Himmler had further con ferences with Standartenfuehrer Becher, and Pecher had conferences with Dr. Kastner, and Eichmann wanted to bring those conferences to nought.
He wanted to have results - that is, to have as many Jews as possible to Auschwitz.
THE PRESIDENT: Need we go into all these conferences? Can't you take us on to other matters?
COL. BROOKHART: I didn't hear all of your question, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Need we have the details about those conferences?
COL. BROOKHART: The witness is inclined to be lengthy in his answers. That has been true in his pre-trial examination. I will try ...
THE PRESIDENT: You are examining *---*
COL. BROOKHART: Yes sir.
Q Was there any money involved in the meeting between Dr. Kastner and Eichmann?
Q How much?
A In the first conversations, Dr. Kastner gave Eichmann about three million pengos and the amounts mentioned later, I don't know exactly.
Q To whom did Dr. Kastner give this money and what became of it? was given to the deputy of the SD in Hungary and the security Police. thousand Jews being moved from Hungary -- were there any official communications sent to Berlin concerning these movements?
A Yes. For every transport that left a report was sent to Berlin. Eichmann, from time to time, gave comprehensive reports to the RSHA and the Chief of the Security Police. any, action was taken against them?
A Dr. Salasy took over the government in Hungary.
THE PRESIDENT: We have not yet heard, have we, what happened to those Jews in Hungary? If we have, I have missed it.
COL. BROOKHART: I will ask that question now, sir. 450 thousand?
Q Do you mean they were killed?
A Yes; with the exception of perhaps 25 or 30% who were used for purposes of work and I am referring to the conferences between Hoess and Eichmann, which took place at Budapest. them?
A In October, November 1944, about 30 (perhaps a few thousand more) were taken out and brought to Germany. They were to be used for defensive work in Vienna and to work on those fortifications. Mostly women were involved. foot - almost 200 kilometres. They were put into March Groups and followed specially-designated routes.
Their shelter and nutrition on this march was very bad. Most of them took sick and were exhausted. I had the mission from Eichmann to take over these groups at the German border and to bring them to the Gauleitung Lower Danube for purposes of work. In many cases the taking over of these workers was turned down by me, because the people were totally exhausted and in a very poor state, because of illness. Eichmann forces me to take over even these people and threatened that he would turn me over to Himmler, so that I would be turned over and put into a concentration camp if I were to make further political trouble, and through these matters, I was removed from Eichmann's department.
Danube and they died through exhaustion.
Belsen, and then into Switzerland. Those were Jews that had come from
Q. Summarizing the countries of Greece, Hungary and Slovakia, approxi SD in those countries, about which you have personal knowledge?
A. In Slovakia there were about sixty-six thousand. In Greece about sixty-four thousand.
In Hungary more than half a million.
Q. In the countries of Silesia and Bulgaria, about which you have some knowledge, how many Jews were thus affected?
A. In Bulgaria I know of about eight thousand. In Croatia I know only about three-thousand of a group were brought in the summer of '42
Q. Were meetings held of the specialist on the Jewish problem from reference earlier?
A. Yes. Eichmann had the habit every year to have a large meeting in Berlin of all the people who were working for him.
Those meetings were country had to report about the activities.
In the year of 1944, a meeting didn't take place, that I know, because at that time Eichmann was still in
Q. In connection with the Jews, about which you have personal knowledg how many were subject to the final solution; that is, the beginning of the year?
A. The exact number is very, very hard to determine. I should take to Auschwitz, only a few who were fit to work.
But the Jews from Slovakia percent.
It is very hard for me to give a total figure exactly.
Q. In meetings with the other specialists over the Jewish problem, total number of Jews killed under this program?
A. Eichmann personally always talked about at least four million Jews.
Sometimes he mentioned a figure of five million. My own personal the so-called final solution.
How many of those actually remained alive,
Q. When did you last see Eichmann?
A. I saw Eichmann last the end of February 1945 at Berlin. At that
Q. Had he been referring at that time to the number of Jews that had been killed?
A. Yes. He made a special point of that, and he said that he would -
COLONEL BROOKHART: The witness is available for any cross examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other prosecuting counsel wish to examine the witness?
MR. ROBERTS: I have no further questions to ask.
The PRESIDENT: Does the Soviet Prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
COLONEL POKROWSKI: At this stage no questions does the Soviet Union
THE PRESIDENT: Does the French Prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
(No response)
MR. SERVATIUS: Mr. Servatius speaking for the defendant Sauckel.
CROSS EXAMINATION - by MR. SERVATIUS:
Q. Now, you mentioned, of course, the labor by Jews, the taking of Jews from Slovakia at Auschwitz, where they were used for work.
Then later, fortification.
Do you know whether a man in charge, Chief of Labor, direction is in any way connected with these things?
A. So far as the Jews from Slovakia are concerned, Sauckel had nothing to do with these.
It was an internal matter for the inspector southeast wall fortification.
I can not count quickly enough to answer this question.
I do not know how far Sauckel was connected with this.
MR. SERVATIUS: I have not further questions to ask the witness.
BY DR. BABEL (Counsel for SS and SD) testimony.
Do you use these designations officially, or shall I participating?
Jewish measures were concerned, was it involved?
A The SD as an organization was not involved. Some of the organization, or were they members of the Gestapo?
Gestapo. Our orders came from the Gestapo.
Q From Amt IV. And in connection with this, one more question.
Someone who was an outsider, could he get any sense out of this labyrinth?
THE PRESIDENT: Do any others of the Defense Counsel wish to cross-examine this witness?
do you wish to re-examine the witness?
COLONEL AMEN: No further questions, your Lordship.
THE PRESIDENT: No further questions?
COLONEL AMEN: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. That will do.
(The witness was excused.)
COLONEL AMEN: It will take about ten minutes, sir, to get the next witness up.
I hadn't anticipated we would finish quite this quickly.
Do you still want me to get him up this afternoon?
THE PRESIDENT: Have you any other witnesses on these subjects?
COLONEL AMEN: Not on this subject, sir. I have two very was given this morning between the OKW, the OKH and the RSHA;
THE PRESIDENT: On what subject is the other witness?
COLONEL AMEN: Well, he is on the subject of identifying two of the defendants at one of the concentration camps.
I don't like
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Then you will call those two witnesses tomorrow?
COLONEL AMEN: Yes, your Lordship. I don't think either of
THE PRESIDENT: Then you will go on with the evidence against the High Command?
COLONEL AMEN: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(Whereupon at 17.00 hours the Hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 10.
00 hours on January 4th, 1946.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
COL. AMEN: I would like to call as a witness for the prosecution Walter Schellenberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Is your name Walter Schellenberg?
THE WITNESS SCHELLENBERG: My name is Walter Schellengerg.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take this oath: 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 in German).
COL. AMEN:
Q Where were you born?
Q How old are you?
Q You were a member of the NSDAP?
Q And of the SS?
A Yes; the SS also.
Q And of the Waffen SS?
Q And the SD?
Q What was the highest office you held?
A In the SS, SS Brigadifuehrer; in the Waffen SS, General Major.
Q You were chief of Amt VI?
A I was chief of Amt VI and Amt. Mil.
Q During what period of time? summation in June of 1942.
A Amt VI was the political secret service of the Reich and worked in the foreign countries.
cerning the use of Einsatz groups and Einsatzkommandos in the Russian campaign? then head of the Security Police and Generalquartiermeister General Wagner.
Q And who?
Q Did you attend those conferences?
A Yes. I kept the minutes of the final meeting. negotiations? Chief of the Security Police and the SD, and the Generalquartiermeister of the Army.
Q Was anyone else present during any of the negotiations? took part.
Q Didn't those negotiations result in the signing of an agreement?
Q Were you there when the written agreement was signed? signed.
Q By whom was this agreement signed? Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich, and Generalquartiermeister of the Army, General Wagner. is located today?
A No, that I cannot tell. I know nothing about, that. ment?
A Yes; to a large part I recollect that.
decree by the Fuehrer. It read as follows:
"For the safety of the fighting units before the campaign into protected.
Based on this thought, with every means resistance is to be broken.
To support the fighting power of the Army for this task, the Security Police and the Security Service are to be called in."
Q Do you recall anything else contained in that agreement?
Q What was said about that?
Commandos of the SD was discussed. Four different spheres of influence I remember as follows:
first, the front area; secondly, the area -- third, the rear Army area; and fourthly, thearea for the civil influence and command were set down distinctly.
In the front, or fighting troops.
That means they were exclusively under the jurisdiction of the diction, and these rules were to apply in the third zone; and in the be included under tactical and troop service regulations.
That meant the phrase "Truppendienstlich" was clarified, and by that we meant the reports that were to come in.
All these things were included.
agreement?
A Yes; I cannot remember any more.
COL. AMEN: If Your Honor please, that is all. THE PRESIDENT: Does the English prosecution have any questions to ask? SIR' DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No. THE PRESIDENT: Does the Russian prosecution have any questions to ask? COL. POKROVSKY: No. THE PRESIDENT: Does the French prosecution have any questions to ask?
(No response). THE PRESIDENT: Do the Defendants' counsel wish to ask any questions? BY DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner):
Q Is it correct that Dr. Kaltenbrunner was your superior?
A Dr. Kaltenbrunner was my immediate superior.
Q Until what time?
A From the 30th January of '43 until the end. National Socialism, as far as the Jewish treatment or question of the treatment of the Church? problems. What I know about him is the result of a few special personal observations.
Q Did you receive original orders of Kaltenbrunner's that covered executions of saboteurs or concentration camp people?
A No. All I know about it is the oral directives or orders that he sent to the Amt IV chief. These I know about, those orders. Himmler on everything concerning concentration camps, and that everything that concerned the executive power was to be taken away from him, and that all that was to remain with him was the SD, as a message service, and this message service he wanted to develop to get the necessary critical faculties, which were lacking?
A I do not know about any such agreement, and what I found out about facts later is to the contrary.
a negative answer. Which facts do you mean? to the Reichsfuehrer SS, that concentration camps were not to be evacuated. Kaltenbrunner, in direct contact with Hitler, circumvented this decree in order to appear in a better international light. applied to existing laws, or that would be concerned with international agreements?
A I would like to interpret it in the following manner: that if international personalities gave the binding word to allied powers not to have the concentration camps evacuated, it was binding according to human law.
Q That do you mean by evacuated? and to have them transposed to other parts of Germany.
Q That was your opinion? coincide with that. approaching enemy? brought on many people, and the people who were per se innocent?
A I didn't quite understand the question. Will you please repeat it? workers, might be the cause for many people -- let us say Jews -- suffering greatly even though these people were innocent?
thing. I was merely an information center.
Q Then your information center had no connection to such crimes?
Q Then in this point Kaltenbrunner would not be accused?
Q I asked in this point, and by that I meant your sector; your department.
Q But Kaltenbrunner was the Chief of the Amt section at the same time? amts, were subsidiary to it. One or two of them I headed, and they were Amt VI and Amt Mil, and these two offices had nothing to do with the executive power of the State Police.
THE PRESIDENT: What I understood you to say was that you were only in a branch which was an information center; is that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And that Kaltenbrunner was your immediate chief; is that right?
THE WITNESS: Kaltenbrunner was the chief of the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, he was the Chief, not only of your branch, but of the whole organization.
THE WITNESS: Yes, that's right.
DR. KAUFFMANN: I would like to question this witness later on. I would like to reserve the right to question this witness later on, after I talk with Kaltenbrunner. QUESTIONS BY DR. KUBUSCHOF (Counsel for Von Papen):
Q In the summer of '43, were you in Ankara; and did you at this time pay a visit to the German Embassy? foreign policy in various ways, and at that point mention that it was absolutely advisable to have better connections with the Holy See; while at that time, Ambassador von Papen said: "That is only advisable then, according to the demands that I have made repeatedly, that the church policy be revised completely, and the persecution of the churches will cease"? sense I talked with the then Ambassador, von Papen. QUESTIONS BY DR. THOM (Counsel for Rosenberg): the realm of the civil administration as in the Reich.
A I will repeat: I reproduced the agreement, but in the provisional areas of administration of the Reichskommissariat, the same regulations existed as far as the armed SD was concerned, and these applied in the same way as in the Reich.
Q Do you know through whom that was carried out? QUESTIONS BY DR. BABEL (Counsel for SS and SD): positions-
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state, for the purposes of the record, which organization you appear on behalf of?
DR. BABEL: I represent the organizations of the SS and SD.
Q (Continuing) In the RSHA, there were two departments, the Security Police and SD; how were these two departments connected, and what was the purpose of the SD?
Q Perhaps I can change the question and ask a concrete one: Was the SD used with the Einsatzgruppen in the East; in what scope, and with what tasks or missions were they charged? in the East by the Security Police which was the State Police; and the Criminal Police was there; and only supplementary units from the personnel of the SD were used.
Q How large were these supplementary contingents? How large was the SD?
A I believe that I can estimate the figures: Excluding female help, the State Police -- perhaps 40 to 45,000; the Criminal Police -- 15 to 20,000; SD in the interior, that is, Amt III with its organizational subsidiaries -- 2 to 2,500; and SD beyond Germany -- that is my Amt VI -about 400.
Q And how was the SD used in the East?
A I can't give you particulars, because that was a matter of the personal and civil administration, and it was under the chief of the Security Police. or was the female help included?
A Only male members. I excluded the female help.
3,000, but he thought the female help was included.
Q What was the hierarchy of the Waffen SS? responsible answer, because I was not concerned with that question.
A I was a member of the Waffen SS since January '45, according to higher orders, because I had large numbers of military men through Amt Mil, and I had to have military rank to cover my activities.
Q Do you know what happened in other cases, also?
DR. BABEL: Thank you. QUESTIONS BY COL. AMEN: clearance of any concentration camp, contrary to Himmler's wishes?
Q Will you tell the Tribunal about that?
A I cannot give you the exact date. I believe it was the beginning of April 1945. The son of President Muesi of Switzerland had brought his father into Switzerland, and had returned by auto himself to the concentration camp at Buchenwald; and he wanted to call for a Jewish family which I had liberated personally. He came to the camp while we were evacuating it at top speed, and under the worst possible circumstances. Three days before, I had discussed and promised the non-evacuation of the camp to his father, and this declaration was also meant for Eisenhower; and since he had gone to Switzerland in the meantime, he was doubly disappointed and surprised because the promise was not kept. Muesi Jr. came to me personally in my office; was deeply insulted and accused me bitterly. I couldn't understand the circumstances, and immediately contacted the secretary of Himmler and protested against these proceedings. The actual fact, as mentioned to me by Muesi Jr. was certified as correct, but it was unexplained since Himmler had not given these orders, or was not supposed to have given these orders, and a halt was ordered immediately by all means.
Himmler personally certified the same over the phone. I believe it was on the same day, after an official meeting, I informed Kaltenbrunner of the state of affairs, and relieved his mind about this renewed breach of international promises. At this point of the conversation I paused, and the Chief of the State Police, Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, entered into the conversation, and said that he, according to an order of Kaltenbrunner's, three days ago, had already begun the evacuation of the most important internees of the several camps.
Kaltenbrunner replied: "Yes, that is right.
A decree of the Fuehrer is involved, which was recently confirmed by him, that is, the Fuehrer, and all important internees, accord ing to that decree, were to be evacuated to the southern part of the Reich."
Then, in a cynical way, in dialect, he said to me: "Tell your old man"-that was Muesi, Sr. -- "there will still be enough left in the concentration camps, and you will have to be satisfied with that."
I believe that was on the 10th of April, 1945.
COL. AMEN: That is all, may it please the Tribunal. QUESTIONS BY THE TRIBUNAL (General Nikitchenko): the Security Police?
A That I cannot answer in one sentence. I believe-
Q What were the aims?
A The RSHA was a comprehensive grouping of the Security Police; that means State Police.
are at the disposal of the Court, but what were its functions?
A I just wanted, a minute ago, to explain its functions. Its functions were as follows: That was a matter of Security Police activity, Criminal Police activity, security measure, internally and in foreign countries; that is, in Germany and abroad.
Q Would it be correct to formulate the functions as follows: to suppress those whom the Nazi Party considered its enemies?
A No, I don't believe that. A statement of that type is too one-sided. took office? changed since the time that Kaltenbrunner took office as Chief of the Security Police?