It may be in the supplementary folder which Mr. Blakesly delivered to you on Friday, 3012-PS, which was offered in part as Exhibit 28.
This follows Exhibit 019 PS. Do you have these reports signed by Christensen, the SS Major?
DR. BERGOLD: We have the documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Does this supplement the pages already in the document?
MR. DENNY: It does, your Honor, please.
THE PRESIDENT: In addition to it?
MR. DENNY: Yes, the page in the book has already been read in. Dr. Bergold consented at that time if I would consent to reading this until such time as we got the copy to him.
THE PRESIDENT: We will mark this page 131-A and B.
MR DENNY: Does the Secretary General have one which he could loan to Judge Mussmano, and I will furnish you with additional copies after the morning hearing.
This rill be 131-A and B, Your Honor, please. This is a memo of March 19, 1943, by one Christensen, an SS Major, and commanding officer. He speaks cf the SS measures which have been carried out recently. He says, "I deem it the task of the Security Police and of the Security service to discover all enemies of the Reich and fight against them in the interest of security, and in the zone of operations especially to guarantee the security of the army. Besides the annihilation of active opponents, all other elements who, by virtue of their opinions or their past, may appear active as enemies under favorable conditions, are to be eliminated through preventative measures. The Security Police carries out this task according to the general directives of the Fuhrer with all the required toughness. Energetic measures are especially necessary in territories endangered by the activity of hostile gangs. The competence of the Security Police within the zone of operations is based on Barbarossadecrees. I deem the measures of the Security Police, carried out on a considerable scale during recent times, necessary for the two following reasons:
"The situation at the front in my sector has become so serious that the population, partly influenced by Hungarians and Italians, who streamed back in chaotic condition, took openly position against us.
"The strong expeditions of hostile gangs, who came especially from the forest of Brvansk, were another reason. Besides that, other revolutionary groups, formed by the population, appeared suddenly in all districts. The providing of arms evidently provided had no difficulties at all. It would have been irresponsible, if we had observed this whole activity without acting against it. It is obvious that all such measures bring about some harshness. I want to take up the significant points of harsh measures:
1. The shooting of Hungarian Jews 2. The shooting of Agronoms 3. The shooting of children 4. The total burning down of villages 5. The "shooting, while trying to escape," of Security Service prisoners.
"Chief of Committment Group C confirmed once more the correctness of the measures taken, and expressed his recognition for the energetic actions.
"With regard to the current political situation, especially in the armament industry in the fatherland, the measures of the Security Police have to be subordinated to the greatest extent to the recruiting of labor for Germany. In the shortest possible time, the Ukraine has to put at the disposal of the armament industry 1 million workers, 500 of whom have to be sent from our territory daily.
"The work of the field groups has therefore to be changed.
"The following orders are given:
"1. Special treatment is to be limited to a minimum.
2. The listing of communist functionaries, activists and so on, is to take place by roster only for the time being, without arresting anybody. It is for instance, no longer feasible to arrest all the close relatives of a member of the communist party.
Although, members of the Komsomolz 128 a are to be arrested only, if they were active in a leading position.
"3. The activity of the labor offices, respective of recruiting commissions, is to be supported to the greatest extent possible. It will not be possible always to refrain from using force. During a conference with the Chief of the Labor Commitment Staffs, an agreement was reached stating that wherever prisoners can be released, they should be put at the disposal of the Commissioner of the Labor Office. When searching villages, when it has become necessary to burn down a village, the whole population will be put at the disposal of the Commissioner by force.
"4. As a rule, no more children will be shot.
"5. The reporting of hostile gangs as well as drives against them is not affected hereby. All drives against those hostile gangs can only take place after my approval has been obtained.
"6. The prisons have to be kept empty, as a rule. We have to be aware of the fact, that the Slave will interpret all soft treatment on our part as weakness and that they will act accordingly right away. If we limit our harsh measures of security police through above orders for the time being, that is only done for the following reason.
The most important thing is the recruiting of workers. No check of persons to be sent into the Reich will be made. No written certificates of political reliability check or similar things will be issued."
THE PRESIDENT: That disposition was made of 407?
MR. DENNY: 407, we do not wish to offer, your Honor.
The next one appears at page 133 of your Honors' document book, which is 290 PS. Do you have that, Dr. Bergold? I believe it is being brought to you now, Doctor. It should contain two pages. It should be 153 and 154 in your Honors' book. Do you have a copy now, Doctor?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, sir:
MR. DENNY: The second letter which concerns the command of an official in the activities of one Mueller. This is Exhibit 37. This is offered, your Honor, as Exhibit 37. It was given that number before, and was withdrawn. Document 290 P.S. is Exhibit No. 37.
Starting at the bottom of Page 133, close to the middle of the second paragraph in the second letter:
"But oven if Mueller had been present got the burning of houses in connection with the national conscription in Biloserka, this should by no means lead to the relief of Mueller from office. It is mentioned specifically in a directive of the Commissioner General in Lusk of 21 Sep. 1942 referring to the extreme urgency of the national conscription.
"Estates of those who refuse to work are to be burned, their relatives are to be arrested as hostages and to be brought to forced "labor camps. It is obvious that this decree was merely directive in nature and was not a binding ordor of the individual commissioner to decide according to his own discretion, when the interest of the conscription, such severe measures were to be applied.
"I request therefor to consider the case closed."
The next document, which is 1913 P.S. which was not offered on - 130 a Friday, and we now offer it as Exhibit 38-A. This is an agreement signed by Sauckel and Dr. Ley, dated Berlin, 20 September 1943.
"The following agreement has been concluded between the Plenipotentiary General for the Arbeitseinsatz, Gauleiter and Reich Governor SAUCKEL and the Reichsleiter of the German Labor Front, Reicherganisation leader Dr. LEY:
"1. The German Labor Front, on the basis of certain decrees which are mentioned has the solo and exclusive mission of caring for all foreign workers employed within the Reich. Excluded are the farm workers employed in the Reich food Administration.
"2. The Reichsleiter of the German Labor Front, Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. LEY in collaboration with the Plenipotentiary General for the Arboitseinsatz, Gauleiter SAUCKEL, will establish a 'central inspection' for the contiuous supervision of all measures concerning the care of the foreign workers mentioned under 1. This will have the designation.
"'Central inspection for the care of foreign workers'."
The next document, if Your Honors please, is on page 180, which is 3721-PS. We do not offer 31-PS; we offer 3721-PS as Prosecution Exhibit 41-A. It seems, Mr. Blakeslee reminds me, that on Saturday or Friday, Document No. 204-PS, which is No. 39 in evidence, there was a page missing in your Honors' book, and I believe that page is now-don't have it to be distributed -- Page 8. And that page is being typed and will be distributed this noon or this evening.
We come now to 3721-PS which the Prosecution has offered as Exhibit 41-A Interrogation. This is an interrogation of Fritz Sauckel which was conducted on 22 September 1945. I direct Your Honors' attention to page 188 and 189. In the German, that is about half way through. It occurs on page 9 of the English text. It starts out: "I believe this Central Planning was founded..."
"I believe this Central Planning was founded about three months after my taking over my office." -- Sauckel speaking concerning his position as Plenipotentiary for Labor--" This was founded on account of a law by the Fuehrer or just upon an agreement between the Fuehrer and Speer and Goering- I don't know. The leader and Chairman of this General Planning was Speer himself. How the Central Planning was founded to take the work from the Four-Year Plan to Speer, I think, because Goering was already ill at that tine and there were also difficulties about which I am not informed. Speer constantly took the job of the great changes in new production under his own direction. Steady members of this Central Planning were the State Secretary and Field Marshal. Milch, and the State Secretary Kcerner. These three were responsible for the decisions of the Control Planning. Orders for internal affairs, they went through this office if they were worked out by other people inside the office.
I was only called to this Central Planning if my mission was discussed, and the demands were put before me and my offices from Speer, FourYear plan, as well as from Milch. The Fuehrer himself told me to fulfill these demands without question. In other words, if Speer asked me for certain amount of workers, for instance, several thousand, I could not refuse him. The concerned minister had to give the number to the Central Planning and that was the only place where the number of workers could be discussed. In the Central Planning it was decided how many workers I was able to supply to these carious sections like Milch and Speer, agriculture, and so on. If it came to an argument these discussions were brought before the Fuehrer and he then decided upon them himself."
There is a quotation on Page 184 and 185 which is back on Page 5 and 7 of the English original, still talking about Exhibit No. 4l-A, Document 3721-PS, Sauckel interrogation of Spetember 22, 1945, paragraph starting out:
"Now, coming to the end of all this, I must say that in the year 1944, there was hardly any new workers left which could be used any more. The only thing was left to undertake certain concentration within the German war production itself. Himmler, himself, for reasons of his own initiative, concerned himself with that. He, therefore, used especially for the underground factories which were his own work more or less, the people from the concentration camps. Once he said to the Fuehrer when I was present that the workers from the concentration camps were the best ones. I was opposed to that and also talked to the Fuehrer about that because I saw in that disqualification of workers, the workers themselves and the atmosphere they were in.
"I say that under oath now that I never was concerned with any of these things, that is, the transferring of the people from the concentration camps to those places of work. I also don't know how this happened and I never had anything whatsoever to do with any of the administration of other kind of work which occurred there. I also don't know how this was done. All I know about this is that entrusted with this kind of work was an SS Obergruppen fuehrer Kammler, who was an engineer, and Obergrupponfuchrer Pohl, who was responsible for tho conscription, of the people from tho concentration camp to the places of work.
I am completely unable to tell you to what extent these people from the concentration camps were used. Also, I am not able to toll you under what conditions they were working. i, myself, was never interested in all these things and therefore I kept away from them a.s much as possible.
"I was never informed about anything of that nature either by Hitler, the Reichminister, or Goebbels, officially. All this work was done by the SS themselves. This was Office 6 of the SS. I can tell you that for sure because we don't know anything about the SS. I just reported as far as I can remember the things the way I would have reported them to the Fuehrer himself or Milch about the work, details of the work, from the beginning to the end. To give an overall picture, I therefore put down on paper seven points which I want to tell you now".
3719, If Your Honor please, is eliminated.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please the Tribunal, I would like to make a formal objection against the introduction of the exhibit number which was put in by tho Prosecution, namely, 41-A, for the following reason: the question here concerned is an interrogation of Mr. Sauckel who, due to the sentence which was passed against him by the first Tribunal was executed. I am of the opinion that such an interrogation should not be used as evidence here because due to the execution of Mr. Sauckel, I have no possibility whatsoever to ask him to appear here before the Tribunal as a witness and to cross-examine him in respect of this interrogation. In this statement, there are certain inaccuracies which cannot be corrected due to the fact that the person who made these statements, is dead. In the International Military Tribunal, the Tribunal often decided that statements made by witnesses and affidavits can only be introduced when there is the general possibility for the defense counsels to hoar those persons as witnesses, or to propose to the Prosecution, these people be brought in for cross-examination.
All this is no longer possible in the case of Sauckel, and I would like to ask the Tribunal to make a decision whether these statements can be used as evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, we ill hear your argument on the objection alter the short intermission.
(A recess was taken.)
THE PRESIDENT: I shall hear you, Mr. Denney, on the objection of Dr. Bergold.
MR. DENNEY: Your Honor, please, in reference to Dr. Bergold's objection to the offer of Prosecution's Exhibit No. 41-A in evidence, being document No. 3721-PS, the interrogation of Fritz Sauckel, dated 22 September 1945, as we understand it, it is based on the grounds that the subject of the interrogation, Fritz Sauckel, due to his death, is not available for cross examination, therefore Article 19 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which was adapted pursuant to the London agreement between the United States of America, originally, the government of the French Republic, the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the government of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the prosecution of major war criminals of Europe, provides as follows:
The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value.
Article 7, of ordinance number 7, promulgated by the office of Military Government of the United States for Germany, provides that the Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. They shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which they deem to have probative value. Interrupting for a moment, that is adopted in toto from Article 19 with the exception of the change of the word "they" to include the tribunals for the word "if" which should refer to the International Tribunal, Article 7 continues without limiting the foregoing general rules, the following shall be deemed admissible if they appear to the Tribunal to contain information of probative value relating to the charges: affidavits, depositions, interrogations, and other statements, diaries, letters, records, findings, statements, and judgments of the military tribunals, and the reviewing and confirming authorities of any of the United Nations, and copies of any document or other secondary evidence of the contents of any document, if the original is not readily available or cannot be produced without delay.
The Tribunal shall afford the opposing party such opportunity to question the authenticity, or probative value of such evidence as in the opinion of the Tribunal the ends of justice require.
Article 9 of the same ordinance No. 7 provides, the Tribunals shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge, but shall take judicial notice thereof. They shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations.
First, this document No. 3721-PS was admitted before the International Tribunal, and in addition I might add that it is purely within the power of the Tribunal to give such probative values as they deem a document merits. It is submitted in passing that we have offered in evidence in this case, and in other cases, statements equally important by men who are dead--Hitler, Himmler and many others.
I am informed by counsel for the Prosecution trying the case of the United States against Karl Brandt, that that Tribunal has ruled this morning in the case of an affidavit of one Dr. Ding. The case is not in point with this, because this is an interrogation, but it is submitted at least partially on the subject that this affidavit given by Ding was sworn to before an American army officer. Ding is now dead, and counsel for the defense objected to the admission; the Prosecution urged its admission on the grounds which have been urged here and the court admitted the document.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Denney, do you know whether this statement, which was introduced before the International Military Tribunal was the subject of cross examination?
MR. DENNEY: No, sir, I do not.
MR. DENNEY: I can look at the record and at least make an effort to determine and advise Your Honor.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: If it were the subject of inquiry before that Tribunal, it would seem that the objection made here by defense counsel would not have as much weight as if it had in merely as an uncommented upon document.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor please, the Prosecution is going to have, at later dates, other interrogations and other affidavits by people who are now no longer living. It is respectfully submitted that the test of admissibility is not made on the ground of opportunity for cross-examination based on article VII of Law Number 10; not for a moment denying the fact that Your Honors have the right to reject or admit whatever you see fit. However, the very nature of these proceedings are such that documents turn up, interrogations and affidavits, and it is impossible to bring the affiants or the interrogatee before the Court either because of physical difficulties or because of the fact that he is no longer living and is submitted that these are admissible and worth so much probative value as Your Honors see fit to give than.
THE PRESIDENT: It is true, Mr. Denney, that when this affidavit was admitted before the International Military Tribunal, Sauckel was still alive.
MR. DENNEY: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT; So there was a possibility of cross-examination or of repudiation possibly. That is not at this moment. This may have nothing to do with your other points, but it seems to me to dispose of the point that that has been admitted under different circumstances before another Tribunal.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: If there was any other repudiation, then certainly, Defense Counsel should bring that to our notice.
THE PRESIDENT: In view of the fact that the same point has been raised before Tribunal One. I think it would be well if this Tribunal reserves its decision on this objection for further consideration and also for a conference with Tribunal One so that we may be consistent and, we hope, correct.
MR. DENNEY: Would your Honors care to have a short memorandum on the sections involved for your own convenience?
THE PRESIDENT: We have those sections. We have access to them. We can pass this now.
MR. DENNEY: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: Was some disposition made of Document 031 PS?
MR. DENNEY: We do not intend to offer Document 031 PS, if Your Honor please.
The next document is Number L-159 which we offer as Prosecution's Exhibit Number 44. It appears on Page 230, in Your Honors. Document Book, I believe you have a copy of that Dr. Bergold?
DR. BERGOLD: Yes.
MR. DENNEY: This is a report dated May 15, 1945, presented by Mr. Barkley of the Congress of the United States relative to atrocities and other conditions in concentration camps in Germany. The Committee was requested by the General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower through the Chief of Staff General of the Army George C. Marshall to visit these camps.
I turn now to page 235, Page 6 of the English original and refer to the second paragraph under the heading "The Three Classes of Evidence Upon Which This Report is Based." It is two pages after the page where the Committee Members are listed.
"Three classes or kinds of evidence were presented to us. The first was visual inspection of the camps themselves, freshly freed of SS supervision by the American troops. We saw the barracks, the work places, the physical facilities for torture, degradation, and execution. We saw the victims, both dead and alive, the atrocities practiced at these camps. We saw the process of liquidation by starvation while it was still going on. We saw the indescribable filth and smelled the nauseating stench before it was cleaned up, and we saw a number of victims of this liquidation process actually die.
The second kind of evidence we obtained was the testimony of eye-witnesses among the prisoners themselves to these atrocities. Many of the prisoners had been in camps we visited as long as three to four years. Many others had spent long terms as prisoners in several other similar camps. While these prisoners included men from nearly all the -139-A. countries of central Europe, whose speech, whose station in life, and whose education and previous environment differed widely from one another, yet the testimony of all of these witnesses was substantially the same.
Directly and through interpreters we talked to prisoners who had seen the hangings and the beatings and who had themselves experienced the systematic process of starvation, corporal punishment, and human degradation.
"The third kind of evidence was what may be called the common knowledge of the camp, that is to say, evidence of things done in the camp which were not done publicly but which, nevertheless, all prisoners were aware of. This is similar to certain knowledge possessed by prisoners generally in legitimate institutions like State penitentiaries. These prisoners, from custom and experience, from the conversation with the guards and among themselves, and from a very plain and almost mathematical kind of circumstantial evidence, have accurate knowledge of certain things which they have not actually seen with their own eyes.
"The prisoners at the camps speak about these things as though they had actually seen them. It was the unanimous opinion of our committee after talking to hundreds of prisoners that this third kind of evidence was often as accurate and reliable as the two kinds of direct evidence above referred to. An example of this kind of evidence will be found in that part of our report dealing with the torture chamber at Buchenwald, where no one actually saw the strangulations perpetrated in this chamber, but where the circumstantial evidence of it was so complete and clear as to leave no doubt in the mind of anyone."
I am turning over to page 248, Part 3, the Conclusion. For the interpreters "While the above three camps which were visited by the joint committee differed in some details, they were all of the same general pattern and design and administered for the same purpose.
"At each cf these camps we found four general classifications of prisoners: First, political prisoners; second, habitual criminals; third, conscientious or religious objectors; fourth, persons who were imprisoned for failure to work.
"Although differing in size, they all carried into effect the same pattern of death by hard labor, starvation, hanging strangulation, 140 a disease, brutality, gas chambers, gallows, and filthy and unsanitary conditions, which meant inevitable death eventually to every imprisoned person.
"We found in each case, that the supervision of the camps was carried out by criminal tactics cf SS troops, who, in addition to their own brutality, assigned some of their punitive duties to the prisoners, especially the habitual criminals who had charge of the barracks in which all types of prisoners wore subject to their vicious and inhuman methods.
"We found that this entire program constituted a systematic form of torture, and death administer to intellectuals, political loaders, and all others who would not embrace and support the Nazi philosophy and program. We found the extent, devices, methods, and conditions of torture almost beyond the power of words to describe.
"We found, from all the evidence available, that in these craps the Jews and Russians and Poles wore treated with a greater degree of severity than other nationalities. No found that a colossal scheme of extermination was planned and put into effect against all those in occupied countries who refused to accept the principles of nazi-ism or who opposed the sadding of the Nazi yoke on their countries. The Nazi leadership in the pursuit of this policy found especially expedient the use of various forms of terrorism calculated to reduce the opposition and to render futile all efforts to threw off the yoke.
"The over-all pattern of the scheme varied but little. First, vast numbers of nationals of overrun countries were abducted and brought into Germany sometimes whole families, sometimes just the men. The number of these persons is variously estimated at between twelve and twenty million people. These poeple were forced to labor long; hours by their Nazi masters, and slight infractions they were place in concentration camps.
"Likewise, the intellegentsia, college professors, former army generals, business leaders, and professional men of the occupied countries, were taken captive and placed in these caps unless they agreed to spread the doctrines advocated by the Nazis.
"The treatment accorded to these prisoners in the concentration camps was generally as follows; They were herded together in some wooden barracks not large enough for one-tenth of their number.
