THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal 3 is again in session.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I have just heard that my Document Book No. 2 has turned up. I an very happy that that is so. I am beset with another difficulty which I should like to discuss with the court. If I understood the court marshal correctly, there will be some difficulties tomorrow and the day after. The defendants of the first trial, whom I have called for this trial in order to interrogate them regarding their affidavits, I ask the court to decide. The court marshal doubts whether we shall be permitted to bring these defendants down to this trial, if I understand him correctly. How is that to be done?
THE PRESIDENT: Apparently only by a miracle. This Tribunal will not presume to march into the other one and snatch some of their defendants away to be witnesses. I imagine some sort of an understanding will have to be reached with the Tribunal I so that these men can be used here as witnesses while the other Tribunal is in recess. How that can be done, I haven't the faintest idea. Judge Phillips has suggested that it might be possible that when testimony is being offered which does not affect the witness, the defendant in the other case, that he could be hurried down here to testify. I don't know whether this can be done or not. I'll have to confer with Judge Beals of Tribunal 1 to get his suggestion as to how it can be worked out.
MR. DENNEY: If your Honor please, in the first trial, and I believe in this one upstairs, there have been days when defendants individually on one occasion - I can remember in this trial, too - have been absent for the purposes of preparing their defense, and perhaps if a suggestion could be made to that effect. I could work out something with Mr. McHaney so that he would agree to refrain for a certain period. It wouldn't be any more than one session, I wouldn't think, for each of the various witnesses, so that we can get them down and get this trial concluded.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell us, Dr. Bergold, which defendants you have planned to call?
DR. BERGOLD: Rudolf Brandt, Hans Romberg, Wolfram Sievers, Oskar Schroeder, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, Georg August Weltz, and Siegfried Ruff.
Mr. President, I believe that I shall need at the most one hour for each witness and I think it would be much less than that. I wish to ask only one, two, or three questions of each witness. Only the witness Ruff will take slightly more time.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you give me the names again?
DR. BERGOLD: Rudolf Brandt, Hans Romberg, Wolfram Sievers, Oskar Schroeder, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, Georg August Weltz, and Siegfried Ruff.
THE PRESIDENT: I will confer with Judge Beals at the end of the session and we will do the best we can.
DR. BERGOLD: Thank you. I continue with my interrogation of the witness BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, a misunderstanding arose in one of my last questions that I directed to you. I asked you whether it would have been impossible for Milch to speak by long distance by phone to the Fuehrer without doing it via you. The translation was "to see the Fuehrer" instead of to speak to him by telephone. That, of course, is ridiculous. But is it not true that you were speaking, at that time, of telephonic communication?
A. Yes.
Q. I return now to the last question I asked you. Do you hold that Milch's statement as made in the Central Planning, that he had Russians shot or hanged, correct; or do you hold it to be an exaggerated expression or an error in the minutes?
A. That could be an error in the minutes or simply exaggeration.
Q. You do not know that he ever gave such an order?
A. No.
Q. Did he have the power of command to do so?
A. No.
Q. Did he have any power of command over prisoners of war camps?
A. No. not at all.
Q. Did he ever give orders to the SS?
A. Never.
Q. Did he have any power of command to the police -- the ordinary policy.
A. No, not there either.
Q. Did you know that Milch, regarding the shooting of English air officers who fled from the camp Sagan, that he was upset and characterized it as a Mistake?
A. I knew that.
Q. Do you know who drew up the program for the technical meetings?
A. They were drawn up by the technical offices of the G.L.
Q. Who was in charge -- the chairman of the technical office?
A. That was General Vorhof or General Gawlitz.
Q. Were transfers from the Luftwaffe to the other offices frequent during the war and what position did Milch take in these cases?
A. I knew that there were excesses of one sort or another and that Milch had nothing to do with it.
Q. Did he use a particular expression in this case?
A. Milch said, "In general; we shouldn't keep such people as that."
Q. Is it true that Goering ordered that he would take special measures if he needed a total representation for his whole office?
A. The defendant never had such total representation from Goering.
Q. Tell me, from what date on did the defendant have to do with armament during the war?
A. After Udet's death.
Q. Is it true that Udet's death occurred roughly around 17 November 1941?
A. I am hot too sure of the year, but that is probably correct.
Q. And when did Milch stop his activity as G.L., Herr Ordnance Master General?
A. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the year.
Q. Was it '44 or '45?
A. It could not have been '45; it must have been '44.
Q. What did Milch have to do with Four-Year Plan?
A. So far as I know, nothing.
Q. Was Sauckel and his offices subordinate to Milch?
A. No.
Q. Did Milch have anything to do with the recruitment or transportation or accommodations -- clothing and such things -- of foreign workers?
A. No.
A It could not have been '45; it must have been '44.
Q What did Milch have to do with Four-Year Plan?
A So far as I know, nothing.
Q Was Sauckel and his offices subordinate to Milch?
A No.
Q Did Milch have anything to do with tho recruitment or transportation or accommodations -- clothing and such things-of foreign workers?
A No.
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Q Could Milch give orders to the military officers or the civilian officers, in the occupied territories, that is?
A No.
Q What did Milch describe to you as the tasks of the Central Planning?
A The administration in the first order of raw materials.
Q Do you know what the manpower situation was in the aircraft industry? Was it sufficient or faulty?
A So far as I know, the manpower situation was insufficient.
Q Do you know that Milch made continuous efforts to keep his German workers ?
A Yes, he made efforts to get workers from the troops.
Q From the fighting troops?
A Yes.
Q Did he also make efforts to prevent inductions?
A That also.
Q Did you know or do you know whether or not Milch believed Sauckel's enormous statistical numbers?
A I heard that the Field Marshal did not believe those numbers.
Q Did he consider them too high or too low?
A I don't know that for sure, but at any rate the numbers were incorrect.
Q. Did Milch have punitive power in the Luftwaffe industry?
A. No.
Q. Over foreigners?
A. No.
Q. Over prisoners of war?
A. No.
Q. Over concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Foreign labor?
A. No.
Q. Do you know of the secret reports of Himmler to his SD offices about the treatment of foreign workers?
A. No, I did not read them.
Q. Do you know Rosenberg's reports regarding the situation in the Eastern territories?
A. I did not see them either.
Q. Did you see any reports or regulations regarding the treatment of foreign workers in Germany?
A. No, as far as I can recall.
Q. Did you work in close contact with Milch?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he express himself openly to you, on the whole?
A. I assume that he did.
Q. Did. you know that he made efforts that the foreign workers should be treated well?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you be more precise on this subject?
A. He spoke with Speer on this subject, as far as I know. His principle was that you should treat well workers who worked well.
Q. Did Milch make demands either of Speer or Sauckel that workers should be forced to come to Germany?
A. As far as I know, he did not.
Q. Would that in general have gone through your offices?
A. Yes, that would probably have had to go through me.
Q. Do you know whether Milch knew of the conditions in the recruitment and transportation of foreign workers?
A. Probably not.
Q. Tell me, what struggle did Milch carry on for an effective air armament and what did he call effective -- fighters or bombers?
A. Fighters.
Q. For that reason, did he have to struggle with anyone to achieve that, or were the higher offices in agreement on that?
A. No. Goering was not in agreement on that.
Q. Do you know whither Hitler was in agreement with him?
A. I don't know.
Q. Did you know that the defendant Milch, after ho had taken the office of GL was very strict in his direction of this office?
A. Yes.
Q. Did this strictness Serve tow rd the enslavement of foreign workers or to achieve the increase of the effectiveness of the German offices?
A. The latter.
Q. Do you know whether Milch used foreign workers or prisoners of war in munitions factories?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Do you know whether the term "munition factory" is identical with the term "armament factory", or is the latter term more extensive?
A. The latter is more extensive.
Q. Do armament factories include also the iron producing industry?
A. I can not answer this question in the affirmative, but I would assume.
Q. Do you know that there was considerable discussion about loafers and considerable excitement about them?
A. Yes, they were discussed.
Q. Did one understand under this term foreigners or native Germans?
A. Only native Germans.
Q. Did the defendant undertake anything against the loafers ?
A. No, he was not in a position to do so.
Q. I believe I am almost finished. Tell me, who determined that concentration camp inmates were to be used in the aircraft industry?
A. I cannot say. I assume that it was Speer.
Q. Could Milch give orders to military offices, the CKW, OKH, the OKL?
A. No.
Q. Our late friend, Goering, declared in an affidavit that the claiming of labor in the armament industry was so arranged that Milch made the requests and gave them to Spoor; that is, the requirements in the Air Ministry. Do you know anything about those requests for workers?
A. They were, perhaps, compiled in the Technical Office and then sent to Speer.
Q. Did they go directly through the defendant's office?
A. No, they wont only through the technical office.
Q. Do you know that the defendant at the beginning of 1943 advised Hitler to stop the war because it was lost?
A. I had herd so.
DR. BERGOLD: No further questions.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DENNEY:
Q. Witness, you went to work for the defendant in 1919?
A. Yes.
Q. And what were your duties with him?
A. Civilian aeronautics and the affairs of the German Lufthansa.
Q. Were you a civil servant?
A. I have boon a civil servant since 1896.
Q. Until when?
A. Until the end of the war.
Q. What was your salary in 1941?
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A. I cannot say; I can only say that at the conclusion I received the pay for group 1-A. wags seals 1927. That was 12,600 marks par annum.
Q. What kind of marks, blocked marks, Reichsmarks, travel marks?
A. The regular German marks.
Q. 12,600 marks a year?
A. Yes.
Q. Was your office adjoining the defendants?
A. Yes.
Q. Did anyone who entered his office have to come through your office?
A. Yes.
Q. The defendant could not got out of his office without going through your office?
A. Well, there was one other door, but it was locked and never used.
Q. Well, there was another way that ho could get out without going through your office?
A. Yes, but I would have noticed that anyway because I went into bis office very often.
Q. And if ho could got out through another way, maybe somebody could got in that way, too?
A. No, because I had the key to the door.
Q. He had to come and see you and got tho key if he wanted to go out? Is that right?
A. That would have been possible, and I would have given it to him.
Q. I assume that you would have.
A. Under no circumstances. But he is speaking of a person trying to get in, add we are talking about somebody trying to get out.
Q. Did you ever go to meetings of the Central Planning Board?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever go to the meetings of tho Jaegerstab?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever go on trips with the defendant?
A. No. Whenever the Fieldmarshal was away, I was at home.
Q. Did you overuses him outside of the office?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you go to his home?
A. Once when the Fieldmarshal was sick, I visited him.
Q. So you wore at his home once in 25 years approximately?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you over in tho army with him?
A. In the army? As a soldier? In 1896.
Q. No, I mean a little more recently than that -- world war 1 or the present war.
A. I have always been a soldier; that is, not an active soldier but an active member of the Wehrmacht who belonged to the Wehrmacht.
Q. Were you a member of the Party?
A. I was a Party member, yes.
Q. I believe you told Dr. Bergold that you used to pay tho defendant's dues for him.
A. Yes.
Q. And you were reimbursed, I assume, by the defendant for the payment?
A. Please don't understand it that way. I had a little sum from which I settled the defendant's obligations.
Q. Well, you had a cash box that the defendant left me money in, and when it was empty it was replenished.
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know a Dr. Staffer--S-T-E-F-F-E-R?
A. No, I never board of him.
Q. Did you over see a film shown in the Air Ministry, having to do with medical experiments which were performed?
A. No.
MR. DENNEY: No further questions.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions to the witness. He may be dismissed. I ask also that the Court rule whether or not he can go home to Darmstadt.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. What was Sauckel's rank in comparison with the defendant's rank?
A. Sauckel was a Reichsleiter. There can be no ready comparison between the two positions because the Fieldmarshal was a soldier and Sauckel was a civilian.
Q. Sauckel was a civilian; and who did ha got his authority from?
A. So far as I know, ho received his orders either from Goering or from Hitler.
Q. And you say that the defendant Milch did not have power to have anyone shot or killed?
A. No.
Q. What authority does a Fieldmarslal in the German army have?
A. This power lay with Goering. He signed all such verdicts and also reached all decisions on such matters.
Q. I understood you to say that it was impossible for Goering to give Milch the authority contained in tho Document NOKW-247, Document Bock No. 20. Page 99. Why couldn't Goering give Milch this power and authority?
A. Goering, did not give such authorizations.
Q. He had no power to delegate that authority to the defendant at all?
A. No; he head the power, but for egotistical reasons ho did not do it.
Q. Do you understand the document I was asking you about?
A. I assume that it's the document that I saw here Previously.
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Q. Well, now, do you say now that Georing did not give the defendant Milch the authority contained in that document?
A. So far as I remember I was asked if I had seen this authorization.
Q. You were asked by the counsel for the defendant, "Did Goering give Milch this authority contained in this document?" I understood you to say that it was impossible for him to do that.
A. I don't believe that he did, sir. It's my firm conviction that that did not take place. I did not see this authorization.
Q. Well, do you now say that he did not give him this authority contained in this document ?
A. That's what I wish to say; yes.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: All right.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I could perhaps explain this here -- the word "impossible" was used in connection with the date. The witness wished to say that in the year 1944 in June, the squabble between the defendant and Goering was so acute and had reached such a point that for this reason he thought it was impossible that Goering should have given the defendant this authorization. Otherwise, no further questions.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Just one question. Was Goering accustomed to putting up with people that he didn't like?
A. No; hardly ever.
Q. Why did he put up with Milch for so long?
A. Of course I can't say, but there were always difficulties.
Q. But those difficulties Goering cheese to endure, did he, in Milch's case?
A. Yes, he just put up with them.
Q. He kept him although he didn't like him?
A. That's what I should like to say; yes.
Q. That wasn't Goering's usual procedure, was it?
A. In general, no. In general, ho simply withdrew himself from those people that he didn't like.
Q. You mean he withdrew the people from him?
A. Yes; he pushed them on to some other office. At any rate, he got them out of his presence.
DR. BERGOLD: May the witness now go home to Darmstadt, or does the prosecution wish him further? I personally do not.
MR. DENNEY: No, Your Honor; I do not.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the witness is excused and is at liberty to do whatever he wishes.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I shall now take up the reading of a few documents. I turn first -- I should like to read from Document Book No. 1.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean the defense document book?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes. Defense Document Book No. 1. This is Document No. 221, a letter, Sievers' letter to Brandt, 26 August 1942, page 93, I believe, the next to last document in my book. Through an error on the part of my secretary, the list of my exhibits was not submitted to me and could I please know which was the last exhibit number that I put in?
JUDGE PHILLIPS: 27.
DR. BERGOLD: Then this is Exhibit No. 28. I shall now read it.
"Ahnerbe Reich business leader 26 August 1942, Berlin Dalehn SS Obersturmbannfuehrer. Dr R Brandt Personal Staff Reichsfuehrer SS Berlin SW 11 Prinz Albert Strasse 8.
"Dear Comrade Brandt, Dr Rascher writes to me: on the 14 7 the Reich fuehrer SS ordered me to send my report about the Low Pressure Chamber Experiments to a ObersturDibannfuehrer Brandt and to remind Dr Brandt at the same time that the Reichfuehrer SS had ordered to send this report together with an accompanying letter of the Reichsfuehrer SS to Milch the last mentioned letter stating that Milch should call Romberg and myself to his office so that we might report to him. I carried out this order on the 20 7. As I have not heard about the matter again to date and was also not asked to Milch or to General Staff doctor Hippke I assume that this report was been submitted without me. Could you ascertain that?--I do not share this suspicion of Raschers, for who but Rascher would report on this matter? I assume that you have sent this report to Milch but that Milch has not yet found the time to set a time for the report. Have you heard anything of this matter? Dr Rascher further gave me the approval for the publication of the purely scientific results. I shall ask him again in what form he would imagine this publication to appear, how comprising T think that we can then give our approval if the publication will be in the due form ... I am very truly yours, Heil Hitler, Siever."
DR. BERGOLD: I have submitted this document, your Honor, because in the Prosecution Book at Exhibit 95 --- correction, Exhibit 10$ -Document 222, 222 a letter of October 29th, 1942 was submitted, in which one Brandt, namely the Brandt who was a witness here, writes back to Siever stating that Himmler had not yet sent the report on the high altitude and freezing experiments to Milch. It is in Document Book No. 2 of the Prosecution, under the date of October 29th 1942. It appears that this is a report on the "Freezing Experiments" but this is erroneous.
This letter of October 29, 1942 is the supplemental letter to this letter here of the 26th of August. I read this letter. It is Exhibit 109. It is in $B document No. 222, page 161. It is page 141 of the English Document Book. I read: "To: SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer SIEVERS. It relates to the document I just read. "Berlin-Dahlen, Puecklerstrasse 16", and it reads further as follows: "Dear Comrade SIEVERS: SS Unterstrumsfuehrer RASCHER's supposition is not correct. The letter of the Reichsfuehrer SS by which he transmitted the report to General Field Marshal Milch was only signed and sent off a few days ago...I assume that the General Field Marshal will in the near future take the necessary steps on his own initiative and send a short note about it to the Reichfuehrer SS....I enclose a copy of the Reichfuehrer SS's letter dated 23 August 1942 for your information."
In other words, it is quite correct that the date of 29th of October can not be correct. Therefore I inspected the photostatic copy of this letter and it is my opinion that the number on this photostat copy is not a "10" for the tenth month, but an "8" for the eighth month:
AUGUST!
It was unclear in the document, but the whole contents show that 901 A document 222 was written in August, and that this report therefore is not a matter of freezing experiments but only a matter of high altitude, which was discussed in this writing of the 29th of August 1942.
Therefore this letter of the 29th of August was the only letter of the Reichfuehrer SS with a report on these high altitude experiments to Milch. There was not another report made in October.
I read now from my Document Book No. 2. This book has been given to the Court. I read the excerpt 7/43 from the Conference on the 26th and 27th of October 42, the Freezing Conference. This is Exhibit No. Ml 29. It is from page 39 of the German Document Book; it has no document number. It is immediately subsequent to Document No. 288. This report reads: "Restricted 188, Airforce Medicine, By the Secretary of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe". Report on session 7/43 Report on a scientific discussion on the 26-27 October 42 in Nuernberg, on medical questions of distress at sea called by the Inspector General of the Luftwaffe and presided over medical specialist Dr. Anthony.
From the Document No. 39, I read: "The warming up after freezing to the danger point" etc.
Your Honor, my secretary made a mistake here. The reports were made by the man Mr. Hippke conferred with, Weltz, apparently had not been written into the report. I ask that he please be so kind as to add. it. This is a report of Dr. Prof. Weltz: "We asked ourselves the question: which are the best physical conditions for the saving of persons who had been cooled to such an extent as being in danger of life. Experiments were carried on at our institute together with H I Wende and M Rodin and the experimental animals were rabbits, rats and guinea-pigs. In order to establish the negative or positive value of a particular treatment we first had to know their normal uninfluenced behaviour with respect to cooling.
Your Honors you see all this is concerned with animal experiments. I now come to the actual report that matters here. On page 4 of the original a lecture by Professor Dr E Holzlooner.