Q. What was the importance of the discontinuance of the membership? In other words, how did it express itself?
A. Well, he was inactive; that is to say, he did not perform any service and he was not doing any duty during that period of time; that is to say, during the period of time he was completely inactive.
DR. BELZER: Your Honor, may I use this opportunity in this connection to point out a mistake in the translation and to point out a mistake which has slipped into the English transcript. I stated in my opening statement that I wanted to prove that the membership of the defendant Sommer in the SS was inactive in the years 1936 until the 1st of September, 1939. This statement which I made was translated by the Translation Division to the following and it was stated in the translation that "the defendant Sommer was a member of the SS." That is exactly the contrary of what I wanted to say. I was trying to express the fact that the membership of Sommer was inactive during the period of time, that is to say, his "membership in the SS was interrupted". He was inactive. This translation was accepted in the English transcript and it is a completely false interpretation of my actual expression and now I wanted to use this opportunity when the defendant Fanslau was testifying in order to point out this mistake in the translation.
THE PRESIDENT: Your correction is now on the record, Dr. Belzer, so that your statement will not be misunderstood.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, I then want to continue my question. After the defendant Sommer left the Wehrmacht, was the defendant Sommer again forced to serve in the General SS?
A. Yes, normally, if his service had continued in the SS, yes, he would have been requested to perform the service. That is to say, he could have been conscripted again.
Q. I conclude from your answer that this, however, was not the case anymore in the year 1941?
A. I can only tell it to you in the way in which I heard of it at the time.
I cannot say that from my own knowledge because in 1941 I was not active in the General SS.
Q. Did the General SS have any importance at all in the year 1941?
A. Well, how this was with the individual garrisons I cannot say. From the point of view of the administration I only heard in 1942. I only heard it in the course of a conversation, that everything had been discontinued with regard to the administration. I know that insofar because all the administrative leaders and administrative officials who were employed there had all been conscripted for military service.
Q. Then, on the 1st of April, 1936, Sommer was conscripted into the Reich Labor Service and his membership in the SS became inactive as you have previously said. Sommer was an SS Rottenfuehrer at that time, that is, commandant officer. When he served in the Wehrmacht, Sommer, beginning the 1st of June, 1940, became lieutenant in the Reserve. In the assimilation of this grade in the Wehrmacht Sommer, in August 1941, was promoted from SS Rottenfuehrer to SS Untersturmfuehrer. I now ask you who could carry out and who could request this assimilation of rank.
A. Only the Personnel Main Office could carry it out and as far as I know this was still carried out after 1941. Every superior could request such a promotion; only the person concerned could not do that himself; it was not according to military procedure.
Q. What effect did this assimilation of rank have on Sommer's relationship with the SS?
A. In the SS - well, he was promoted from an SS man to Untersturmfuehrer.
Q. You know the order for leaders in the service?
A. Yes, but I don't know that by heart. I have seen so many military regulations.
Q. You know it?
A. Yes, I know it, generally speaking.
Q. According to this the uniform of SS leaders while on duty was pants tucked into boots and high boots?
A. Yes, that was the regular duty uniform.
Q. On the 14th of April of this year the witness Bielsky was examined here. This witness Bielsky testified in answering my question he made the following statement during the cross examination about the uniform of the SS officers on duty: "For the most part they were wearing boots. I only saw the non-commissioned officers in long trousers." Did this observation of the witness Bielsky correspond to the facts?
A. That is exactly what I said. I didn't mention the difference between non-commissioned officers and other ranks. I only made a difference between officers and enlisted men.
Q. Was it possible that a leader in the SS on duty did not wear the high boots but that he wore long trousers?
A. Yes, that was quite possible but it was not customary; from the military point of view he would have been out of uniform and in order to do that he would have to have a special reason or some previous commission and that must have been a special occasion but as I say when he went to a party in the evening he would be wearing long trousers.
Q. Do you know whether the defendant Sommer had permission to wear long trousers on duty?
A. He did not have that permission from me. I can't give you any information about it.
Q. Now, witness, if I tell you that the defendant Sommer actually had permission to wear his trousers without tucking them into high boots because of an injury which he had sustained in the war, then I ask you, would this call any special attention if an SS officer on duty constantly wore his long trousers without tucking them into his high boots?
A. Yes, he could receive this permission from a superior because he had been injured.
THE PRESIDENT: I have just read the indictment again and I don't find that he is charged with wearing long trousers without permission. Is this important?
DR. BELZER: Your Honor, I asked him whether the fact would draw any particular attention if an SS officer was constantly performing his duty while wearing long trousers, not tucked in.
THE PRESIDENT: What difference does it make whether it would have or not?
DR. BELZER: Well, Your Honor, there is a difference. The witness Bielsky has alleged that he had seen the defendant Sommer constantly in the camp at Auschwitz, at least on 20 to 30 occasions. I have crossexamined the witness Bielsky and I asked him at the time--
THE PRESIDENT: You asked him whether Sommers wore boots and he said yes.
DR. BELZER: He said that he had seen the SS officers only when they were wearing high boots; that is what the witness Bielsky stated, and I continued to ask him whether he could remember ever having seen the defendant Sommer in his long trousers without having them tucked in and the witness Bielsky answered the question to the effect: "It is possible but I cannot say it exactly."
THE PRESIDENT: We'll resume tomorrow morning at 0930.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 12 June 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Oswald Pohl, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 12 June 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Toms, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 2.
Military Tribunal No. 2 is now in session God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
HEINZ KARL FANSLAU - Resumed Cross Examination (continued).
DR. BELZER: Dr. Belzer for the defendant, Karl Sommer. Mr. President, one more question if you please to the defendant Fanslau.
BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, in connection with the question of what happened to Sommer's membership in the SS while he was with the Wehrmacht, I wish to put the final question. If the defendant Sommer while serving as Lieutenant of the Reserves in the armed forces was drafted into the Waffen-SS, what was the basic condition of his being drafted into the Waffen-SS?
A. The first condition was that, in order to be re-drafted into the military service, he had to make an application for it, and, that otherwise, which was usual with any soldier, his being drafted would be done by the Army District Command concerned, and on the basis of the application by the Waffen-SS, his transfer from the Army to the Waffen-SS would be carried out.
DR. BELZER: Thank you very much. No further questions.
DR. RATZ: Dr. Ratz for the defendant Hermann Pook.
BY DR. RATZ:
Q. Witness, when did you meet Dr. Pook?
A. I met Dr. Pook in October, or November or December of last year, here in Nurnberg.
Q. Did you know his name in the WVHA?
A. No, it was entirely unknown to me.
Q. Did you know that there was a chief dentist in the office of D-III?
A. No.
Q. Was the medical personnel of the WVHA, that is to say, the doctors, the dentists, and other medical personnel, including medical personnel of the concentration camps, subordinated to the Personnel Office of the WVHA?
A. No, I knew nothing about that, neither by names, nor did I see any lists. I think the medical office itself, or some other medical agency would be responsible in the Operational Main Office.
DR. RATZ: Thank you.
BY DR. HEIM (Counsel for Defendant Hans Hohberg):
Q. Witness, was co-defendant Hohberg over concerned with personnel affairs, and did he apply to you in any sense of the word?
A. No, I had no contact with Hohberg in personnel matters or in any other way. I had no conferences with him, nor can I remember that he at any time entered my office in order to have an official conference with me.
Q. Did Hohberg, therefore, have neither social nor official contacts with you?
A. No, nor do I know anything about his family life or his personal affairs. I had no contact with him outside office hours.
DR. HEIM: Thank you.
BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for Defendant Baier):
Q. Witness, you, as Chief of A-V, were Baier's immediate superior when he was still in the School?
A. Yes, he was an active soldier.
Q. When Baier was transferred to the WVHA in 1943, did this happen because he was an active soldier and was ordered to go there, or was it a case of his becoming an employee suddenly?
A. No, he remained an active soldier. An active soldier could never be an employee. He would have had to be dismissed from the armed forces.
Q. And that, so far as you know, did not happen?
A. No, he was ordered to go into the armament enterprises.
Q. An other question, and it concerns Exhibit 471, Document No. 2182, which is in Document Book 18, page 106 in the German version. Unhappily I do not know the English page.
Mr. President, I had asked to submit to the witness the photostatic copy of this, and that has been done in the meantime.
Witness, witness Stein has testified here, when he was asked, that this personnel file was not a file sheet from your personnel office. He assumed that it might possibly be a personnel sheet from one of the W offices.
I would like to ask you whether you know anything about this sheet or that type of sheet and where the sheets belong; that is to say, what agency would keep them.
A. It seems to me that we have here not a personnel sheet for the personnel file as such, but some kind of survey, or some such thing. Unhappily, I cannot see. It is possible that it is either a personnel sheet from the Personnel Main Office or, perhaps, one from the Higher SS and Police Leader or his personnel department.
DR. FRITSCH: No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: You mean that this was not a record such as you kept in your office?
A. No. I said I was struck by the fact just now that it is not a sheet from the personnel office.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you ever see one like it before?
A. No, I don't recall any such sheet.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for defendants Volk and Bobermin):
Q. Witness, was Dr. Volk a full-time leader of the Allgemeine SS?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Was Dr. Volk an active leader of the Waffen SS?
A. No.
Q. Was Dr. Bobermin a full-time leader of the Allgemeine SS?
A. I don't know anything about it. Both of them were there before my time, in the WVHA's predecessor and from tho files, it showed only that they had been drafted into the Waffen SS in wartime.
Q. Dr. Bobermin, therefore, was not an active leader of the Waffen SS either?
A. No, not so far as I know. He was a member of the reserve.
Q. Your knowledge is based on the files, is it?
A. Yes.
Q. Did the contract negotiated by Dr. Volk with the German economic enterprises have any effect on his relations with the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS?
A. No. That contract became known to me only here. It was not contained in my personal files, which contained purely military matters. It was not contained therein.
Q. Can you tell the Court whether that contract would have been made part of the files if it had any influence on the relationship between Dr. Volk and the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS?
A. Yes, because if these were things that made a certain amount of difference in personnel questions or ranks and positions, either for the Allgemeine SS or the Waffen SS, then it would have been kept in the files.
Q. Does the same apply to the contract which Dr. Bobermin concluded?
A. Yes, that applies for any civilian contract or private contracts which were concluded on a military basis.
Q. Were the German Economic Enterprises part of the SS?
A. I regarded those enterprises as economic enterprises which were based on some private economic laws and decrees and principles. On details of an economic nature I am unable to form a judgment.
Q. Therefore, you answer my question with "No", do you not?
A. Yes, as I said before, from the point of view of the SS and our services, I knew nothing about these things.
DR. GAWLIK: Thank you very much. No further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Are all Defense Counsel finished with their examination? Mr. Robbins, you may cross examine.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Witness, did you have any knowledge of the program to imprison the clergy of Germany in the concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Do you know whether or not that was done generally?
A. I did not hear about it as a religious affair. I heard from newspapers that whenever some clergymen had said something against the government in wartime, made remarks of some sort or acted in some way against military decrees, or things of that nature, those persons would be arrested by the police and put into custody.
Q: Generally you say that the clergy were not put in the concentration camps on account of religious grounds; just simply if they said something against the Government then they were placed in concentration camps?
A: I did not hear that there was a general policy of that sort. I heard only of two or three cases, but I am unable to give you a name. I heard what was generally known.
Q: What camp did you say you visited with Pohl and inspected the camp?
A: Visited with Pohl, you mean?
Q: What concentration camp did you testify that you visited with Pohl and made an inspection there?
A: Stutthof.
Q: Stutthof? And when was that?
A: In May or June, 1943.
Q: What was Pohl's business there that day?
A: Stutthof was to be dissolved, as he told me on the telephone that evening and he wished to see the spot, and he wanted to have conferences there, whether the dissolution could be carried out or whether it couldn't, and that is how I remember it now....
Q: He had authority to say whether or not it should be discontinued as a concentration camp or continued as a concentration camp, is that correct?
A: Whether he had the power of decision, I am sure I do not know. He did not tell me. All he said, "Fanslau, you had better come with me in my airplane and see whether you could use the camp after the discontinuation as a school." That was out of the question. --
Q: I understood you to say just a minute ago that he went there for the purpose to see whether or not to continue the camp on as a concentration camp or to discontinue it. Didn't you just say that?
A: Yes.
Q: Did he inspect the camp while he was there?
A: Yes, as I said before.
Q: He made a thorough inspection of the camp and the inmates while he was there?
A: All I can tell you about is what I witnessed myself.
Q: That is what I am talking about, not what somebody told you. He inspected the camp and the inmates while he was there, did he not?
A: Yes. And I explained everything in detail.
THE WITNESS: That is what I described in detail before.
JUDGE PHILLIPS: That is all.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q: Witness, did I understand you to say just a few moments ago that the economic enterprises under Amtsgruppe W were not a part of the SS?
A: What I said was I regarded them as economic and private enterprises.
Q: Well, that does not answer the question. They were a part of Amtsgruppe W, weren't they?
A: Yes.
Q: And Amtsgruppe W was a part of the WVHA, wasn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: And the WVHA was a part of the SS, wasn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, you have talked about Sommer's career with his attorney here on the stand in a good deal of detail. You have talked about his promotions and transfers. I just want to get it straight for the record, were you telling about his promotions and transfers and the details of those from your own knowledge, or were you just telling us about how it was generally dealt with?
A: In the case of the promotions I spoke from my own knowledge, because it was there that I met Sommer for the first time when he reported to Pohl. The transfer from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS, and on personnel matters about which I commented, these were expert opinions as compared with my own personnel management and the personnel management with the army.
Q: But you remember the exact date when Sommer was promoted from a lieutenant to a captain?
A: Yes, that was in April, 1944.
Q: But you cannot remember when you were made Chief of Amtsgruppe W, or Amtsgruppe A?
A: Witness, I think the point that you stressed the most emphatically and most repeatedly yesterday was that you were interested only in professional military affairs, and that you never interested yourself whatsoever in political affairs. It is true, isn't it, that you joined the SS in 1931?
A: Yes.
Q: The 1st of July, 1931?
A: Yes.
Q: And you joined the Nazi Party in July, 1931?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: The SS was not a very large organization at that time was it?
A: No.
Q: The main purpose of the organization at that time was the personal protection of Hitler. Did you regard that as a purely military task, to guard Hitler in those days when he was not the head of the state?
A: In the SS I saw a formation or a concentration of men, of young Germans, just as the other parties had also.
Q: Well, excuse me, I just asked you if you regarded the personal guarding of Hitler as a purely military task?
A: No. At that time we had no military tasks. --
Q: And in 1931 when you joined the SS in July, that was before what Pohl and Frank have called here on the stand the seizure of power. That was two years before the seizure of power, wasn't it?
A: Yes, one year and a half before.
Q: And you also said that you joined the SS in 1931 because you were interested in raising the level of the middle class in Germany, and that you saw in the Nazi Party a movement of the people to bigger and better thing Did you regard these as purely nonpolitical objectives?
A: Not as a nonpolitical task, no.
Q: You told us yesterday that you knew about the program of the Nazi Party with regard to Jews, and you also knew that the SS as an organization was committed to racial persecution, did you not?
A: I did not say that, that the SS was engaged in racial persecution.
Q: I didn't say you said it. I ask you if you knew about it.
A: No.
Q: When did you first find out about it?
A: For the first time in wartime --
Q: Yes.
A: But not as regarding persecution, purely as a police measure, in order to protect and preserve the defense of Germany and the war effort, because the state was faced with the danger of sabotage and espionage.
Q: And you regarded the persecution of the Jews as necessary to that end, is that right?
A: I was scarcely intimate with these matters, to scrutinize the various police measures in this respect, but that was my opinion, which I still held in October of 1944. I expressed it very clearly at that time.
Q: Well, I wonder if you happened to see in 1936 a pamphlet that Himmler published for the edification of the SS men, which was under the title of "The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization". Did you see that pamphlet?
A: Individual propaganda pamphlets, certain things like that, I really can't remember, much as I may try. I never held a political office at any time, nor did I take part in any political training or training courses.
Q: You didn't hear that in 1936 in this pamphlet to the SS Himmler said that the object of the SS was to take care that never again in Germany will the Jewish Bolshevists of the subhumans be gathered. "We will, without pity, act as a merciless sword against the Jews."
You didn't hear about that?
A: I cannot remember it.
Q: Did you attend Himmler's speech in Cracow in April, 1943?
A: No. I said before I saw Himmler for the last time in October of 1938.
Q: You didn't hear anything about his speech on that occasion?
A: I heard about that here, not before.
Q: Did you hear that Himmler had stated publicly that the SS has only one task, and that is to stand firm and carry on the racial struggle without mercy? That was a public statement of Himmler's. You didn't hear about that?
A: No. As I said before I looked upon racial struggle and racial policy with different eyes.
Q: Well, did you ever see the organization book of the Nazi Party?
A: It is possible that I saw it. I certainly did not read it.
Q: You did not know that the organization book of the Nazi Party states that the SS man openly and relentlessly fights against the most dangerous enemies of the state, namely, Jews, Free Masons, Jesuits, and political clergymen?
A: Of these orders that the SS man has to fight publicly I heard nothing. The attitude as such, as far as the enemies of the state were concerned in wartime, and to look after the state, that was generally known and quite correct.
Q: And did you regard the Jews, the Free Masons, the Jesuits, and the political clergymen as enemies of the state?
A: As far as they were active, yes.
Q Did you hear about the time during the war - I think this was before the war - when the SS took the names of the deceased war veterans who were of the Jewish race, they took their names off the War Memorials in Germany?
A I heard that for the first time now.
Q You didn't know about that before?
A No. On the contrary, during my conversations even in the war time I gave an example of the exaggerated racial policy; the example of a friend of mine who had volunteered in the first World War, and had distinguished himself; although he was a Jew, I believe he was given the Gallantry Medal; and that I always expressed it when I criticized exaggerated views -
Q You say -
AAnd I said so quite openly.
Q You say you didn't know anything about these announcements by the Nazi Party in its organization's books and in public statements by leaders of the SS as to the policy of the SS with regard to racial persecution. You knew nothing about that.
A I knew about the general intentions of racial persecution, which I said before, but it has always been the case, even today, that if I compare three parties
Q Just a moment, Well, did you
THE PRESIDENT: Let him finish that answer.
A That if I compared three parties, I wouldn't advocate any party one hundred per cent; it would be like eighty to ninety per cent, or if I have sixty and forty per cent of another party, and the third party less or nothing. There will be many people surely who are members of a party, but nevertheless don't subscribe one hundred per cent to the political views and program of the party.
Q Well, did you know about a newspaper that the SS published?
A Yes.
Q What was the name of it?
A The "Schwarze Korps."
Q Did you read the Schwarze Korps?
AA little bit, but I didn't take it in literally.
Q You know there was an order of the SS which required SS men to read this Schwarze Korps, did you not?
A No, I didn't know that; I did not subscribe to it at any time at all.
Q Did you see in the Schwarze Korps the statement of the official policy of the SS towards the Jews?
AAs I said before, as far as the exaggerated racial views and policy were concerned, I knew about that. Details, on the other hand, were not known to me, particularly not the things which I have learned meanwhile.
Q You didn't ever hear that the Schwarze Korps announced that it was the policy of the SS to eliminate the Jews from Germany? You never heard that?
A Elimination and to limit their activity, their rights, etc., that was known to me.
Q When did you first hear about that?
A Generally speaking in 1931.
Q When you say you heard that it was the policy of the SS that they should be eliminated from Germany, what did you think the policy of the SS was in that regard?
A If I said I discussed the point with Jews and half Jews myself, and Mr. Prosecutor, as the problem is made a personal thing here, I will have to, although I don't like to do it, and I didn't even tell my counsel this before, I must say that not only my sister-in-law who is half Jewess is part of my family, but that before 1933 a cousin of mine, a girl in my own village, married a half Jew called Salomon, and we were friends.
Q What happened to him?
A I don't know. All my relatives are refugees - thirty persons.
Q Did you hear, any time during the war, that people were put in concentration camps? Not because they had committed any crime, but just because they were a member of a particular race?
A Not concentration camps, but I heard of Litzmannstadt and Theresienstadt; they had a Jewish administration there, a Jewish colony up there and their own special district, and in these a so-called Jewish colony was set up, but I did not visit Litzmannstadt or Thersienstadt myself. Not only do I not know the Jewish part, but I don't know the town itself as such; I have never been there. I did not remember these measures in war time as criminal; on the contrary I assumed that they were some sort of personal excesses of Germans who vented their hatred and that thus it would be avoided.
Q And you assumed that it was necessary for them all to be looked up?
A During the war time, yes.
Q And you regarded that as a purely military and non-political objective?
AAs far as I can see from my own point of view, Germans in other countries were interned in war time for reasons of security, and equally I regarded the measure here in Germany.
BY JUDGE MUSMANNO:
Q There is one thing I can't understand. In other countries, where Germans were interned, that country had perhaps declared war against Germany, but had the Jews declared war against Germany?
A No, the Jews as a people did not actually declare war.
Q Or even as individuals, do you know of any family or clan, or tribe, or even individual Jews that stood up and advocated the over-throw of Germany, or fought Germany in any way?
A Sometimes things of that sort were published, but I don't know any details any more.
Q You just stated that you could see nothing wrong about the incarceration of Jews, all the Jews during the war, because in other countries Germans had been interned; and now I call to your attention that in those countries a state of war existed between Germany and that particular nation; but, I do not know of any declaration of war by the Jews.
Then, that isn't a very happy illustration, is it?
A Your Honor, all I can say is how I regarded it as a soldier in war time, and, as I said before, whenever I had purely political conversations - I can not express it myself in the way I would like to draw these suitable conclusions.
Q Yesterday you said something about your father being required to establish a known Jewish origin. Am I mistaken in that recollection?
A I didn't say anything about my father at all.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q It is becoming increasingly clear that you mean when you said that you were concerned only with military and non-political objectives, that it is just a difference of opinion as to what political and military objectives consist in. You told us that you believed in part of the Nazi program when you joined the party, but not all of it; that you didn't believe in that part of the program with reference to the Jews, which I believe was point III, or perhaps it was IV.
A If I said I always regarded that as an exaggeration, so did my family and I criticized it - in some cases quite openly. I might mention, perhaps, I don't know whether I shall succeed in getting the affidavits because I declined to do so, so far, that after the program of 9 and 10 November, 1938, about which I had heard from a Jew in the apartment of my sister-in-law, I expressed my criticism quite openly. I hope there will be time for me to obtain that affidavit. As I said before, I have done nothing with respect to this because I did not want to do so.
Q You say you expressed your criticism openly. I wonder if you ever saw the SS Manual "The Soldier's Friend," which was a recruiting manual for the SS. It states in that manual that every SS man must be a pure blooded German and be an adherent to all the National Socialist doctrines, but you have succeeded in concealing your lack of belief in part of the Nazi program; is that right? And the recruiting pamphlet of the SS called
THE PRESIDENT: He didn't answer the question.
A I am sorry; I didn't get part of the translation.
Q I will repeat. I should like to read you just two or three very short quotations from SS official publications and Nazi publications which were introduced before the IMT, and then ask you if in the face of all of these regid requirements of the SS, you were still able to conceal your criticism of the party platform. The SS manual "The Soldier's Friend," states that the SS man must be an ardent adherent to all National Socialist doctrines, and the recruiting pamphlet of the SS entitled the "SS Calls You," states that the SS man will be especially bound to the National Socialist ideology, and the organization book of the Nazi party says that with regard to the SS man that obedience must be unconditional, it corresponds to the conviction that the National Socialist ideology must reign supreme; and another quotation from the organization book of the Nazi Party: "The conceptions of the value of the blood and soil serves as directives for the selection into the SS."