A. Yes, the order was passed on, and partly signed by me.
Q. By you?
A. Yes, it was passed on by me, upon orders.
MR. DENNEY: Your witness.
DR. BERGOLD: I have no further questions, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will remove the witness.
DR. BERGOLD: I would appreciate it if General Vorwald could be sent in. I would like to explain one thing here, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness Vorwald, please.
DR. BERGOLD: I examined the witness Reinecke yesterday, in the presence of representative of the prosecution--rather, I only saw him, with Mr. Kaufmann, and I did not ask him any further questions than what I had asked him here in this Tribunal. The whole thing only took five minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: This witness has been sworn heretofore. I advise the witness that any statements now made will be made under oath, under the oath administered when he was a witness previously. Do you understand?
THE WITNESS: Yes I do.
General Vorwald, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, I will submit to you a document, NOKW-352, Exhibit No 132. The speech of the Plenipotentiary General for Lacor, Sauckel, will be submitted to you and I want you to take a look at it. (Document handed to witness. ) Would you look up page number one of the speech, or number two, as it says here --
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, Exhibit 132 is the Soapini letter.
DR. BERGOLD: Oh, yes. 133 --excuse me.
Q. (Cont'd) I want you to take a look at Page number 11 and page number 12. Can you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. You will find there dashes in parentheses marked in red pencil.
A. Yes.
2287 (a)
Q Witness, in the office of the GL, was it customary that only Milch used a red pencil, or did other gentlemen in there also use a red pencil?
A No. I, for instance, myself, also used a red pencil. Other gentlemen also used a red pencil. The Field Marshal, most of the time, if he marked something, and if he made certain remarks to it, he resigned it by putting MI and also the date.
Q Thank you. Witness, were you present at the conference which took place on the 28th of October 1943 with Goering and were Speer and Sauckel also present?
A No, I was not there when they were there.
Q I shall come now to Exhibit No. -- just a moment, please. My other copies were not in order.
Witness; did you ever find cut at any place that Americans were to be employed at the firm of Dornier-Oberpfaffenhofen in June 1944?
A No.
Q Did Herr Milch ever tell you that he had ordered or agreed to having Americans work in the air armament?
A No, and I never heard of that, and I don't believe Americans were employed.
Q Witness, I shall come now to NOKW-418, Exhibit No. 136. This is a meeting with the GL. I would like to ask you now, generally speaking, with reference to this GL meeting, what kind of records were taken during the GL conferences?
A I already mentioned that fact last time. There was a verbatim record which was taken down by two female stenographers, and this verbatim record was then reviewed by an engineer of my office, namely, of the "C" Office, or rather, taken by him, and that record was completed which was to go to the various divisions of the offices, and the various places of the Ministry, and to all those people who were interested in it. In other words, the small record is the only one that went out, which had been regularly signed by myself and submitted to the Field Marshal.
Only this record had any value whatsoever on the outside. The verbatim records were kept by Herr Richter, who sent them to Mr. Milch, and therefore there were only two copies of every meeting.
Q. Witness, if you say in other words, those office records or executive records were signed by you, what do you mean by that? Can you explain why this happened?
A. Yes, in these long verbatim records there were so many things that were not considered very important, and what happened during the conversation which was not too important, or something which was not on the record, was struck out. The most important things or the most important conclusions that were reached during the meetings, and the directives that went out to the various offices, and whatever was important for the GL, we compiled that in a short record which contained either three or four pages.
Q. Witness, and you reviewed those records.
A. Yes, everytime, because most of the time they were technical things which were being discussed there, things perhaps that the planning office was interested in, which was our parallel office and they were controlled or reviewed by the chief of that branch, and I received it as the last person and I then sent it to the Field Marshal for his signature.
Q. In other words, one can say that records from the GL conference which were not signed by you and Milch had no value whatsoever, not an official value anyway?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, you said that these verbatim records were kept by Herr Richter in the ante-room of Mr. Milch?
A. Yes, I only went through one of these records myself.
Q. Was it entirely correct or did it contain mistakes?
A. This verbatim record was full of mistakes, and it is quite obvious because at such a meeting where perhaps thirty to fifty people were present, sometimes there were several interpolations, and two shorthand stenographers could not possibly follow.
Q. Witness, is there the possibility that the stenographers used their takes in order to make copies of those and give than to other people?
What were the orders the stenographers had?
A. The stenographers -- the Field Marshal's stenographers had strict orders that their takes, just as they are taken here in this Court, were to be given to Richter after they had been transcribed and also to turn in the transcript as well.
Q Did an order exist that the stenographers had to destroy their first takes?
A. The first takes always had to be destroyed.
Q. Were the stenographers sworn to do that?
A. Yes, the Field Marshal always pointed out that fact before the meeting started. I remember that.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Bergold, it isn't clear to me just what is meant by the first takes were destroyed. Here I understand that a "take" refers to a certain period of time, twenty minutes or so.
DR. BERGOLD: No, no, he means by that, that the take, or rather, the stenotypist writes down on a piece of paper whatever he has taken down, and then he transcribes it on the typewriter, and the paper, like this one right before you, that paper was to be destroyed. That was considered the first take, the original of the shorthand take.
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Yes, I see.
Q. Witness, did you have the duty of supervising the execution of the decisions made in the GL meetings?
A. Yes, because most of the things discussed were referring to my office itself, because they were technical meetings, the questions of raw material and laborers always appeared. However, most of the things dealt with development on Tuesday, sometimes on Friday or requisitioning, or sometimes on development things; in other words, all purely technical matters. That is the reason why I had been told by the Field Marshal to draw up the program for every meeting and to inform the participating agencies before the meeting; in other words, all the agencies in the Ministry and also the General Staff and the executive sections, etc.
Q. Witness, in that discussion of 5 May 1942, Document NOKW-480, Exhibit 136, Milch, with reference to the French prisoners of war, said 2291 (a) the following:
"Gablenz, I would appreciate it if you could contact Reinecke, with reference to the French. I want you to see to it that people, be placed against the wall and be shot in front of all the other employees when they refuse to work. In other words, I want you to contact the Reichsfuehrer SS and ask him to bring the whole matter to the Fuehrer's attention. This would be the correct moment to reach great aims by interfering, or else the other people will also act in the same way. I request that the sending of these people into special camps also be considered. Later on I will read to you how such a matter should be dealt with. In other words, I do not agree. You should make another suggestion. The first few days will not help any anyway."
A I do not understand the last thing.
Q Witness, I don't understand the last statement either. I am assuming first of all, that the record is correct. Do you know whether this order to Gablenz was ever actually carried out, and whether Gablenz talked to Reinecke, and whether he got in touch with the Reichsfuehrer SS?
A No, this matter would have had to come to my knowledge if such stops had been initiated, because during one of the following meetings this report would have had to be put before the Field Marshal, and apart from that Gablenz had no contact with Himmler and couldn't have any contact with him, because there wasn't any type of collaboration between those two. He certainly didn't talk to Reinecke either, because I would have heard of that, and during some meeting or other the report demanded by the Field Marshal would have had to be read out, but that didn't happen. I said before, the points for the program wore drafted by me even for other departments.
Q Witness, then how do you explain this statement?
A That's one of those outbursts of fury to which we were accustomed in the case of the Field Marshal. I recollect that during this and various other meetings dealing with the program in France, the program which was running on behalf of the Air Force and which was mentioned here the other day, wasn't turning out enough and the Field Marshal became furious, and these outbursts of fury were well known and we knew about them, and whatever was the outcome of that outburst couldn't be taken seriously.
We knew perfectly well he didn't mean it and that any of the things he said in such cases were impossible.
Q Witness, if he had such attacks of rage, could you see an outward sign, a physical sign.
A Yes, I always used to sit on his left--during the meetings he sat on my right--and I could see how his neck became red and how it was swelling. And I knew how he would burst out.
Q Witness, please, will you tell this Tribunal how the members of your Staff would previously act with regard to such outbursts? What -actually what do you know?
A Well, actually bets were made. It might sound funny to you now, but I have got to say so. Bets were made on whether he would break out with regard to the matter that come up for discussion.He was known for that, and all the people working under me, even from other departments, knew this. And they know that that was not to be taken too tragically. First of all, there was nothing you could do; if we had taken any steps in the sense of what he said and how these minutes wore pictured, then we certainly would have been ourselves shouted at by Himmler.
Q Witness, so that there were previous bets that such outbursts would occur?
A Yes; people from my department were always address in such a manner so they were told they would be put against the wall or hanged, I remember the Chief of the Engine Department, with whom the Field Marshal was angry, was being interrupted and on one occasion his collar burst and he said, "I am going to have you hanged."
Q So that such outbursts of rage against members of the Staff weren't normally taken down in the minutes.....?
A I don't believe they were, because, after all, all of us would stick together like tar on paper, and we would go through thick and thin with the Field Marshal. And we would never allow things like that to penetrate to the outside.
Q Yes, I see. Witness, during such conferences, only members from the GL were there?
A Yes, most of these conferences were of an internal nature. There were representatives of the main committees which had previously been called the Industrial Committee. They were considered by us as being members of our 2294a little circle, as we say.
Q. Witness, with reference to these outbursts of rage and the instructions and opinions of Milch--did you tell third persons about it?
A. No, every one of us never took any one of those things outside because such statements would have put our chief in a bad light outside.
Q. So that other people never heard of what Milch would be saying during such meetings?
A. No; a member of the general staff was there but he, too, was considered a member of the family, and knew the Field Marshal's habits.
Q. Witness, I am once again coming back to the wording of those minutes. I have read to you that he gave Gablenz instructions regarding some action taken regarding the s hooting of Frenchmen, and what is the meaning of the sentence: "I do, therefore, not agree. Make another stich, please."
Would the possibility exist that the first part of the sentence was wrongly taken down?
A. It is very possible because the way you have worded it to me, it doesn't make sense at all. I mean the second, with reference to the first.
Q. Thank you. Witness, I am turning to Document NOKW 407, Exhibit 137. I shall read it to you. It is from Gablenz. "Yesterday, the first of October, Best in France in the Arado works, is an explosive subject and nothing happened." Can you make yourself a picture? Can you draw a picture of the event at the works?
A. We didn't have much manufacturing going on in the Arado Works in France. I mentioned it the other day that we were having aircraft engines made in France for the YU-52 aircraft, but Arado wasn't being used for such manufacturing work. But the word "buoyant explosive" would bring me to the conclusion that perhaps we must have been concerned with a naval airport, and an Arado-96 aircraft which was a reconnaissance aircraft, a naval reconnaissance aircraft; and it is possible that such an aircraft is being made reference to, and that such aircraft station in a naval airport was the subject of a sabotage attempt; but, of course, I can't actually remember this individual case.
Q. Witness, Milch then says: "What happened in consequence: I want a aircraft; and it is possible that such an aircraft is being referred to, and that such an aircraft station in a naval airport was the subject of a sabotage attempt, but, of course, I can't actually remember this individual case.
Q. Witness, Milch then says: "What happened in consequence: I want a 2295a report of what happened.
How many people were shot and how many were hanged?"
A. I have got to laugh about that, about these expressions.
Q. It goes on to say, "If that character isn't discovered, then fifty men will be counted and I would suggest three or four hanged -whether they are guilty or not. There is only one method."
What do you consider the value of this statement? Would you say it was serious?
A. It was meant exactly the same way as those other things. We never listened anymore. After all; we made bets beforehand how many were going to hang today, and how many he was going to shoot...
Q. Is it known to you that a report of such shootings actually was received?
A. No, I mean, I said that the other day. He had no authority to decide life and death of foreign workers or prisoners of war. That power was only held by the Reichmarshal, and he had got it from the Fuehrer. He, himself, couldn't give any such instructions. prisoners of war weren't under his jurisdiction; foreign workers weren't under his jurisdiction; and our own workers weren't under his jurisdiction, from the point of view of discipline. It was the execution of some such statement which wasn't probable at all.
Q. But the Tribunal always believed that it might have become known and it might have incited other people to do things like this; isn't that possible?
A. Well, I mean, matters like that didn't get into the minutes, the record which went cut.
A. Witness, after all, records like that which I have always talked about -- these instructional records -- they ought to be available if the other type is there. But you wouldn't find a single one of those instances contained therein. Witness, I am turning to NOKW 406, Exhibit 138.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Did he say it didn't get into the minutes? We have the minutes right here. That is the way we found out.
DR. BERGOLD: No; I am talking about the executive records. The witness previously said there were two types of records; first of all, the verbatim, thick ones, and then the thing that was really decided and really ordered -
2296 a the executive, instructional records which were actually signed by the witness and by Milch.
And it is only those, the letter that contained the orders and it is those executive records of which not a single one has been submitted in this court. In order to check I have had all the records given to me. These are records that I have checked in one case and they amounted to two hundred and eighteen -- in one case. Whereas, the executive records only contained very few pages and what Your Honors have here are all verbatim minutes. You see that from the way names are listed and the way conversations are quoted; that is, the executive minutes only contained orders. Is that correct, witness?
A. Yes. The way this record would look is as follows: The heading on the left side; G L, Technical Department, and then CE, and then a number 11, and then the year, and then CB, if it was a material affair. Then followed participants, record of a meeting on such and such a day, and then followed the individual points, beginning with one. And, on the right-hand side, set out, who had to give what sort of instructions.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Witness, the defendant has gone on the stand in this case and admitted under oath that this very document you are talking about, that he initialed this document with pencil in his own handwriting; and you say that is not an official document.
A. I did not understand what minutes or records you are talking about, Your Honor.
Q. The minutes that Dr. Bergold has just examined you by, Prosecution's Exhibit 137.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, may I show one example to the witness?
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS: Just a minute; I haven't finished.
Q. Do you know that the defendant has gone upon the stand and testified under oath, after having looked at the back of this exhibit, that he in his own handwriting initialed it, put his initials upon the back of it as a meeting of this Central Planning Board; transcript of the record of the conference of the 27th of May, 1942. Do you know that?
A. No.
2297 a
Q. And now you tell the Tribunal that this is not an official record even though the defendant says he initialed it himself.
A. Just now you were talking about a report of the Central Planning Board, and, as far as those reports from the Central Planning Board are concerned, I don't know anything about them at all because I never participated in any of those meetings.
Q. That is just what he was asking you about?
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honors, I am always talking about the G L meetings.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is right. It is the G L meeting. And the defendant went upon the stand and testified that he initialed the cover of that report himself; and that he presided over the meeting. Now you tell the Tribunal that that is not an official document.
THE WITNESS: The report was official but what went out was, I described as only executive records, amounting to three to five pages. And the signature at the bottom, that of the Field Marshal, and then followed my initials.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Well, do you know why the defendant will initial a record and keep it in his own file, if it was not true?
A. You initial a lot of documents which come to our desk in spite of which they don't go on anywhere.
Q. In other words, it didn't amount to anything, and kept it because it was nothing?
A. Yes.
Q. All right.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, please have a look at this Protocol. On the title page you see M I. Does this mean that this record was now going to be published?
A. No; the Field Marshal had initialed it. That means he actually read the record. But this record in the form in which I have it here, in this particular shape, has never been sent to any department outside our own building. Only those minutes went out I mentioned and which I have referred to as executive records.
2298 a
Q. Witness, does this "Mi" mean that he actually read it?
A. No, just what the action taken in connection with this steonographic record was; and the answer of the Field Marshal, that is something I wouldn't tell you. But possibly he wrote a lot of "Mi's" on a lot of things; and that doesn't mean that he necessarily read them. It merely meant that Mr. Richter, Ministerial Counsellor Richter, could put them into the files.
DR. BERGOLD: Now, your Honors, I draw your attention to the testimony given by the defendant himself to the effect that he only put "Mi" on the document so that it would be put in the files but that he did not read it. Now, what we are really concerned with here is this.
Q. Witness, in these verbatim records, supposed executive orders, such as orders to Gablenz and Reinecke, are supposed to be contained. Everything that was being talked about, would that have been taken into the executive records you have talked about?
A. No.
Q. Was it only those that went into the executive orders?
A. What went into the executive records were those things which were to take effect on the outside, not any of the other things; and I believe that to this matter, this Gablenz affair where these Frenchmen talked to Reinecke, was such that General von Gablenz, either the same day or the following day, went to see the Field Marshal because they knew each other from the old days of the Lufthansa; and probably he talked him out of the whole business. I can't really imagine since I never received a report of the type which was demanded from Gablenz, not did I include any such report in the program.
Q. Witness, final orders were only those that went into the executive protocol?
A. Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: May I ask a question?
EXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Richter corrected the original transcript by boiling it down and eliminating the things that were of no value?