Now, could one say that there was a general deputy, a substitute Pohl, in that office? Or was that a function which he reserved for himself?
A. I do not have any knowledge which I could impart here on my oath, from my own knowledge. My impression, my personal conviction, on the basis of my many contacts throughout the years, is that Pohl, as far as organization matters were concerned, had to have a deputy who, however, only took effective steps when Pohl was absent - on leave, perhaps. But in those times how he managed all questions of deputizing, whether he allowed the office chiefs in the offices to work independently, or whether, during his absence, his deputy would act as a substitute for Pohl and decide things - I am unable to say for certain.
Q. But, General, surely you can--- General, you telephoned this office, or did you never telephone them?
A. This, it seems to me, is a leading question.
Q. General, please imagine...you had many contacts with that office, didn't you?
A. No. Pohl's office was one of twelve main offices. It so happened that problems of Allach and Wewelsburg I was concerned with because they were dealt with by the personal staff. In those two cases I had an exceptionally intimate contact with the main office, but I regret to disappoint you. It would be in contradiction to my oath, and against my conviction, if I were to give you the confirmation which you desire me to give.
Q. But, General, I don't want you to confirm anything, but please imagine how you want to talk to Pohl: You ring up the office - or your secretary rings up the office; I don't know how you worked these things in detail. The agency calls up the office and you receive the reply: Pohl is away. Did you then say, "Could you put me through to so-and-so?" To whom would you ask to talk?
A. First of all I would ask how long he was away for. If this matter allowed postponement I certainly waited until Pohl the Great came back.
If he was on leave or absent for some length of time, and the matter could not be deferred, I would contact his secretary or his adjutant and ask him who deputized for him. And then I would apply to the person concerned. But please bear in mind that my tasks as chief of the personal staff were not concerned with small organizational details of another eleven main offices which were not under my authority.
Q. But, General, we are not asking you to pass an examination here. Nobody minds if you don't know. But we are very grateful to you for your descriptions, and you described it extremely well. You simply waited until Pohl the Great came back.
A. No, I think I put it somewhat differently. Or in urgent matters I would turn to the man who I was told was the competent person to deal with this matter under review. And that is all I could tell you here. I believe I said yesterday,when I endeavored to remember everything, down to the last detail, and inform the Court, I bothered the Court and the poor interpreters for a whole hour because I went into such detail. Perhaps I should have talked more simply; I should have halted at the limits of my memory. That is a mistake which I don't want to repeat.
Q. No, General, on the contrary you said much more than I had dared hope for.
A. All roads lead to Rome.
BY DR. FICHTE (Counsel for the defendant Klein):
Q. Witness, as far as the Wewelsburg matter is concerned, I have a few brief questions, and I am particularly interested in your previous testimony about financial matters in this connection. You said that Himmler ordered the financing of the Wewelsburg construction project. Do you know anything about a credit from the Dresdner Bank?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know who opened the negotiations and made the fundamental arrangements and agreements?
A. I believe I do. As I told the interrogation officer in Room 203, Mr. Barr, that in peacetime, after Funk had taken over his office, I called on him on behalf of the Reichsfuehrer SS and I asked him somehow or other to open up a credit for us of about five million marks.
As I recall it now, and as I saw it in a letter from Pohl - which I saw without being influenced in any way; which, indeed, I saw with the permission of Mr. Barr - a credit was granted by the Dresdner Bank which was put at the disposal of the Society for the Care and Promotion of German Cultural Monuments, and was used by that society - not by me personally. That credit served the exclusive purpose, according to Pohl's statement, to finance the building of the Wewelsburg, and in the end it reached eleven million marks.
Q. I am not as interested in the details of the credit as I am in the fact whether you know anything about who negotiated with the Dresdner Bank.
Court No. II, Case No. 4.
A I believe I did not negotiate myself with the Dresdner Bank. All I did was to regard it as important to say that the origin of this credit, as far as I know was based on my visit to Reich Minister of Economics Funk in times of peace for a purely different purpose, namely, the building of the Wewelsburg.
Q Do you know whether Pohl carried out any negotiations there?
A No, I do not know anything about that. All you have to do is to ask him, or members of his Main Office, because the credit was accorded by his Main Office.
DR. FICHTE: That's enough. Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further examination by defense counsel?
Any further questions, Mr. Robbins?
RE-CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q General, I have only one question and I should like for you to give a good deal of thought to the question before you answer it. Was there any way in which an Office Chief of the WVHA could obtain his own release or retirement from the WVHA -- not from the SS but from the WVHA -- such as transfer to the front, and so forth?
A If an office chief for any reason at all wanted to go to the front he had the possibility to contact his Main Office Chief Pohl and ask him for permission to fight at the front.
Q And do you know whether such permission was ordinarily granted?
AAs in times of war the exchange of almost irreplaceable skilled workers is a difficult problem, I believe that a request of that sort would not have had any chance of being approved, especially as in times of war all soldiers, including officers on the staff or generals had to remain on their post to do their duty for their Father Court No. II, Case No. 4.land wherever they could make their maximum contribution and professional skill.
These office chiefs, for instance, had not learned suddenly to lead regiments or brigades. They were administrative officials, which is what they had been trained for.
Q Was there any other way in which an office chief could obtain his release, except through the permission of Pohl?
A Well, possibly through official channels, he might have by a letter in writing to the Reichsfuehrer SS, but the Reichsfuehrer SS, as a matter of experience, could not have done anything about it without hearing the Office Chief Pohl first, and it was a matter of experience here that Himmler would have covered his Main Office Chief.
MR. ROBBINS: Thank you very much.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: General, I would like to put one question, which, perhaps is only of academic interest, but which certainly has aroused my curiosity, to say the least. Mr. Robbins indicated that at the first trial you had offered to place yourself in the defendants' box to represent Himmler.
WITNESS: Yes.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Did you mean by that gesture that you would be willing to answer for the crimes which could be laid at his door, if any?
WITNESS: Yes. I was faced with the situation that the highest war lord and commander of the SS and the Wehrmacht, that is Hitler and the Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler had disappeared in a mysterious manner. After the surrender we, who were not guilty personally and who were not conspirators were faced by the startling fact that from one day to the next we had changed from members in an elite organization to members of a criminal organization. In order to have the possibility to clear up questions of guilt and innocence and to state the pure truth about that, I regarded it as my duty to jump into that gap, although I was not the deputy of the Reichs Leader SS, in order by sacrificing my own person to give a comprehensive picture Court No. II, Case No. 4.to the IMT, to establish legal evidence, and to help in finding out guilt and innocence in a manner which would be acceptable to history, the person of General Wolff is without any interest in this case; the principle, however, is important, which also appears in combat -if the man before you is killed, you jump into the gap.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: General, I don't want this to be too long a discussion. Isn't the evidence rather convincing to you now, and certainly it must have been equally convincing at the time you made this very unusual offer, that Himmler was apparently guilty of some very serious crimes and must it not now appear to you almost convincingly that he was a rather despicable character and that he was capable, as the speech at Posen indicated, of planning mass butchery, which you now have condemned here from the witness stand and how could you, knowing all that, be willing, consistent with character and honesty, how could you be willing to stand in his shoes and defend these murderous offenses against humanity and against all law and justice?
WITNESS: I did not want to defend it. What I wanted was -I did not want to step into Himmler's shoes. I wanted to speak for the large number of people, who, as I foresaw it at the time, would be deeply handicapped in both their conception of honor and economic existence. I am speaking here of innocent and ignorant little SS men. I was prepared to shoulder the responsibility and guilt which would be proved against Himmler, but in order to say something to the other part of what you said: To this day, I am not convinced as far as the evidence which has been submitted to me is concerned. I was isolated from all these interrogations and the evidence last year. My knowledge was confined to newspaper cuttings and radio reports, to statements made by interrogating officers, who attacked me -
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Well, General, in a word, what you were willing to do was to give your explanation of the SS organization as you knew it, to defend it where you thought it needed defending, and to admit its culpability where you found culpability existed and that's Court No. II, Case No. 4.what you intended to do?
WITNESS: Yes, indeed, so that the SS men would recognize the guilty person in a high SS leader of whose honesty they had not had any previous cause to raise any doubt. It would have been much more convincing than if a victor would pass sentence in his own way. That is, if two do something, it is not the same thing, naturally.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Then you didn't really intend to become the alter-ego of Himmler. You merely wanted to explain the SS organization as you had lived it?
WITNESS: Yes, and I was prepared, if necessary, to give my life for it, just as during the entire war.
JUDGE MUSSMANO: Very well. Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: If there is no further examination, the Marshal will escort him from the court room.
WITNESS: May I have an original photostatic copy of this letter, please -- of this letter?
MR. ROBBINS: This is the only one in my possession, General. I'll see if I can have one made and delivered to you.
(The witness was excused.)
THE PRESIDENT: Do you now wish the witness, Rudolf Brandt?
DR. SEIDL (ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANT POHL): Yes, Mr.Brandt.
THE PRESIDENT: It will be necessary for me to go to Tribunal No. 1 and request his transfer and have it appear on the record of that court to say why he is absent, so if we will just suspend for a few moments, while I can do that, I'll go there immediately.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you ready for the witness?
DR. SEIFL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshall will bring the witness Rudolf Brandt into the courtroom.
(RUDOLF BRANDT, A WITNESS, TOOK THE STAND AND was examined and testified as follows:)
THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
( The witness repeated the oath.)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
DR. SEIDL: Your Honor, I think it is rather important that it should be shown in the record that the witness Rudolf Brandt is not a defense , but that he is being examined at the moment because he is to testify in cross examination about the affidavits which the Prosecution has used against these defendants.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean you are calling this witness for cross examination?
DR. DEIDL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Because of the fact that the Prosecution has submitted an affidavit from him?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: The record will so indicate.
BY DR. SEIDL:
Q. Witness, will you tell the Tribunal your full name?
A. Rudolf Brandt.
Q. Where and when were you born?
A. I was born 2 June 1909 in Frankfurt on the Oder.
Q. What was your last position which you held within the organization of the S S and the ministry of the Interior of the Reich?
A. I was the personal expert and referent of the former SS and Reichsfuehrer Himmler, and in the Ministry of the Interior I was in charge of the Minister's office.
Q. At the present time you are one of the 23 defendants before Military Tribunal No. I in Nurnberg; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. You have given to the Prosecution and signed a series of affidavits which were introduced before Tribunal No. I and also before this Tribunal here in evidence. In connection with these affidavits, I would like to ask you some questions. Is it correct that during your own examination before Military Tribunal No. I you spoke about the manner in which these affidavits were brought about?
A. Yes.
Q. I shall read to you now what you wrote 24 March 1947 when you answered one of the questions put to you by your own defense counsel. I shall read from Page 4,956 of the German record. Your defense counsel asked you at the time with reference to these affidavits:
" Did you at any time have evidence for such statements?
A. I never did have evidence or proof to that effect. In the examination certain documents were shown to me, such documents as are contained in the document books here. Apart from that, the interrogator made certain statements to that effect and what could be seen from those single statements did not originate from me but rather constitutes the explanations which were put to me in that form. This practically was nothing but a deduction which I made, based on the documents which were introduced and based also on the statements made by the interrogator, where I simply agreed with the interrogator's opinion. However, it does not show any knowledge which I had about those facts."
Q. Witness, I ask you now whether you still stick to those statements which you made on 24 March 1947?
A. Yes.
Q. In a different passage your own defense counsel again interrogated you about these affidavits and particularly as to their origin and I shall quote from Page 4972 of the German record. Your a defense counsel asked you the following question:
" You will admit that it would have been correct if you had drawn the attention of the gentlemen of the Prosecution who were examining you to the fact that such a formulation can lead to mistakes?
A. "At the time of the examination I was in such a bad physical condition that I could not possibly see any critical difference between what I could have told on the basis of my deductions now. I simply tried at all times by adding certain words to one or another passage, as for instance, "apparently", to show that I did not have exact and factual knowledge about it."
Q. I ask you again, witness, Do you stick to that statement also which you made under oath?
A. Yes.
Q. And another defense counsel asked you the following question, and I shall quote from Page 4,988:
"Q. In other words, you can not testify from your own knowledge nor from immediate personal reports, and you can not give us any statements about experiments in the concentration camps?
A. No, I can not.
Q. Yesterday you told us that the man who submitted the affidavits to you for signature had discussed the documents with you and had given you certain explanations about them Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. In other words, he submitted to you the deductions which he drew from those documents?
A. Yes, and I agreed to his deductions.
Q. And he then asked you if that was not your opinion also?
Is that the way it was?
A. I cannot tell you now, if he asked me that question directly.
Q. I mean according to their sense.
A. According to the sense, that is correct.
Q. And who was it who formulated the affidavits as they appear before us now? Did you dictate then, or were they formulated for you and submitted to you?
A. I did not dictate these statements. They were submitted to me. However, I did have the opportunity to make certain alterations.
Q. Can I understand your statements of yesterday and today to the effect that if in the affidavits which you signed there are factual statements, these statements are not based on your statements but only on the documents which were put before you?
A. Yes, on both documents and deductions which I made.
Q. I ask you now, witness, whether you still maintain that affidavit?
A. Yes.
Q. The Prosecution in this trial introduced one of your affidavits, NO. 444, and gave it Exhibit No. 185. This is contained in Document Book No. 7, and that is the third document in Document Book No. 7.
Your Honor, I would appreciate it if you would let me wait with the examination of the witness until the interpreters can get the document books. I have to quote documents from them. We need the Document Books 7, 8 and 9.
The question which I asked refers to Document NO-444 which is on Page 7 of the English Document Book No. VII. Under Paragraph 3 of this affidavit it says -
THE PRESIDENT: The exhibit number, please?
DR. SEIDL: It is Exhibit No. 185.
Q (By Dr. Seidl) In Paragraph 3 it says the following, and I shall quote: "Prisoners to be experimented on were selected by Oswald Pohl, Chief of the Economic and Administration Main Office, which is WVHA. Unless he did it himself, Himmler used to order me to inform Pohl that a certain number of prisoners should be kept ready for a particular experiment. The people to be experimented on were generally earmarked by Himmler - for instance, Jews, Gypsies, Poles or criminals condemned to death. The individuals to be used were selected at the camp out of the groups specified beforehand by Himmler."
Witness, I ask you now, isn't there a certain contradiction in this document? Can you tell us from your own knowledge, and from your knowledge at the time that Pohl had been ordered to carry out the selection of those particular inmates or prisoners who were to be used in the experiments, or do you wish to make certain changes, or do you still wish to maintain this affidavit here and your statements contained therein?
A The latter is correct, because I did not know how the selection was carried out in detail. All I know is that I sent Himmler's orders either to Pohl or to Gluecks.
Q Today, however, you do not know to whom they were sent exactly?
A No.
Q Another affidavit was introduced as Exhibit 205. This is Document NO-242. It is also in the English Document Book No. VII as the first affidavit in connection with the freezing experiments. It is Document NO-242 on Page 38 of the English Document Book. Under Paragraph 12 it says the following, and I shall quote:
"Himmler wrote to SS Obergruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl, Chief of the WVHA, regarding his visit to Dachau in November 1942 at which time he had observed the freezing experiments." I would like to interpolate here that "he" means Himmler apparently. "He informed Pohl that he had ordered that suitable women be set aside for the purpose of rewarming the experimental subjects." Was this affidavit, or did this affidavit originate in the same manner as the one you told us about, the others, and as you stated before Military Tribunal No. I?
A Yes.
Q Then in the same affidavit I shall proceed to Paragraph 17 on Page 42 of the English Document Book, and I shall quote: "I wrote Rascher acknowledging receipt of the aforementioned report and stated that further experiments with dry cold should be made at Auschwitz or Lublin. A copy of this letter was sent to Pohl who was to order the carrying out of the experiments at Lublin or Auschwitz." Does the same apply to this affidavit, what you said before?
A Yes.
Q Do you know if dry cold experiments were carried out in Lublin or Auschwitz at all?
A I do not know that. I never heard anything else about it after this letter was mailed.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: After the letter was sent to whom? You say "after the letter was sent off". Who was the letter sent to?
THE WETNESS: I understood the defense counsel to say that, I understood him to speak about my affidavit and of the letter which I sent to Rascher, of which a copy was to be sent to Pohl, and after these letters had been sent off I never heard anything about it.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: Did you send the copy of the letter to Pohl?
THE WITNESS: I could not tell you that anymore today for certain. It is possible that the copy was sent according to orders of Himmler.
Q (By Dr. Seidl) I shall then proceed to Document NO-371, which is in Document Book No. VIII of the Prosecution, and was introduced as Exhibit 267. It is the first document in connection with the experiments to determine the cause of epidemic jaundice, Hepatitis Epidemica. In Paragraph A of this affidavit signed by you it says: "Himmler wrote Grawitz that Dr. Dohmen had his permission to conduct the experiments at Sachsenhausen and for that purpose he had Oswald Pohl of the WVHA allocate a number of prisoners to be used as experimental subjects." Does the same thing you said before apply to this affidavit, or rather what you said about all affidavits, in other words, that the affidavit was submitted to you ready for signature, and can you tell us from your own knowledge what part Pohl played in those experiments?
A The same applies to this statement or affidavit as applies to all the other ones. I did not have any knowledge of my own about the part that Pohl played in those experiments.
Q In Document Book No. IX of the Prosecution, a document is contained, NO-370, which is Prosecution's Exhibit 220, and it is one of your affidavits, and it is on Page 23 of the English Document Book. It is the first document which deals with typhus experiments at the Natzweiler concentration camp. In Paragraph 3 it says the following:
"In the fall of 1943, Dr. Eugen Haagen, Oberstabsarzt and consultant in hygiene for the Luftwaffe and Professor at the University of Strasbourg, requested through Wolfram Sievers of the 'Ahnenerbe' that 100 concentration-camp prisoners be made available to him for experimentation on the effectiveness of typhus vaccines. Obergruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl, Chief of the WVHA, had requested a number of prisoners sent to the Natzweiler Concentration Camp, and the experiments were conducted by Dr. Haagen there."
Was this affidavit also submitted to you, furnished to you for signature, and can you tell us something from your own knowledge, if PohL actually ordered that particular measure which has been alleged here?
A I did not have any personal knowledge about the things contained in this affidavit with the exception of what has been shown by the documents.
Q Then I shall proceed to Document NO-372 which is also in Document Book No. IX of the Prosecution on Page 38 and is Exhibit No. 231. This is the first document which deals with the poison experiments. That is on Page 40 of the German Document Book No. IX. It says here under Paragraph 4 of this affidavit: "Prior to 1942, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. August Hirt, Professor at the University of Strasbourg and associate of the 'Ahnenerbe', experimented with Lost wounds by order of the Wehrmacht. Reports by Hirt came to my attention in Himmler's office. In the latter part of 1942, Hirt began experimentation on inmates at the Natzweiler Concentration camp in cooperation with Oberarzt Dr. Karl Wimmer, who was on duty with the Luftwaffe. These inmates, as in other cases of experimentation, were simply selected by Pohl's office, the WVHA, to be used for this purpose." Was this affidavit also furnished to you ready for signature, and can you tell us from your own knowledge at that time about the participation of the Defendant Oswald PohL in those experiments?
I can say nothing at all to that effect. This affidavit was also furnished to me ready for signature.
Q. Then in paragraph 5 of the same affidavit it says further:
"In March of 1944 the Fuehrer ordered SS Brigadefuehrer Dr. Karl Brandt, General Commissioner for Health & Sanitation to further medical research in connection with gas warfare."
"Brandt sent a copy of this order to Himmler and asked him to distribute it to the appropriate persons in the SS, and have them contact Brandt. Accordingly, since the matter concerned experiments, I distributed copies of the Fuehrer Order to SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Grawitz, Reischsarzt SS and Police, to SS Standartenfuehrer Wolfram Sievers of the "Ahnenerbe", SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl of the WVHA also received a copy of the Fuehrer Order."
Can you tell us from your own knowledge on the basis of your recollection if Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl also received a copy of this Fuehrer Order, which he denies?
A. At the time when I stated all the things contained in this affidavit I no longer recalled the original of the latter of Dr. Brandt's to Himmler. In the course of the medical trial I saw this letter again-in a photostatic copy -- and I found out that on the original Himmler had noted in handwriting that copies of Brandt's letter were to be sent to Sievers, Juettner -- and I don't know who was the third person mentioned. Sievers, Juettner and -
Q. Grawitz?
A. Grawitz. It did not say Pohl was to receive a copy and, therefore, Pohl did not get one.
Q. In other words, whatever is stated in this affidavit is not correct?
A. No; that was an assumption on my part which unfortunately slipped into the affidavit.
Q. I have no further questions to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other defense counsel wish to interrogate this witness? Mr. Robbins, have you any questions? Or Mr. Hart.?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, the Defense Counsel for the defendant Brandt -- that is, Dr. Kaufmann -- is not here in Nurnberg at the present time.
He asked me to represent him, and if I have the agreement of this Tribunal then I shall represent the defense counsel of Dr. Rudolf Brandt.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to question him?
DR. HOFFMANN: I do not know that; just in case. As he is not a witness of the Defense, but a defendant in the Medical Trial, his Defense counsel asked me to represent him here in this examination. This means to say that in case there should be certain questions to ask, then I shall represent the interests of the defense counsel of Rudolf Brandt here.
THE PRESIDENT:Very well. We will understand that Dr. Hoffmann is ready to represent the witness if he needs to.
DR. HOFFMANN: Yes.
CROSS - EXAMINATION BY MR. HART:
Q. Witness, you are a lawyer, are you not?
A. No; I only finished my doctor's examination in the field of law which dealt with copyrights.
Q. Copyright law?
A. Yes, that is correct; on the copyright law.
Q. Witness, as I understand you, you state that you do not now recall the substance of the affidavits mentioned by Dr. Seidl. Is that correct?
A. I did not quite understand the question.
Q. As I understand your testimony, you state that as of today you do not recall the substance of the affidavits mentioned by Dr. Seidl. Is that correct?
A. I don't quite understand what you mean by "substance."
Q. You don't understand as of today the facts stated. Excuse me, you don't remember as of today the facts stated in your affidavits mentioned by Dr. Seidl?
A. Whatever I said in those affidavits is not based on knowledge or recollection at the time when the affidavit was written, but it in based on documents which were shown to me by the interrogator, and his statements in regard to them.
Q. In other words, you don't deny that there were documents shown to you at the time you signed the affidavits which substantiated the facts set forth in the affidavits?
A. Yes. Documents were shown to me, and in the affidavits these particular facts which could be seen from the documents are expressed.
Q. Yes; and you don't deny , do you, that the documents showed that as of the time of the events mentioned in the documents you did have knowledge of the facts concerned in those documents?
A. In my own case, in the Medical Trial, I have stated that due to the load of work I had at the time -
Q. Excuse me, I want you to answer the question. You don't deny that as of the time of the events mentioned in the documents; that is to say, of the events which the documents concerned, as of that prior time, you did have knowledge of those events. You had to! Because you signed many of these documents. They show that you had knowledge as of that time. You don't deny that, do you?
A. Yes, I do deny that in respect to many matters which I simply signed without having noted the contents.
Q. Do you mean to say then that as of the time you signed these documents -- I am referring now to documents which you signed in your capacity as personal referent and assistant to Heinrich Himmler, that as of the time you signed those documents you didn't know what you were signing. Is that correct?
A. The procedure was such -
Q. Excuse me; will you answer the question? That is correct, isn't it?
A. I cannot answer the question simply by saying yes or no. I have to give you a statement which I want to make right now; namely, the fact that Himmler, even if the letters bore my signature, either dictated then to me or to a secretary,and if the letters to me then I knew of course the contents of that particular latter at that particular moment.
However, I could not possibly remember the contents of the latter for a longer period because my activity was not limited, only to this particular letter, to finish. But thousands of letters went through my hands in a month. That is the reason why I could not possibly deal with the contents of those various individual letters.
Q And if one of those letters had to do with the extermination, for example, of thousands and thousands of tubercular Poles, that fact that it dealt with such a subject wouldn't cause you to remember it, would it?
A. I assume that you are speaking about the incident of the tubercular Poles. When the letter of Greiser to Himmler was shown to me during my interrogation I did not have any recollection whatsoever about this incident.
Q. Then it is true, is it not, that you could sign letters dealing with the slaughter of thousands of people, and the fact that it did deal with the slaughter of thousands of people would not cause you to recollect it? Recollect the incident of signing such a letter a few years ago? Is that correct?
DR. SEIDL(Counsel for the defendant Oswald Pohl): Your Honors, I stated at the beginning of this examination that this was a witness of the Prosecution, that apparently the Prosecution has started out from the point that the statements of this witness in his affidavits are correct. It was my goal to show how these affidavits originated and that they are not correct in some essential points.
I am not able to see at the present moment what the Prosecution is driving at with his questions. To be sure, I am not the Defense counsel of this man, Dr. Rudolf Brandt, but if the Prosecution's goal is to be attack his credibility, then the Prosecution should in my opinion consider withdrawing the affidavits altogether, I don't see what the entire idea is.
THE PRESIDENT Well, the entire idea seems to the Tribunal to be this: The witness has made certain affidavits stating certain facts. You have then brought the witness into the Court to testify that he did not know those facts. In other words, you have made him hostile to the Prosecution. Now, the Prosecution is attempting to show that he did know the facts stated in his affidavits. They are trying to restore his credibility.
DR. SEIDL: However, I have to draw your attention to the fact that the point which the Prosecution is driving at here is not mentioned in the affidavit at all.
THE PRESIDENT: What point do you mean?
DR. SEIDL: I am talking about this particular question that the Prosecution just asked the defendant, the witness Dr. Rudolf Brandt, and which apparently deals with the treatment of tubercular Poles. The witness knows exactly what it all deals about, but these points are not contained in the affidavit. In other words, there is no connection whatsoever between the affidavits which the Prosecution introduced, and the questions which are being asked now in order to show that the witness's credibility is untouched.