A.In the various trade agreement negotiations between Germany and other countries, there was also an exchange of agricultural products provided for, that is to say, the import of wheat, oils, fats, etc The Berlin NW 7 Agency dealt on the fringe also with the work of the Soya Plantation in the Southeastern European countries. For that reason, it was interested in the trade negotiations between Germany and the Balkan countries with respect to the import of these Soya products. The work with respect to these questions, that is to say, the presentation of questions and requests in that field, to the Berlin Reich Agencies responsible for that sphere, as for instance, the Reich Ministry of Food or the Reich agencies for oils, fats, wheat, etc., the maintenance of the liaison with these agencies, was my task.
Mr. von der Heyde, am I correct in understanding your explanation to mean that a Department of Berlin NW 7 or the nitrogen syndicate, would telephone you or send you a written request that they wanted to know this or that; "would you please find out from the Reich Ministry of Economics what this is all about and then inform us again"?
A.Yes, that it exactly how it was.
Q.That was your activity?
A.Yes, that was it.
Q.Now, Mr. von der Heyde, the Prosecution has mentioned a number of other activities and they designated you as the expert with reference to deferment questions. Did you have anything to do with deferment questions?
A.Yes, since 1939.
Q.And how did that come about?
A.The deferments in the Berlin NW 7 Agency, were handled by a colleague of mine up to that point, a certain Dr. Noack. When Dr. Noack, around the middle of 1938, was transferred to another department, his sphere of work in the WIPO was divided among the other experts. That is how the questions of general trade policies were assigned to Dr. Ter Harr, and I was assigned the deferments.
QAnd why particularly you?
A.I assume because I was the only member of the WIPO who had been a soldier in the first world war and who, in addition, was a Reserve Officer. That meant that I knew more atout these matters than my colleagues.
THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will rise for its morning recess.
(Tribunal in recess until 1100 hours.)
THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. DIX:Mr. President, just two minutes for a correction. This morning Mr. Sprecher made a statement for the record atout a conversation with three adult defense counsel over the weekend. Just for a correction: I know only adult and mature defense counsel, and besides I should like to say that it is only I who can speak for the defense counsel as a group, and in my absence my colleague Dr. Helte, so there must be some misunderstanding, which of course can happen.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. Very well, gentlemen.
DR. ROSPATT:Mr. President, I should like to ask to have the defendants Krauch and Jachne permitted to attend the Commission session this afternoon. Also, I ask that the defendant Gajewski be excused tomorrow morning to prepare for his case.
THE PRESIDENT:Those requests are granted, and may I add that the defendant Kuehne will be excused from attending court this afternoon if he wishes.
You may proceed, Dr. Hoffmanns BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, before the recess I asked you why you were in charge of deferment questions in NV 7. Would you please repeat your answer?
A.The question of deferments in Berlin MW 7 had, up to that time, been under the Wipo in the hands of my colleague Dr. Noack. When, in 1938, Dr. Noack was transferred to a different department of NW 7 his work was divided among the other members of the Wipo and I was given the deferments.
Q.And I believe you had already indicated briefly why you were put in charge of deferments.
A.I do not know exactly but I assumed at the time that this work was given to me because I was the only member of the Wipo who had served in the first World War and because I was a reserve officer and therefore was familiar with deferments.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, you say you were a reserve officer. Does that mean in the Wehrmacht?
A.Yes, of course.
Q.Now, what did you have to do in connection with deferments?
A.This was a question of having men released from their obligations for military service. In the beginning this meant to have them released from maneuvers and military training. The 1900 group to which I belonged was the last one which had been drafted in the first World War. The groups of 1901 and the following, since there was no general military service in COURT VI CASE VI Germany at that time, had not been trained.
Therefore, there was a gap in training from 1901 to 1917 when, in 1935, general military service was reintroduced in Germany. The consequence was that at first the Wehrmacht took the younger groups, 1917 and then 1918, for normal military service that is, service of one to two years. But, in addition to that, the groups from 1901 to 1916 which had not been trained were called up for a short term training. That was eight week courses.
Q.Now, Mr. von der Heyde, what did industry and NW 7 in this case what interest did NW 7 have in whether a certain employee was called up for maneuvers or not?
A.This piling up of the draft, because of the reintroduction of military service, meant that suddenly a large number of young men were withdrawn from business. That brought about a considerable degree of unrest because suddenly employees were either called up for training in short term courses or for maneuvers or for normal military service of one to two years. Deferment was now the only opportunity for business to secure the necessary people and keep them out of the Wehrmacht which we, by virtue of the laws on general military service, had authority over the drafting of young men.
Q.At this stage of deferments was a use of these men in the event of war discussed at all, or was it simply a putting off of this maneuvers and drafting?
A.At that time only the latter was the case. There was no question of drafting for the event of war at that time.
Q.When did that situation change?
A.As I recall, it changed only in the spring of 1939 after the events in Bohemia and Moravia when individual members of the reserve were called up. At the same time, training in the Wehrmacht had progressed to the point where the younger men were in large numbers receiving instructions from the Wehrmacht as to what they were to do, where they were to report, in case of mobilization.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, please explain very briefly what a Wehrpass is and to what extent they were issued in Germany after the military COURT VI CASE VI service law was passed?
A.According to the law and according to the practice in the Wehrmacht every person who was trained Was given a Wehrpass on which was recorded how he had been trained, to what branch of the armed service he belonged, what rank he had in the Wehrmacht, etc. All military entries, including vaccinations, control roll calls, etc, were always entered on this pass.
Q.Did a German who was subject to military service get this pass personally or was it at some office or what was done with it?
A.As far as I know, every man subject to Military service had such a pass and had to turn it over to the military district headquarters temporarily for certain entries, etc., but I am not certain about that.
Q.Was this military pass something secret?
A.No, not at all. That was the pass that every men subject to military service had to carry with him, giving all the personal data about him.
Q.And now you said earlier, Mr. von der Heyde, that a notice was sent out to the individual telling him where to report in the event of war, is that right?
A.Yes, After his training and any maneuvers with the Wehrmacht, each man had an entry made on his military pass indicating the branch of the armed forces or what military agency he had to report to in the event of war, a practice which, as far as I know, existed in all countries with a standing army.
Q.Was this connection between the entry on the military pass and the place of military service something that affected only the man himself and the Wehrmacht?
A.Yes.
Q.Now, what did you, in your dealing with deferments, have to do under these circumstances?
A.I had the personnel list of NW 7. I had to go through the records and discover which employees were in the age groups subject to military service. In Berlin NW 7 there were relatively many because the COURT VI CASE VI average ago in this office was relatively law.
The entries regarding the individual employees, as far as they belonged to these age groups, I pased on to the department chief, the superior of these men with the observation as to whether the man concerned had already been in the Wehrmacht, whether he would be called upon for manouvers, etc., and, on the other hand, I inquired of the department chief whether they could dispense with this man at any time. The department chiefs then in turn informed me of their wishes and if their wish was that the particular employee in their department was indispensable in the office and should be released from military service, then I made an application to the military authorities that this man be exempted from military service. That is, first of all exempted from training and maneuvers, etc. The Wehrmacht agency then consulted the chamber of commerce and industry and thereupon decided upon the case.
Q.Then, Mr. von der Heyde, you interfered in the relationship of the man and the military authorities and tried to have him exempted from maneuvers or from being drafted later?
A.Yes.
Q.Another question. Were these deferments identical with the so-called Mob-Plans?
A.No, those are two very different things. The mobilization plans were instructions to producing manufacturing firms what production they were to continue or were to be allowed to continue in the event of war. Deferments had nothing to do with that. They dealt only with exempting certain men from military service.
Q.Did you have anything to do with such mobilization plans?
A.No, and I believe I heard the expression only here.
Q.But you do know, and this has been brought up here before, that deferments were later called M-question. M-question means nothing but what you have just been describing as deferments.
A.Originally, when I took over deferments, I also took over the designation M-questions. At that time the expression meant exemptions from military service. Therefore, military question. Later, as I recall, during the war when I was a Absehrbeauftragter of Berlin NW 7 there were a few occasions in the Commercial Committee when certain counter-intelligence questions were discussed under the designation Mquestion. That happened in 1940-1941 because I was in charge of deferments and at the same time was Abwehrbeauftragter, counter-intelligence officers.
Q.In the time before the war how did you justify an application for deferment?
A.If a department chief wanted to have an employee in his department deferred, then I asked him to give me a very brief explanation of what the person concerned had to do in that department, what his position was, why his work was important and why he and no one else was the suitable person for this work and was indispensable. Then I added to this explanation an application to the military district headquarters which I sent through the chamber of commerce and industry which had to pass on the application to the military district headquarters.
The decision which I received from the military district headquarters I passed on to the department chief concerned.
Q.Did you yourself have any authority to make decisions in this work?
A.No, my work was what I have just described, a mediating activity.
Q.You spoke of the department chiefs to whom you passed on the decisions of the chamber of commerce and industry or the military authorities. Were the department chiefs interested in what deferments were arranged? Did they express any requests?
A.Yes. Every department chief was interested in keeping as many of his employees as possible. Therefore, he was interested in whether there were more or fewer people drafted from his department and, depending on circumstances, he requested deferments with a larger or smaller degree of urgency.
Q.In addition to exemptions from military service were there other sorts of exemptions involved in your work?
A.Yes, but these were not deferments. This was so-called securing. At that time not only were people taken out of business for military service, but they were also taken for civilian purposes for public duty. For example, for building the Reich highway, for building the West Wall, etc. These people too could be claimed. Applications could be made here too for exemption from this labor service as it was called. These applications were not sent to the Wehrmacht, but to the Labor Office, Otherwise the procedure was the same.
Q.Was there a certain general formality required which made such deferments easier in large numbers in big enterprises or could any firm make such applications for deferments?
A.No, there was one absolutely essential prerequisite before a firm could make successful applications for deferment and that was that this firm was declared war essential and vital, Kriegs und Lebenswichtig.
For this reason, as far as I know, at the beginning of 1938 or the middle of 1938, Berlin NW 7 was declared a so-called K & L enterprise at the request of the enterprise.
Q.Do you know what was necessary to become a K & L enterprise?
A.No, what the procedure was I cannot say. I only assume that some application was necessary to the chamber of commerce and industry or the military economy agency.
Q.Was it to the advantage of the enterprise to be declared a K & L enterprise?
A.Yes, of course, because deferment of personnel was impossible or had no prospect of success if it was not declared a K & L enterprise.
Q.Now, Mr. von der Heyde, this expression, war essential and vital, Kriegs und Lebenswichtig, is rather bombastic, if I may say so. Why was an enterprise like Berlin NW 7 vital and war essential? Do you have any idea?
A.This expression did not exist in 1938. When I took over this work these enterprises were called military economic enterprises, Wehrwirtschaftsbetriebe, and it was only later, I believe shortly after the outbreak of war, that this expression was changed to war essential and vital enterprises.
Q.The expression military economic enterprise -- did that have any significance? Did it mean anything with respect to official supervision?
A.At the moment when an enterprise was declared a military economic enterprise, the competent counter-intelligence office assumed control over it, and took an interest in the enterprise as regards secrecy.
Q.Before I go into the question of secrecy and the Absehrbeauftragter, I should first of all like to ask you how many persons were there in Berlin NW-7 whose deferments you had to work on.
A.I would estimate in Berlin NW-7 there were 200 to 250 men. The majority of them, I believe, were in the age in which they were subject to military service -- perhaps up to 200 of them. Q. In addition to that, did you have anything to do with deferments?
A.Yes, that was only later. Bscrase I worked on those questions in the Berlin office and consequently was in constant contact with the Wehrmacht agencies in Berlin who handled deferments, I usually learned of new regulations sooner than the other Farben enterprises--for instance the sales combines which were at Frankfurt, Leverkusen, and so forth. For these reasons the sales combines repeatedly inquired and asked us for advice about handling their deferments, and asked to be informed when news came out about new regulations to be issued in Berlin.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, just one more thing about the situation. Where was the military ministry?
A.That was in Berlin.
Q.That is right. And where did the orders of this ministry come first?
A.They came first to the subordinate agencies in Berlin and from there they went to subordinate agencies in the Reich.
Q.So that you actually got the regulations earlier than other agencies in the Reich?
A.Yes, and consequently I was able to talk to men in the OKW and the personnel office and ask them what intentions existed regarding calling up.
Q.And what were the practical results that in addition to the 250 or 300 employees of NW-7, you were also consulted by Farben offices which were not in Berlin?
A.In the spring of 1939 the consequence was that Dr. Krueger, for the first time, asked me to report to a commercial committee on this question of deferments, and thereby to inform the sales combines and to be available to help them if they had questions in this field.
Q.Who was Dr. Krueger?
A.Dr. Krueger was the deputy plant leader of Berlin NW-7 and was a member of the commercial committee.
Q.Was he your superior?
A.Yes, of course.
Q.Did Dr. Krueger know that you were in charge of deferments in Berlin NW-7?
A.Yes, he had appointed me.
Q.Did you have to go to meetings of the commercial committee if he asked you to?
A.Yes, he was my superior.
Q.And, Mr. von der Heyde, when was the first timo that you attended a meeting of the commercial committee?
A.According to the records which I have seen here I know now that it was in May 1939 -- 12 May 1939. That was the only time before the outbreak of war.
Q.Can you remember what you said there, relying on the exhibit submitted here by the Prosecution?
A.Not in detail. I know only that I reported on how deferments were to be carried out. For many sales combines that was an entirely new field, but I told about our experience in this field and I also told what I knew about future regulations.
Q.Were you present at the entire meeting of the commercial committee?
A.No. The first time and in subsequent times also the rule was that I was at the beginning of the agenda and then I was outside the agenda and reported briefly on deferments and then left the meeting since I was not a member of the committee.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, you said that when an enterprise was declared a military economic enterprise, the Abwehr also became interested in it. Now, when the Absehr became interested, who was appointed in such an enterprise. What was such a man called who received instructions from the Abwehr?
A.The Abwehr agency responsible for this enterprise demanded from the management that e. man be suggested for a Abwehr agent.
Q.Now, Mr. von der Heyde, can you briefly explain what, in your opinion, Abwehrbeauftragter was?
A.As the name indicates it was primarily designed to ward off enemy espionage and sabotage in Germany.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, you say enemy sabotage and espionage in Germany.
A.Well, I should say foreign.
Q.I am talking of the time before the war. Did you yourself become an Abwehrbeauftragter?
A.Yes, for Berlin NW-7.
Q.And how did that come about?
A.As far as I recall the Abwehr office, when Berlin NW-7 became a military economic enterprise, asked the management to appoint an Abwehrbeauftragter and at the suggestion of Dr. Krueger, Dr. Ilgner suggested me.
Q.Now, for what enterprise did you become Abwehrbeauftragter?
A.For Berlin NW-7.
Q.That was the same enterprise where you were in charge of deferments?
A.Yes.
Q.What did you personally have to do in Berlin NW-7 as Abwehrbeauftragter?
A.The Abwehrbeauftragter had to inform the employees of the enterprise about the necessity for secrecy, the proper treatment of secret documents, and so forth. He had to educate them and at the same time see that the official regulations regarding secrecy were observed.
Q.That was your work in connection with the employees?
A.Yes.
Q.Now, with whom did you have to deal in the Abwehr office?
A.I had to deal with the Berlin Abwehr office which had jurisdiction over Berlin NW-7, and there I had to deal with Department 3 W, for Abwehr Wirtschaft, economy.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, you said Abwehr 3. Were there others then -1 and 2?
A.The Abwehr organization of the Wehrmacht was divided into three departments -- Department 1 was the intelligence; Department 2 was the so-called counter-espionage; and Department 3 was the actual preventing of foreign espionage and sabotage - the Abwehr.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, when did you learn of this organization of the Abwehr intelligence--when you were appointed Abwehrbeauftragter or before that time?
A.I can imagine that at the time when I was given the appointment I was told about the organization, but actually I learned these details only in the course of time -- perhaps at the beginning of the war.
Q.To cone back to this again, what did Abwehr 3 mean? Your work in the plant -- is that correct?
A.That was the department to which I was responsible. I was responsible to the sub-department economy of Department 3 -- that is the department which was in charge of the actual Abwehr, that is secrecy within business.
Q.In this field that you are now describing, did you have to spend a great deal of time -- was there any concern lest there be espionage or obligations to secrecy in Berlin NW-7? Was that office interesting enough?
A.No. Abwehr and specifically secrecy questions, was originally intended for manufacturing enterprises -- that is factories. That existed much earlier -- I believe 1935 or 1936 -- in order to prevent patents and processes becoming available to foreign countries through foreign espionage. For commercial enterprises, defense economic enterprises, these questions had not come up hitherto. Consequently we had no experience and not many directives which applied to such enterprises. Consequently the work of an Abwehrbeauftragter in an enterprise such as Berlin NW 7 was a purely secondary task. I could not say exactly how much of my time was spent on these duties, but I venture to say that deferments, depending on the time, took up perhaps a fifth or a quarter of my time, and my duties as Abwehrbeauftragter added to this and made up a third of my work volume. The rest of my time was devoted to my own department.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, the Prosecution has introduced documents according to which you occasionally had something to do with counter-intelligence Departments 1 and 2, is that right?
A.Yes, that is right.
Q.How did that happen?
A.In about the middle of 1938 I was entrusted with the functions of an Abwehrbeauftragter at first on a temporary basis. Sometime after that my department chief, Dr. Gattineau, asked me to go to a Major Bloch in the OKW.
As far as I know that was because of a telephone call from Major Bloch to Dr. Gattineau. He had some specific question to discuss.
Q.Had you known this Major Bloch before that time?
A.No, I did not know him. From the conversation with Dr. Gattineau I gathered only that he was a personal acquaintance of Gattineau's. That he knew him.
Q.Was it something unusual for a Wehrmacht major to come to you?
A.No, I didn't consider it especially remarkable. It was obvious that the Abwehr office had passed on the suggestion for my appointement made by the firm to the OKW -- its superior agency, Department of Counterintelligence. This department was to be considered as a whole so that it was not only Department 3, but also Department 1 who must have learned of my name. Therefore I could notunderstand why Dr. Diekmann should distinguish in his affidavit between Abwehr 1 and Abwehr 3. Those were only subdivisions of one department for counter-intelligence Abwehr.
Q.When you were told that you were to report to this Major Bloch, did you know that this Major Bloch worked for 1,2, or 3 or did you think he was a major from the OKH or the OKW?
A.Only the latter. I knew nothing about his work.
Q.Now, when you went to see this Major Bloch and talked to him, what did he want?
A.What he had to discuss with me the first time or whether he wanted merely to meet me, I really cannot remember. Subsequently, that is in the second half of 1938 or the beginning of 1939, he called me again and asked me to inform him whenever a foreign representative or a foreign visitor came to Farben in Berlin.
Q.When you heard this assignment or order or request -- I don't know what you thought it was -- what did you think this was, a request or an order?
A.Well, I thought it was an assignment, "but I might say as an order from the agency which had made me Abwehrbeauftragter and to which I was obligated.
Q.And what did you do with this assignment which was given you the second half of 1938 -- am I right?
A.Yes. Since, as a member of the WIPO, I did not know what foreign visitors came to Berlin, I passed on this request of Major Bloch's to my department chief Gattineau and to Dr. Krueger.
Q.And what did you personally do in response to the request of of Major Bloch?
A.If, in the future, at the request of Dr. Krueger, I was informed by the department chiefs of the firm that certain foreign representatives were in Berlin and who they were, I passed on this information by telephone to Major Bloch. Major Bloch then occasionally expressed the wish that he might speak to these men and asked me to tell him so or he would get in touch directly by telephone with the persons concerned and arranged a meeting with them himself.
Q.Do you know whether there were very many men?
A.As I recall there was, from the second half of 1938 to the outbreak of the war, perhaps ten or twelve men.
Q.Do you know what was discussed there? I mean with a man whom Major Bloch asked to come to see him?
A.In general, I was not present at these interviews. I do remember, however, that once or twice I took men from Berlin NW-7 to see Major Bloch, to show them the way -- to show them how find him -- where his office was.
Q.And were you then present at the subsequent interviews?
A.No, only at the beginning. I introduced the gentlemen and then left.
Q.As Abwehrbeauftragter did you have any special position in the office?
A.Yes, as Abwehrbeauftragter I was not subordinate to my department chief but directly to the head of the enterprise or his deputy.
Q.Did that have any effect?
A.Insofar as I had closer contact with Dr.. Krueger in this way than night otherwise have been the case.
Q.Mr. von der Heyde, I should now like to go over to another subject and that is your connection with the SD. We do not deny that you had a certain connection for a certain period of time with the SD.
A.No.
Q.You said before that you were a member of the Reiter-SS, the SS Cavalry.
A.Yes.
Q.Now, this is not the same thing as the SD. That is something else.
A.That is right.
Q.And how did you get in touch with the SD?
Q.- And how did you get in touch with the SD?
A.- When in 1936 I came to Berlin temporarily, as I said, I remained a member of the Mannheim Reitersturm. I was put on leave status and in 1937 I did not have to report to any SS office in Berlin and did not come under the supervision of any Berlin office. Therefore, for more than a year, up to the end of 1937, I had no connection at all with the SS. At the and of 1937 the Personnel Department of the SD Main Office called me up and asked me to report there. I went to this Personnel Department and was asked first about my personal data, especially my connection with the SS Cavalry in Mannheim.
Q.- Mr. von der Heyde, did you investigate later and find out who had reported you to them and why you were called up?
A.- At the time, I could not understand why they had called me up but later I met a Regierungsrat, later Oberregierungsrat Bolk, in the same department where I worked. He was from the Ministry of Economics. He was not astonished to see me there but welcomed me with the words: "Well, here you are." From this I gathered that this Regierungsrat with whom I had rather frequent official contact had reported me to the SD Main Office because he knew from what I had said that I was a member of the SS in Mannheim.
Q.- When you went to this SD Office that time, where was it and what did you find when you got there?
A.- I was told the number of the building in the Wilhelmstrasse and the number of the room, too, to which I was to go. I found a man there who asked me these questions about my personal data and asked me whether I was willing to work for a newly created economy and industry department of the SB.
Q.- Mr. von der Heyde, you just said that you were told a house number in Wilhelmstrasse.
A.- Yes, Wilhelmstrasse.
Q.- Do you know where the notorious Reich Security Main Office was?
A.- In Prinz Albrecht Strasse.
Q.- Did you know enough to know there was a difference between Prinz Albrecht Strasse and the building in Wilhelmstrasse to which you were sent?
A.- Yes, of course.
Q.- You weren't frightened when you were told that you were to report to the SD Because you weren't sent to Prinz Albrecht Strasse but to a different street?
A.- No, I wasn't frightened at all. I didn't know what the SD meant at that time.
Q.- Now, please very briefly tell what suggestion was made to you?
A.- I was told that in the SD Main Office an Industry and Economy Department had been set up and that I was to get information for this department about conditions in the chemical industry. The new department wanted to get inside into the structure and organization of the chemical industry in Germany, about the figures and involvements among the various enterprises, the connection and production and so forth.
Q.- And what were you supposed to do?
A.- As an employee of Farben, I was to advise this new department whenever questions came up that had to be clarified. I was not to work for them regularly but I was to be called upon from time to time and asked for information.
Q.- Mr. von der Heyde, did you find a big agency in Wilhelmstrasse or did it make the impression of being something new?
A.- As I recall today, the office to which I reported there was a personnel office where I immediately got in touch with the man working in this industry and Economy Department -- or only later; I don't know. In any case, I was referred to the competent official; that was the head of the Industry Department, Dr. Eylers.