of war. I learned from this department that instructions and orders by Reichsfuehrer Himmler, dating from 1941 and. 1942, existed, according to which captured Soviet "Russian political Commissars and Jewish soldiers were to be executed.