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Affidavit concerning the order that captured Anglo-American commandos were to be turned over to the security police, questioned, and then shot

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Authors

Rudolf Mildner (Dr., police colonel; Security Police, Gestapo; Denmark, Vienna)

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Rudolf Mildner

Chief of the Gestapo at Katowice

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  • Born: 1902-07-10 (Janov) (country: Austria-Hungary)
  • Died: 2000-01-01
  • Country of citizenship: Austria; Nazi Germany
  • Occupation: jurist; police officer
  • Member of political party: Nazi Party
  • Member of: Schutzstaffel
  • Participant in: Pohl Trial (date: 1945-06-22; role: affiant)
  • Military rank: Standartenführer

Date: 27 July 1945

Defendants: Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel

Total Pages: 1

Language of Text: English

Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)

Evidence Code: PS-2374

HLSL Item No.: 451613

Notes:PS 2374 was entered for judicial notice without an exhibit number. Mildner states that the order was drawn up by Himmler and Keitel and issued by Kaltenbrunner in July or August 1944.

Trial Issues

Criminal organizations (Gestapo, Leadership Corps, Cabinet, SS, SA, SD, OK… Partisan fighters and commandos, operations against, and treatment of (IMT…

Document Summary

Staff Evidence Analyses

PS-2374: Statement re Execution of Allied Parachutists and Commandos

I, Dr. Rudolf Mildner, Colonel of the Police, make the following statement:
Probably in July or August of 1944 the commanders and inspectors of the Sipo and SD received an order by R.F. SS Himmler through the Chef of Sipo and SD Dr. Kaltenbrunner, with the contents that the members of all English-American commando groups should be turned over to the Sipo by the armed forces. The Sipo was to interrogate these men and then shoot them after the questioning. The shooting was to be made known to the armed forces in the communique saying that the commando force had been annihilated in battle.
The decree indicated that it had been drawn up by the R. F. SS Himmler and the supreme commander of the ground forces Keitel. Whether the decree had the signature of the R.F. SS Himmler or of the Chef of Sipo and SD Dr. Kaltenbrunner I don't remember. The decree was classified "top secret" [Geheime Reichssache]. It was to be destroyed immediately after reading. The decree probably also reached the inspectors through the following channels: Chef der Sipo and SD Dr. Kaltenbrunner to the head of section IV of the RSHA Gruppenfuehrer Mueller and from the commander of the Sipo and SD to the inspector. Whether the decree was also directed to the heads of the Stapo and the Kripo, originally the SD, is unknown to me today.
The decree must have gone through the head of the Ordnungspolizei to the Orpo as well as to Hoehere SS and Polizeifuehrer. It made no difference whether the member of the commando unit was in civilian clothes or in uniform.
After reading the statement of Criminal Commissioner Feller, I believe I can remember a decree by R. F. SS Himmler ordering all agents dropped by parachute in uniform or civilian clothes, to be treated like members of commando units.
/s/ Dr. Rudolf Mildner.
Subscribed and sworn to before me at Freising, Germany this 27th day of June 1945.
/s/
Albert G. Langeluttig
Lt. Colonel, Infantry Investigating Officer.
1

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