THE PRESIDENT: That is quite true. You can impeach any witness but it must be on some important and/or material point, and not on some trivial point. Suppose, for example, the witness had said that he had left Paris at three o'clock in the afternoon, and that you wanted to bring fifty witnesses to say it was ten minutes after three, and it does not make any difference what time he did leave Paris. In other words, if you are going to impeach the witness to show he is not telling the truth, it must be with reference to some important or essential question in the case, and not on collateral or trivial points, otherwise, we could spread the questions out for months and months.
MR. DENNEY: If Your Honor please, this witness would be a rebuttal witness, and we only called him at this time to try to facilitate the proceedings, and. certainly Dr. Bergold entertains no idea that after we have rebuttal witnesses, he can again call witnesses to refute what they said. Ye proved through documents which were submitted that foreigners were brought forcibly into Germany, statements by this defendant made at meetings where he was present. A long parade of witnesses has come up, they come up here and testify to the excellent conditions that existed, that meals could be eaten off the floor, in answer to a question by His Honor Judge Musmanno, and by other witnesses that nothing ever happened; then this witness was brought, and we will produce another one who will testify to what did happen there. This is part of our case in reputtal, but if Dr. Bergold thinks he can parade another long queue in here to again substantiate what he is trying to make out from some of the witnesses who have been produced, I submit that is ridiculous.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will meet the situation when it arises, Mr. Denney. It has not arisen as yet.
DR. BERGOLD: May it please this Tribunal. I must submit the sharpest objections to Mr. Denney's statement. Mr. Denney brings one single witness, perhaps even two witnesses in here, and, Your Honors, in Germany this is called a diabolical introduction of evidence, and it is very easy in such an enormous organization to find certain discrepancies and even three or four witnesses cannot give the general picture of the situation. I myself, for instance, could tell you that my own son, who was a prisoner in France, was hearten by the Frenchmen until he bled. I could tell you in his transport comrades of his were killed, stoned, and killed by other means. Those are a few examples and a few excesses which cannot be generalized, and I am not the person to say that General De Gaulle is to be blamed for this. I know that if millions of people are working against each other certain excessive actions will occur; that among the millions of people there are always people who ere bad. That cannot be avoided. I could also tell of several other instances; however, if such witnesses are brought in, I must be given the opportunity to explain or to rebut these witnesses with other witnesses, in order to prove that this was not the general condition which prevailed there.
THE PRESIDENT: The thing you want to do is to bring in witnesses to prove that it was no offense for him to talk to fraeuleins in the camp. With that we are not concerned or interested. A witness testifying as to living conditions, cruelties, and mistreatment is another thing; that is different; but you were talking about, and the first thing that brought this all up here was your statement that you would bring in hundreds of witnesses to show that he was allowed to talk to fraeuleins.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, but may it please Your Honor, I am of the opinion that the witness's statement is not quite correct, and when I have to be able to prove that with regard to a point which he must know, or he should know that he did not make a correct statement of.
THE PRESIDENT: This is right from where we started. It is where we came in. All right, let's go ahead now - I mean, let's stop now and resume court tomorrow morning at 9.30 o'clock. The session will be heard in the regular court room, No. 581.
THE MARSHALL: This Tribunal is in recess until 0930 tomorrow morning in Courtroom No II, in room 581.
(Thereupon adjournment was taken to 0930 hours, 6 March 1947.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the Matter of the United States of America against Erhard Milch, defendant, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 6 March 1947, 0945-1630 hours, 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.
ROLAND FERRIER - - Continued CROSS EXAMINATION - - Resumed BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q Witness, you told us yesterday that you had been in a camp near this factory near Wiener Neustadt. When did you go into the camp?
A What camp are you speaking of, the camp where I went when I left Fishament?
Q Where you started as an expert worker.
A The first camp that I came into when I was a skilled worker was the camp which was about a hundred yards from the factory. I stayed in this camp for seven to eight days, and afterwards the camp burned.
Q Do you know when the other camp was built? I mean the one near the Henke-Works, to which you came later.
A We already had some knowledge of the existence of this camp before we got into the camp itself. We knew about it even when we arrived at WienerNeustadt. The Serbs and Croates had told us that such a camp existed, but, of course, we had no formal knowledge of it. We only knew about it when we actually came there, and they told us that the camp was about four to five miles from where our camp, the camp in which we were located at that time, was situated.
Q I infer now that this camp already existed before the first air raid.
A Yes, it existed already at that time. Besides that, this camp was under construction and was being enlarged all the time while I was down there.
Q You told us yesterday that the Germans from Wieder-Neustadt did not believe that these factories could be attacked by the American Airforce because they were outside the range of the Airforces.
A Yes, that is exact.
Q Witness, then I do not quite understand how you came to the conclusion which you made before this Tribunal yesterday. You said to this Tribunal yesterday that you were of the opinion that these camps were so close to the factories in order to protect the factories. If the camps already existed before the first attack, and if, in your opinion, the Germans thought that the factories would not be attacked, then how can you come to the conclusion that the camps, in spite of that fact, were erected there in order to protect the factories. Did anybody tell you that, or is that of your own thoughts?
A Well, I can explain that very easily. It is true that I said that the Germans in Wiener-Neustadt did not think that the American planes could attack the factories, but I am utterly convinced that the chiefs of the factories and the political chiefs in that region were perfectly aware of the fact that American planes could attack the factory and they took these measures.
Besides that, it is quite clear from the fact that after the first air raid also, and when this first camp in which I was had burned, the Germans continued to construct all the other camps around these factories.
Q Witness, you say that you are certain about it. You are convinced. Did you ever speak with one of these gentlemen, or is this just an assumption of yours?
Q Of course, I have not discussed the matter with any of the political chiefs. They would never have dared to talk with me about these things, but, first of all, we-- I and my comrades-- we reached that conclusion when we discussed the matter. Moreover, I very often discussed it with some of our German workshop managers, and they who in the beginning were strongly convinced Na zis, they themselves told me that in the first bombing, the first air raid at least, the lack of protection was the fault of the political chiefs because they could have certainly foreseen the fact that these plants could be attacked by American planes.
Q Those, also, are assumptions of these meisters. Those are all assumptions that you are presenting to us. I want you to tell us facts. What are the names of those meisters?
A First of all, there is Meister Beck, who was the workshop manager and who was my direct boss, and then there was an assistant workshop manager by the name of Berger. I cannot recall the name of the third.
It is quite obvious that we could only talk to our own factory managers, to our own workshop managers, because they were the only ones to confide in us, and they know that we would not go to the Gestapo and denounce them, but when we returned to our barracks later on we would always meet some comrades who would tell us that, "My workshop manager says the same thing," or, "He says this or that." It is quite obvious that we could not talk with any of the real bosses because we were considered second class people and even animals by these people, and they would never have come down to talk to us. It was below their dignity.
Q. Witness, you told us yesterday that the manager had saved you from the Gestapo. You stated that he was very nice to you. Is that correct?
A It is not correct. I said only that I supposed that he was the man who saved me, because he was the only man who did not have too great a hatred for the Frenchmen. It might have been he, but I cannot know that.
Besides that, I can tell you frankly that I did not know him at all. I know only from some of the French interpreters whom we had later on that he was the only man with whom you could talk and who was not too bad, as they say.
Q Meister Beck whom you just mentioned, is that the man whom told you something about the Gestapo surveillance?
A Yes, that is the same meister. Besides, he even saved me once because when the Italians came it was strictly prohibited for us to talk to them. Once an Italian worker passed and talked to me, and this Gestapo supervisor wanted to turn me in and have me put in prison, but Meister Beck defended me by saying that I was a worker whom he needed.
Q Who was that Gestapo supervisor?
A I could describe him very well, but I am afraid I don't know his name.
Q How many Gestapo supervisors did you notice in the factory?
A Personally I have seen four of them. In our work shop, in our own workshop I must say I know only definitely, definitely I know only about three myself, but there was a fourth one who had been pointed out to me by the Germans, that is by Meister Beck and the Deputy Meister Berger too. As the Germans said, I suppose he was one of the Gestapo men also, but I am not perfectly sure of that.
Q How many men were there in your work shop? What was the total number of Germans employed there?
A That changed a lot. At the beginning there wore forty, and it went up to two hundred at a certain time.
Q Do you know to which political party this Mr. Beck belonged to, did he ever tell you he was a Communist or something like that?
A Not him personally. As far as Beck is concerned he told me only that he had witnessed a lot of atrocities when the Anschluss took place, and he told me about some other persons, but I don't think that he personally was a Communist.
Q I see. What clothes, what kind of clothes were these Gestapo men wearing?
A They were in plain clothes.
Q How could you recognize the fact that they were Gestapo Agents then?
A That was very easy to see because the Germans, even those who were not very friendly with us, used to say when one of these guys came along, "Be careful. That is one of the Gestapo." They wouldn't dare to speak even between themselves as soon as one of them was around.
Q Tell me, witness, how many foreign workers were there at this factory, because you have told us yesterday that the total number of the workers in the factory was approximately twenty thousand, the total number, I mean, including everybody. How many of them were foreign laborers?
A I am afraid I couldn't give you exact figures, but I can say there were three hundred French prisoners of war, one hundred Belgian or Russian prisoners of war, seven hundred of our French civilian workers, fifteen hundred Croats and Serbians, and I can't give you the figures of the Czechoslovakians, Ukrainians or even of Italian workers we had.
Q These foreign laborers, were they all there at these camps?
A Yes, I think so. That is, I certainly think so, because these workers after the first air raid at least were lodged in the camps because they used to be in a church and then the barracks, and then they were put out of these places, and they put airplane motors in there.
Q Were there also Czech workers in the camp?
Yes, we had also Czechoslovakian workers in our camps and also women, most of all women.
Q You mentioned yesterday the fact that Dutch workers had been in a different factory. Which factory was it?
AAs far as I know that was at Regensburg, because I remember that when the bombing took place, the air raid on Regensburg and when destruction took place down there they had to send some people away to make place. They sent some to our factories too, and these people used to tell the Belgian workers, "Down there at Regensburg we have Belgian workers too, and also Dutch workers."
Q You mentioned the fact that you worked and you made holes in a pipe. Would you describe your work? Would you describe your work a little bit more precisely, the one where you had so much trouble?
JUDGE MUSMANNO: Dr. Bergold, there would be no intention on the part of the Tribunal to curtail you in any way in the fullest cross-examination of this witness on matters which are relevant and which you believe in the further elucidation of will help the cause of your client, but it escapes me how going into the greatest minutia on the type of holes he made in these pieces of metal is going to help you or the Tribunal or anyone in the disposition of the issue which we have before us to determine. Can you indicate why it is necessary to spend time now on hearing the sizes of the holes, the depth of them and so forth?
DR.BERGOLD: Yes, your Honor. Excuse me, but as Hr. Denney cross-examined him, he follows as we call it in Germany the cat around the cake, and in order to direct the witness to a point at which he will make assertions, where he will make a certain statement, that is the art of the cross-examination, the way I learned it from the Americans. With this question I had a purpose and I was following a purpose.
If I have to tell you the purpose of the question then, of course, I might as well renounce the question, because this witness has a certain definite line to follow, and I am sure this Tribunal will also recognize this line he is following, this tendency, and that is why I can't ask him the question directly. If I have to explain it to him or I have to explain it to the Tribunal, then I might as well renounce the question. Then I think I am restricted.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Very well. If the size of this hole, if it leads to some other bigger thing that you believe is relevant, you may proceed.
A I draw the attention of counsel for defense to the fact that if I am to describe the work I did there and the type of work all in detail, we probably will be at the same point at noon and perhaps later.
Q (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, in any case, the work which you had to do was a very easy one, wasn't it?
A Well, it all depends on what you call easy. I mean, it was not easy for us who had no knowledge at all of that work, that kind of work, and the best proof, I didn't succeed in getting the work done in the deadline the Germans gave me, and that is why I was brought to the Gestapo, and also because I also broke those famous wires, and it couldn't have been bad will, because there was always somebody behind me to beat me or to stir me up if I didn't do the work properly.
Q Witness, I can't help thinking or having the impression that you, at that time, committed sabotage. I'm not blaming you for that -- far from it, and far from believing that this was a crime. That was your free right and your good right, as a Frenchman, to commit sabotage, and it is my way of being above those things. However, the decisive point is that you made a remark yesterday which was of significance to me. You said that " after I did a poor job for two or three or four times, I received a supervisor behind me", and you said that "then it didn't go as easily as before." What didn't go as easily as before? That you could not complete it in any other way -- that sabotage, which you, as a Frenchman, certainly had the right to commit?
A I don't quite know what I said - "It wasn't quite so easy" - but, anyhow, if I said so, what I meant to say was: "Life was not quite so easy, and the working conditions were not quite so easy"; that is, it's quite obvious that if somebody is constantly behind you you cannot take a minute's rest, and it is pretty hard to work under these conditions.
Q Witness, you mentioned the fact yesterday that the 140 marks which you received as payment in the best times you had -- that they had to be used for food and also in order to pay for the billdts. What did you spend for food per day?
A. I never said that the whole amount -- the whole of this 140 marks were spent on food and lodgings. I said that I had debts to pay and that I owed quite an amount of money: that after I had paid what I owed, there was practically nothing left. As a matter of fact, there was nothing left because I had other money to pay which I still owed.
Q Witness, maybe you will be kind enough to answer my questions, as exactly as possible. I asked you, what did you spend for food per day?
Please answer this question.
A Well, we paid two and a half marks a week, or in some cases, even three to four marks per week, for our lodgings at the camp; and for our coffee in the morning, we paid half a mark; for our meal at noon, we used to pay between one mark and two marks fifty. That, of course, varied according to the meals, according to the hours we had to work, according to the C category of our factory, and other factors of this kind.
Q Yes, witness; and how about supper?
A Well, in the evening we used to use up whatever money or tickets we had, I remember that in the beginning we didn't even have enough money to honor our tickets --- to buy what we had on our tickets. Of course, we could sell things, but at the same time, we had already been there for six months and we couldn't go on selling forever. And I remember that all we had received for clothing at that time was a pair of wooden shoes.
Q You surely ate at the factory canteen, didn't you witness?
A There were two canteens, and meals were served at different times, according to where we worked, and I told the Tribunal already that the food in the factory, the quality of the food, always varied according to whether the factory had been bombed, or whether there had been new workers coming in; whether other workers had left, and so on.
Witness, I asked you -- and please try to answer my questions exactly. Yes, you ate at the factory canteen, together with the German workers? Yes or no?
A That is quite obvious, as we worked together with the German workers. It was quite impossible, if you worked together with the German workers in the same hall, not to eat together with them at the same meal table.
Q Very well; isn't it correct, then -- I am very well informed how this is done in Germany -- isn't it correct that this meal, and that the tickets were exactly defined so that neither you nor the German workers had to give more tickets, and that a certain number of tickets were fixed in advance for the meal; isn't that correct?
A If I may draw the attention of the defense counsel to another fact that is, of course these tickets were issued in advance, at least until the first air raid. Then afterwards it wouldn't be so regular. Sometimes it would be for a week, sometimes for two weeks, the tickets would be honored or they would not be honored, and besides that, there's something else. The German workers had additional tickets, and they could go to the war canteen and buy some sausage or something else -- so there was the difference.
Q But if you only use a certain number of tickets for your meals at noon then I'm sure that you have a certain number of tickets left for the evening.
1544a meal.
Your statement cannot be correct.
A What is the sense -- exactly the sense -- of your question?
Q It was just something I wanted to find out. I just want to consolidate this.
A But you forget that the tickets used for the noon meal, for lunch, could not be used for the evening meal; that is, if you couldn't use up your tickets at lunch, they were useless, they were void.
Q It's something entirely different. You received general meal tickets, like every other German, didn't you?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q Okay; thank you.
A That is quite correct, but what I was arguing about is the additional cards for the Germans. We had general cards, meal tickets, which were absolutely insufficient, whereas the Germans had additional meal tickets which sometimes would be ten or twenty times our rations.
Q Witness, you are under oath, and what you stated right now -- what you assert now -- you cannot possibly maintain that under oath. There were no additional cards which were ten times or twenty times as much greater than yours. There was no such thing in all Germany, and we -- I lived here as a German, and I also had the same cards that you had. I did not have any additional cards.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, you're not the witness. You have no right to offer your testimony against his, and to state facts that you claim to know which are different from the facts that he states. I think you're beginning to suffer a little bit from high blood pressure.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, your Honor; that is quite correct. But I have to tell him that there were no such cards ten times as big as ours, or twenty times bigger; In Germany, there was no such thing.
THE PRESIDENT: You don't have to tell him that. You're not the witness, and you're not under oath. You can get the answers from the witness, but don't tell him what you claim to know.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes, forgive me, your Honors, but a fact which was generally known -- I have to out this fact before the witness. I want to ask him if he actually will stick to this statement of his.
THE PRESIDENT: You may ask the witness whether he knows what you state to be the fact. But you didn't ask him anything. You were telling him something, and that is not your province.
Q. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, do you know that this additional card amounted to ten or twenty times the amount of yours?
A. At least as far as my workshop is concerned I can say that our work managers and the assistant work managers, at least, had ration cards which contained ten times as much food as mine. Incidentally, it is easy to see they all have the zero behind the quantities I had on my card, or else they had another system; that was that people would get several ration cards and the same person would get five, six, seven or eight of these cards.
Q. Witness, did you actually see that?
A. Of course I have seen that, because that enabled them to throw sausages away which we were obliged to eat afterwards very often.
Q. What could they throw away?
A. Well, that was what they called the Wurst; that is, the German sausage, because whenever it would arrive and would be three or four days old, then they wouldn't like it any more so they either would throw it away or just throw it outside, and as of course we had to purchase our food on the black market and we couldn't effort it, we would tell them -- don't throw it away, or we even had to get it after they had thrown it away. Of course, we didn't like that very much because, after all, we had our pride too, but they could purchase whatever they wanted. They had tickets enough and they had money enough.
DR. BERGOLD: I would like to tell this Tribunal that I can bring witnesses, but then, of course, the trials would have to become much longer -- I could produce witnesses who could actually testify to how the food was in Germany; that what the witness said was not possible in Germany.
Q. Witness, I have one last question to put to you. Yesterday you mentioned that you, together with the transport of twelve hundred men, arrived in Germany from. France. Is the number correct?
A. This figure is correct; that is, of course, you must make allowance for a possible difference of a hundred persons, but I referred to a figure of persons who left the Southeast for Paris, and I got that figure when I came back, on the strength of the number of persons that left the Southeast at that time to be directed towards Paris. I cannot tell you what was the number of persons who left Paris for Strassoff then.
Q. Witness, can you remember the approximate number of them? There must have been several hundreds.
A. There were several hundreds; at least, more than five hundred.
Q Very well. Now, do you know to which factories these other comrades of yours came?
A I remember that the comrades who came with me to Strassoff got some secondary jobs in the hotels with hairdressers, at the butchers, as mechanics, gardeners, and even servants of some high ranking German personalities. The others who came to Fishamend were later on sent to some other factory near Wiener Neustadt or to a metal factory near Vienna, or to a locomotive factory near Wiener Neustadt, and I know that the food down there was even worse than ours. I would like to say that if the defense counsel has the intention of bringing witnesses to show how the food was, then I can bring tomorrow twenty thousand witnesses who can testify that the situation was even worse than I have indicated here.
DR. BERGOLD: Witness, I know the report of the French Government, and this report of the French Government will be introduced here, and it says something entirely different there, and this concludes my examination.
MR. DENNEY: No further questions, your Honors.
THE RESIDENT: This witness may be excused.
(Witness excused.)
MR. DENNEY: I have another witness. I wonder if we might adjourn for a few minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: You wish to talk to him before you put him on?
MR. DENNEY: Yes, just for a moment.
THE PRESIDENT: How long do you want, Mr. Denney?
MR. DENNEY: If we could just have about ten minutes?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let's say we will resume at 11:00 o'clock and combine the consultation with the recess. We will resume at 11:00 o'clock.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is in recess until 11:00 o'clock.
(Recess was taken.)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal No.2 is again in session.
MR. DENNEY: If your Honor please, we would like at this time to call the second prosecution rebuttal witness, the witness Paul LeFriec. It is spelled L-E-F-R-I-E-C.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshall will bring the witness to the stand, please.
PAUL LE FRIEC, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q Witness, you will repeat after me. I swear to speak without hate or fear, to say the truth, all the truth and only the truth. You will now raise your right hand and say, "I swear."
(The witness repeated the oath)
JUDGE MUSMANNO: You may be seated.
MR. DENNEY: Before proceeding with this witness, just so there may be no question about it, I would like to say for the record that the only reason that we have put these witnesses on the stand at this time is to facilitate the proceedings, because of the fact that the witness is not here for the counsel for the defense. He has had a request in for some time, apparently he had been on his way from Muenster in the British Zone for the past several days; in the normal course of events, of course, the witness Ferrier and the witness Le Friec would have been called as rebuttal witnesses at the conclusion of the case for the defense.
BY MR. DENNEY:
Q Witness, will you state your name?
A My name is Le Friec, in two words. It is spelled L-E F-R-I-E-C. My Christian name is Paul.
Q Where were you born?
A I was born at Lanballon, in the District of the Northern Coast.
Q Spell Lanballon?
A That is spelled L-A -N-B-A -L-L-O-N.
Q When were you born?
A 7 March 1915.
Q Were you a member of the French Army in the recent war?
A Yes, I was.
Q When did you enter the Army?
A I joined the Army 2 November 1938, after I had completed my studies.
Q Will you tell the court about your schooling?
AAfter I had graduated from high school I got my law degree, and now I am assistant lawyer in the prosecution at St. Brieuc.
Q Were you a prisonner of war?
A Yes, I was a prisonner of war.
Q When were you captured?
A I was captured at the Somme on the Weygand line on 5 June 1940.
Q Where were you taken then?
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. (discussion)
DR. BERGOLD: May I be excused for five minutes, I have to make a call at my hone, something seems to have happened at home.
THE PRESIDENT: We will retire to the judges' chamber. We will not disperse, but will be back on a minutes notice. The court is now recessed.
(Temporary recess)
Q. (By Mr. Denney) May it please Your Honors, we were talking about your captivity which occurred early in June of 1940; I believe the 5th.
A. Yes, it was the 5th of June.
Q. And how long did you remain a prisoner of war?
A. I remained a prisoner of war in Germany until I was liberated by the Red Army on the 4th of May, 1945.
Q. Where were you liberated?
A. I was liberated near Altengrabow in a little village the name of which I cannot recollect.
Q. During your period as a prisoner of war did you at any time work in an aircraft factory?
A. Yes, that is correct. I worked in the Arado aircraft factory near Braundorf. That is from the 3rd or 4th of October of 1941 up to the 12th of April 1945.
Q. Repeat the date.
A. As from the 3rd or 4th of October 1941 up to the 12th of April 1945.
Q. Will you tell the Court the circumstances surrounding your entry into employment at the aircraft factory at Arado?
A. Yes. I had been at Wodern, which was a camp near Frankfurt on the Oder, for about one year and there we were used on fortification work. This camp was the Stalag 3-B, and then at the end of September 1941 we were transferred to the Stalag 3-A, and we travelled for a few days, and then we arrived at Lueckenwald. Lueckenwald was the main camp for the Stalag 3-A. We were lodged in barracks there.
Q. What were the conditions in the barracks involved?