Take 25, page 1, 1630 to 1635, March 19, 1947, Hoxsie (Simha)-AK
DR. BERGOLD: I have a request, that we may finish tomorrow, I ask permission to call the witnesses Vorwald and Reinecke tomorrow at eleven to be heard in the matter of these G.L. meetings, and Reinccke to be heard in the matter whether the defendant ever either directly or indirectly spoke with him in connection with the treatment of French prisoners.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want these witnesses at eleven o'clock whether you have finished or not with your indirect examination of the defendant?
DR. BERGOLD: I believe that I shall be through with my redirect examination at eleven. Perhaps first of all only the witness Vorwald should be called.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, we had better wait until you have finished your examination of the defendant, and then we will have them brought to the courtroom. It may be in by eleven. We will wait until you have finished.
DR. BERGOLD: Thank you.
THE MARSHALL: This Tribunal is in recess until 0930 hours tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 20 March 1947, at 0230 hours.)
2223(A) Official transcript of the American Military Tribuinal II in the matter of the United States Of America, against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 20 March 1947.
Justice Toms presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
ERHARD MILCH -- Resumed REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I now come to Document NOKW 408, Exhibit 139, at the end you spoke about Friedrichshafen, and you say that the directors Schneider and Berger should be sent to a concentration camp as soon as they become obstructive. Who were Schneider and Berger? Were they German citizens?
A. Yes, they were. They were directors of Dornier.
Q. Witness, did you cause anything in that direction?
A. No.
Q. You had a special court, did you not?
A. Yes.
Q. Would that have been competent, to sentence people for sabotage?
A. Yes, it would.
Q. Did you order any proceeding?
A. No.
Q. Witness, Document No. KW 409, Exhibit 140: You are speaking again of the difficulties arising in the French industry, and you say that sabotage might occur. You then say "I would ask that I should be made the military commander in that case; then I would have fifty percent of the employees shot and the rest would be beaten." Did you apply to your superior officer at any time to become a military commander?
A. No.
Q. Witness, a number of documents have been offered dealing with the question of slackers. You say that you wished to see Himmler about that, or the SD, because of the treatment these people.
Did you at any time speak to Himmler about slackers?
A. No.
Q. Can you tell us on what days you saw Himmler during the war? The other day you gave us the whole figure, which was seven times. Can you give us the various days on which you saw him?
A. Yes, I can. In 1939 on the 2nd of May; in 1940, 15th of March; 1941, 17 March and 17 June.
Q. What did you discuss on those occasions?
A. In 1938 matters concerning personnel, people from the Ministry who had got into trouble with the police. Also on March 15 in 1940, on the 17th of March in 1941, I did not put down what I talked to him about; but on the 17th of June I again put down "Personal questions." In 1942 I didn't see him at all. In 1943 I saw him on the 12th of April with Speer.
Q. What did you discuss at that time?
A. I cannot say exactly what this was about. I didn't make a note of it at that time. That was very brief as far as I was concerned. I just greeted him and went away very quickly. On 20 November in 1943 I saw him for some time. That was in Breslau where Hitler was addressing cadets and young officers I had been ordered to go there and quite accidentally I happened to run into Himmler. After that we had a conference after that, alone; and I attempted to interest him in air defense problems in order to get him to use his influence on Hitler and Exploit that influence. In 1944 after I had resigned as GL and State Secretary, I saw him on the 23rd of June near Salzburg. The only problem there was to explain to him why I had resigned and what I intended doing now, that is to say, to withdraw myself from all my other tasks.
Q. In 1942, in other words, you didn't see him at all?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever see an SD officer about the question of slackers?
A. No.
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, when you resigned -- and when was it? 1944?
A. Yes, it was on the 20th of June, 1944.
Q. You resigned as GL but you retained your post as Inspector General?
A. Yes sir, that is correct,. That was a special order from Goering.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I now come to Exhibit 142, NOKW 416, again a conference was held in 1942 on the 26th of August, where once again the question of slackers is being discussed and a Herr Brueckner says that a labor camp had been established. You had told him that you wished to have more details about that in the next conference. Did Brueckner ever give you those details?
A. As far as I recall, no. He himself had nothing to do with that question.
Q. That is part of Vorwald's testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask another question, please.
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, at the time of your capture, what military rank did you hold? Were you still a Field Marshal?
A. Yes, I was. In Germany you stay a Field Marshall until you die. Field Marshals are not dismissed in Germany.
Q. Were you exercising any military authority at the time you were captured?
A. No, I was with out any assignment at all; and I was not Inspector General at the time either.
Q. You were simply Field Marshal without assignment and hold no other post?
A. That is correct.
Q. That had been true since you were relieved as Inspector General in January 1945?
A. Yes, indeed. In January, 1945.
Q. I meant January; I intended to say January.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, now I come to Exhibit 145, NOKW 288. I shall read a passage to you.
It is the passage where you are speaking of the stamping out of an uprising. A man called von der Heyde says; "These are lists of industrial plants which belong to the security decrees 1, 2, and 3, in order to decide whether they need anti-aircraft protection or not." Witness, does that mean protection against uprisings or protection against air-raids?
A Only against air-raids.
Q Then you reply to that question to protect industry against air-raid as follows: "I do not wish to refuse. The man who has submitted it is not very clever. The people wish to do this. I saw Himmler about this the other day; and I told him that his main task should be, to protect German industry if the foreign workers should make an uprising. That refers to the uprising of the Botokuden, which is a Negro tribe. Thereupon you speak about these people being shot by soldiers. Then you continue: "I told Himmler I shall join you. He said, "I wish to know where the most important factories are.' He refers quite generally to armament. I do not know whether he actually means this. I assume that the problem is the same one. Should we oppose this? After all, Speer will help him anyway."
Q Witness, I do not understand the context here. First you say that the people who arranged for anti-aircraft protection were not very clever; but then you could speak about Himmler and of uprisings. Then you say, "I do not know whether it is that; I assume that that is it." Witness, if you have talked to Himmler, about it, you should know, shouldn't you, what the problem is?
A I can't quite see any sense in this. I think this is a matter of several issues here. Himmler had nothing to do with antiaircraft protection and I cannot understand how all these things were mixed up here to that extent.
Q Did you see Himmler on 19 October 1943, and talk to him about uprisings?
A No. I never spoke to Himmler at all in October 1943.
Q You spoke to him in April.
A Yes, and then in November.
Q Did you discuss the question of an uprising with Speer in April.
A No.
Q But how can you say then that you saw him?
AAll I can imagine here is that, as it happened once or twice, that the records were wrongly kept. I have no recollection of the question that an 2228a uprising was expected at that time.
Q. Witness, but if you said these words, would it have been correct?
A. No, it's out of the question. I didn't see Himmler nor did I see Speer about this question.
Q. So if you used those words at the time they would have been wrong, wouldn't they?
A. Yes; but I am firmly convinced that I never said it.
Q. Witness, I now return once more to a document, which is Document NOKW? 416, Exhibit 36. I didn't have pent of this document yesterday. There is a report attached to this document by the GLA, the Planning Office of the GLA, dated 13 May. You initialed it -- yes. Czechs are mentioned here, Poles and Dutchmen. Now, you told us that you never knew anything about Dutchmen and Poles. How is it that you no longer know this? Did you see that sort of report only once, and did you not go into the details? Did your memory not retain it? How is it?
A. I have no recollection that Poles and Dutchmen worked for us. I did know generally speaking that Dutchmen and Poles were in Germany, but I never saw them in our armament industry. Of course, such reports I could not always remember.
Q. Witness, now I come to NOKW--347, which is Exhibit 147. Here the Italians are mentioned, prisoners of war. You said yesterday Mussolini wanted to send these Italians to Germany and that they were to work there. Was there any restriction attached to this where they worked?
A. Not that I know of; not that I know of.
Q. They were at your disposal and were in reservation?
A. In the first place they were to work for the armament, for the greater part of the armament in Italy was manufactured in Germany. Guns, ammunition, and aircraft, these were reserve departments, and aircraft, or course, of the GL, and they were built in Germany for the Italian Army. It had begun after the capitulation or even earlier. I had been to Rome, I believe that was at the end of -- I must look that up, it was at the end of 1942, from the 1st to the 5th of December and an agreement was made with the Italians that we in Germany would build a large part, or would have a large part of the Italian production, and the Italians were to build aircraft, and then I suggested they should limit themselves to the fighter type.
Q. And after the capitulation they would extend the manufacturing for Germany?
A. Yes. Owing to the events following the capitulation of Italy, the possibility to manufacture things in Italy had become very difficult, and then Germany had to supply much more.
Q. Now the question, for that reason Mussolini put these people at your disposal?
A. I assume that was his main reason.
Q. Witness, not I come to N0KW 449, Exhibit No. 148, that is the passage where you say that you had received reports that Poles or French had told the people you had better treat us well, or we will then see to it that you will be shot at once, and not tried first, Did you hear such statements also outside of your sphere, as it was stated?
A. Yes, I know for instance that some of the Russian servant girls in Germany told their employers that these employers treated them differently from what they had been told before.
DR. BERGOLD; Your Honor, on this occasion I want to present an affidavit that will be given Exhibit No. 57-Milch. It could not be translated because time was too short, and I wish to read it into the record.
I have one German copy which I have given to the interpreter, so he can follow more easily just what the affidavit contains.
2230-a "I, Ursula Milch, nee Kaiser.
Born 29 December 1913, in Hagen in Westphalia, at present in Nurnberg, Fuerther Str. 185, IV, had been told that it is an offense for me to give a false affidavit. I state on oath that my statement is true, and has been given to be submitted as evidence to the Military Tribunal No. 2, in the Palace of Justice, Nurnberg, Germany. My father was a protestant priest for over forty years in Hagen in Westphalia. During the war I and all my children were for a long time with my parents. At that time of the year we received an Ukrainian servant girl as a servant, and her name was Dussia. That girl was at first very reserved and hostile, but in the course of the years she became more and more attached to my family, and after the collapse in 1945 she protected our family to the best of her ability, and she gave us food. That girl, once we had won her confidence told us that she had been given orders to kill Germans during the uprising; that she would kill us first because we had been decent, and not torture us first. The same remark had been made quite independently to families known to us by other Russian girls; Dussia, received the same food as we did. She was allowed to go out and visit her Russian girl friends. Signed; Frau Ursula Milch. The above signature of Frau Ursula Milch, in Hagen, Westphalia, Florerstr. 223, at present Nurnberg, Fuertherstr. 185-IV, was given before Dr. Friederich Bergold, is hereby certified and testified by me, Nurnberg, 19 March 1947. Signed: Dr. Friederich Bergold."
Your Honor, this shows that there was a propaganda campaign, among the foreigners from abroad to threaten the Germans with such statements. The French did it, and the Poles and the Russians, and they did it in the very same way. I myself came across such a case, that the German population were fooling depressed about this, anyway, while they were suffering from the bombing and shelling. You must understand that the German people went through more difficulties than any other nation in the world. It is not purely a propaganda lie on the part of the German National Socialist Party, but these statements have really been made.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Bergold, do I understand you to say seriously that the German people were depressed because of the chatter of a little servant girl?
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, the German people had the feeling at the time that the war will be lost, and they were afraid of the foreigners everywhere who made these remarks. You must understand if you are being bombed night after night, and had to stay in cellars, and see so often that which we are recollecting, and you have fire all around you -- you were spared that experience in America; you are to be graceful to your creator for that. Your country's attitude is so weak that these statements excite you rather heavily.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Do you suppose that any one of these servant girls or anybody else that was brought into Germany had not suffered that harrowing experience which you are now so graphically describing? They know just as much as the Germans did about bombing and fire and collapse and destruction, did they not -- these Russians, the Ukranians, the Italians, the French, the Poles? They received it long before Germany did -- the English. How you can make that comparison is a little mysterious.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, you must take only what these people had the hope of once to be victorious, and our people were afraid to lose the war, and to face the eternal mystery. That is a great difference.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: There is no difference. The others had the same fear, and in fact, suffered even more. However, that is beside the issue.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, now I come to NOKW 413, Exhibit No. 150. This is the question of using and employing three-thousand concentration camp inmates. You told us yesterday that these people probably were employed on the airfield Rechlin. Is that the same airfield where the witness Koenig had been working?
A. I assume that from What I have heard so far, because constructions were being made there, and, as Koenig said, building workers from a concentration camp were working.
Q. Witness, is it true, as Koenig said, that you gave orders to give supplementary food rations to these concentration camp inmates?
A. Yes. The commander of the testing station came to see me and told me that he did not think that the food was sufficient. As the testing station had its own agricultural assignment, I ordered that sufficient food should be given from those agricultural products.
Q. Now, I come witness, to NOKW-272, Exhibit 151. This is the incident in Wernigerode, where you suggested that foreigners be given only half their food supplies and only supplementary rations if they worked. Witness, you told us yesterday that the simple food ration cards were given in Germany to people who did not do any work. How did you mean that? Did not work where?
A. Did not work in the industry. That is to say, the employees of my ministry were given these small rations, as were the rest of the population. I myself was mobile, and I could claim the bigger ration, but as I was in Berlin, it was quite impossible for me for reasons of my own moral attitude to claim the bigger rations there, so I was also given the smaller ration. I expected all other soldiers in the RLM to do the same so that there would be no discrimination among the masses of the population. Workers, on the other hand, in the industry, according to the heaviness of their work, were given supplementary rations of a larger or a smaller extent, as the case may be.
In this case, in the case of the Italian prisoners, for instance, some of whom did not wish to do any work, my suggestion was to give them the normal portion -- that is to say, the same as I had myself -and the supplementary rations for heavy work. That is to say, in the foundries, near Rautenbach where work was prescribed as very heavy because people worked in front of the hot stoves; this work was always regarded as being very heavy, and these people were given more than double rations compared with the normal al rations.
That was true only as long as they really did the work. If they did not, they could not claim more rations. I do not think that was inhumane, but a just proposition.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, throughout the war I myself received normal rations, although I worked ten hours a day. Intellectuals were not given more food in Germany. Intellectuals did not count for much in Germany at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Intellectuals don't win wars.
DR. BERGOLD: Too true, too true. I want to add, your Honors, that by order of the Control Council at present in Germany, a person is only given a food ration card as long as he works, unless the doctor certifies that he cannot do any work of in the case of a woman who has many children and must stay at home to look after them. Every time a German wants to have his ration card today, he must submit a certificate from the labor Office that he does do some work.
Q. Witness, I come now to NOKW-242, Exhibit 152. That is a letter from the Inspector of Armament of the Wehrkreis VI, dated Muenster, 13 October 1941. It says that Field Marshal Milch had told the Inspectorate that Director Berchert of the Bochum Union had been given a special task by Goering. You told us yesterday that at the time you were not the GL.
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any possibility to give such an order within the sphere of your position as Inspector General?
A. No.
Q. You said your name had been misused?
A. That is what I assume.
Q. Yesterday you said there were many examples. Can you give us one example, at least?
A. One day the commandant of an airfield, a man called von Gatow, buttonholed me. My aircraft were actually stationed there. He told me that an aircraft had landed from Greece and that there were things for me aboard, according to the statement made by a Ministerial Councillor who had been on board and who was in the Reich Air Ministry.
Every aircraft which landed from abroad was always supervised very carefully to find out whether they had food and merchandise for the black market aboard. It was forbidden to buy things abroad unless you did it through official channels who had special permits for this. I had never given orders of that sort, and first of all I ordered that the aircraft and all its crew should be arrested and that the legal officer of the airfield should interrogate them at once. It was shown then that this Ministerial Councillor had bought carpets in Greece for his own purposes, and in order to get away with it as far as customs were concerned, he simply misused my name. The crew, who wore ignorant of this, were released at once. The Ministerial Councillor was arrested and by courtmartial -- not my courtmartial but somebody else's -- was given two and a half years in prison because he had bought things abroad. A particularly incriminating circumstance was quoted as the fact that he had misused the name of a superior officer. I know ten or twenty cases of that sort.
Q. Thank you very much. Witness, I now come to NOKW-260, Exhibit 154. This is the decree by Goering of 4 September 1943 concerning the Planning Office with the Plenipotentiary for armament Tasks. Witness, I asked you once before whether that Planning Office, apart from preparing the meetings of the Central Planning Board, had other tasks?
A. A large number of tasks. The majority of its tasks were contained in the Speer Ministry in his capacity of Minister for Armament and also in his capacity as Plenipotentiary for Armaments in the Four Year Plan. Both these things were not connected with the Central Planning Board. This was only to save personnel and to avoid having to establish an office of its own.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I now submit another exhibit, Number 55. Unfortunately, it has not been translated into English, although it was supplied to the Translating Section on Monday. I shall submit it later on in English. I cannot read it all now. These are two charts concerning Speer's tasks, on the basis of his own decrees, according to Document 1510-PS:
also, a 2235 a chart showing Milch's tasks as GL; also a list of the collaboration between Speer and the GL and GL and the industry.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, these lists have been drawn up by you, have they not?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you say also that they are correct?
A. Yes, Perhaps I can repeat what has been said on the organization of the Speer Ministry. It comes exactly from the documents submitted by the Prosecution. What I have put down about the GL are the very same organizational parts which are put on the same basis as those of Speer, and the third is the difference in the question of collaboration between Speer and the GL. I can also testify on oath that it is correct in every detail.
DR. BERGOLD: I would ask permission, Your Honors, to submit the English translation later on. The translation section does not work very quickly.
Q. I shall now come to Exhibit 155, NOKW 180. I shall read from this a passage which the prosecution has not noted. In that conference Goering says that you suggest the best thing would be the Luftwaffe calls up these people, gives them leave, and from that moment onward nobody can interfere with their business. "Then these people are my soldiers and what I do as their C. in C., as how much leave I shall give them, is my business. Then this man is really safe for us. As soon as he would be called up again he puts on his blue coat and says, '"I have been a soldier for a long time and I am really here on leave.'" Is that in connection with your attempt to retain German workers in the air industry?
A. Oh, yes. That was the basis, for instance, for the 40,000 I talked about. I was very glad to have been able to persuade Goering to do this.
Q. Witness, then I come to page 6013 of the same document. You may recall that the prosecution put to you that Goering had demanded Italians should be beaten up, and you also recall that according to the records you answered, "I gave the order that they may be beaten if they don't work but I also permitted to have Italians who are caught doing sabotage, to be sentenced to death." You recall that the President, His Honor Judge Toms, put to you whether you told Goering lies here. I shall now ask you, witness, did you have a chance at all to order this sentence?
A. No.
Q. Did Goering know that he was the only man in the Luftwaffe who was in a position to order a death sentence?
A. Oh, yes, because he himself had given the order.
Q. Witness, why if Goering knew that did he not tell you too, "You are lying"?
A. I am convinced that it was not said like that. I do not recall this passage. Had I said it it would have been a lie and then Goering, in my view, would have told me at once, "Don't exaggerate.
You are in no position to do so. You have not the right to do so. "
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, may I remind you that a number of witnesses said here on oath, particularly General Roeder, that Goering by giving express orders reserved the right to give death sentences. That passage, therefore, must be wrong. In the course of this day after the recess I shall show through some other means how wrong the records were.
I assume that the court wishes now to take its recess?
THE PRESIDENT: We were rather late getting started, Dr. Bergold. I think we will run until eleven o'clock.
DR. BERGOLD: Very well, your Honor.
Q. Witness, I now come to the big document, Exhibit 134, NOKW 195. This is a conference with Goering on 28 October 1943. I am very glad that this document has been submitted because there a number of statements made by the defendant which are borne out. Witness, according to the record Goering says at first the Reichsmarshall is dealing with the question of the discrepancies in figures of assigned workers. He says he drew the Fuehrer's attention to this problem and noted the numbers of workers. "If I take out last month, the figure has remained the same although millions of persons, recently recruited workers, and women worker's, have been assigned to German economic life." The Fuehrer replied that he couldn't understand this at all. "I refer to what Field Marshall Milch reported to me about the industrial situation, what Milch and the Industrial Council reported to me." He then said, "In any case it is quite clear that the figures remain the same. Once before we looked for our Easter eggs in Berchtesgaden." By that he means the correct figures, and at that time we couldn't get a very clear result. He says that the Fuehrer thinks that with so many millions of workers the air armament would need at least five million workers, and under these circumstances should have at least five million. Speer points out that in the armament of the army they had started with 1.6 million and now they had 1.9 million. Milch replied that the question was when we began two years ago, how things were then and what we have today and how we stand, today.