Furthermore, I had spoken to the Obersturmbannfuehrer Trautmann in Berlin, and also with the Einsatzgruppen Chief, Dr. Thomas.
Q When did you get an answer to your application? returned to Russia after a leave.
Q How did this answer say?
A It contained only three sentences. It read approximately as follows: As concerns your application of 9 November 1942, I release you from the Security Police, and I have got in touch with the Reich Ministry of Interior about your employment in the Interior Administration. After your return will you please report immediately to the Reich Ministry of Interior.
Q Who signed this? Office-I.
Q What date did it bear?
Q Then it was a long time until this reached you. How do you explain that? communications, such letters unfortunately were often delayed in Russia.
Q Until when were you in Rostov? Army, I had to evacuate the city. Rostov? had actually been completed. On order of the Army, the supply column of the commando was moved back into the rear area, that is, into an area where the civil administration was functioning. Only the staff with a few officials remained in Taganrog, in order to put itself at the disposal of the Division stationed in Tagenrog.
The men of the commandos were at rest, and were recalled by Dr Thomas gradually for the purposes of partisan warfare around Kiev.
Q Were you ever absent from EK 6 and when? 1943 there was a conference in Kiev. Afterwards I went on furlough for four weeks to Germany, and I extended this by having Thomas give me his approval from Kiev by teletype and permitting me to attend a conference in Berlin. Thus it came about that from the beginning of April 1943 until about the 20th or 22nd of May 1943 I was absent from Russia. May 1943 which is contained in Document Book III C, the third to the last, Document Number 2901, Exhibit 145, on page 70 of the English text. Do you recall this teletype message?
Q How do you understand this teletype message? to two other teletype messages which I had received from Kiev, These two messages referred to the recall of the commando from Taganrog into the partisan area. The first teletype message is a general announcement, and the second message is a direct order. It says in there that I was to subordinate myself to the commander at Rowno. I sent this teletype message to Kiev because at the time I already know that my recall was being kept in Berlin. I wanted to point out to the group that it, the group, could not subordinate me to the commander at Rowno since it, the group, could not take the commando away from me. I wanted to prevent my getting a new mission for it is a well-known fact that, if one comes into a new situation, it is sometimes difficult to get out of it again. Upon my teletype message 1 expected some information from Kiev that my order to lead EinsatzKommando 6 would be rescinded and that I could return to Germany.
When I did not got any answer to this teletype message, I personally went to Kiev.
A In Kiev I was not received by Thomas. His adjutant told me that I should immediately put the commando into the partisan area as had been ordered, and now came the decisive thing for me, namely, for me to go to Germany via Kiev.
Q Did you carry out this order in this manner? not ready to proceed, therefore, I had to transport it by rail
Q You don't have to give us all the details. was very difficult under the conditions and could only be approved by the army transportation corps.
Q When did you leave the EK 6?
A On the 16th of June 1943. The train with the commando left for the partisan area where, while 1 went to Kiev by motorcar.
Q What happened in Kiev? with the group told me that Thomas had ordered him to start an investigation against me because of passive military disobedience. This message distressed me greatly, since I knew what kind of an attitude the SS and police court had about military disobedience. I was reproached that I did not move quickly enough. In the meantime, however, I heard that Thomas had reported, to the SS and police leader, that my commando was ready for action too early; since the commando then did not show up for that occasion, he was reprimanded.
Q What punishment were you given then?
A I was glad that I got off easy. I was punished 12 days of house arrest because of passive military disobedience. I was told about this when I bid farewell to Thomas. He said that he attached importance to the fact that we should separate in a friendly manner. Therefore, he would permit me to leave immediately.
Q When did you return to Germany?
Q What did you do in Germany? the RSHA and to the Reich Minister of the Interior, as I had been instructed to do. Interior? the ministerial director. Kramer, who was mentioned to me in the RSHA as the expert about my transfer into the interior administration. From him I learned that it was intended to use me in the Civil Administration in Italy,
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, the date came through as June 1942 when he returned to Germany. I presume it is 1943.
THE WITNESS: '43. BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q When did you get your order to report there? assignment end of February 1944. It told me to report to the Reich Commissioner in Klagenfurt to be employed in the German Civil Administration in the operational area of the Adriatic Coast down to Trieste.
Q Then you were an official in the Civil Administration?
in Trieste.
Q In what department were you active?
Q What was the mission of this department? subdepartment for black market affairs. This subdepartment for blank market affairs was the central organ of the Supreme Commissioner, which cooperated with all agencies dealing in black market affairs. That is, it had to make directives for all German and Italian agencies.
Q Until when were you in Trieste?
A Until the 29th of April 1945. On that day I left the city of Trieste with the last officials following orders and returned to Germany via Klagenfurt.
Q Now, I just have a few more questions. What position did you have in the SS? SS as an Untersturmfuehrer, and I was assigned to the SD main office in an honorary position. I never was an active SS man, that is, one who does his job in full capacity or in honorary capacity, but like many ministry officials, as an honorary, officer. I was a passive member of the SS, that is to say, I had the honor to be allowed to wear the SS uniform but I was no leader of a formation. I had no competence, and I had no other duties other than to behave myself decently as an SS man. On the 30th of January 1939 I was promoted for the last time to Sturmbannfuehrer. Thus I reached the rank which I could customarily reach as an honorary officer and a government councillor, namely, one rank below the rank of officials. Since I remained a government councillor, I was not promoted in the SS. As an honorary officer in the SS with the rank of a Sturmbannfuehrer, I was not an officer, that is, major in the sense of the army or the police because in 1940, even though I was SS Sturmbannfuehrer, I was drafted as a private in the army, and I was discharged as a noncommissioned officer, as an honorary officer.
Does that mean that you were an SD member?
A No. I did not belong to the SD because I had made no application for membership in the SD. Furthermore, in the spring of 1937 through the intervention of a government councillor Flesch, I had given an affidavit for Heydrich that I was not in the SD and had not been given any orders by Heydrich. And, finally, 1 did not do any work for the SD.
Q Were you a member of the Gestapo?
A I was not a member of the Gestapo. As a soldier in 1940, by an order of the army, without knowledge and without my will, I was drafted for war service and I was ordered to go to the chief of the security police and SD, and I was used by him provisionally for one year as a state police officer where in pointing out always my spiritual profession this type of work. Only after this provisional year if I had wanted to do so, the final acceptance of me in the Gestapo could have come about. This did not happen, rather on my application I left without any difficulties. Because of this war order -- because of this provisional war order, I was not given an equivalent rank as official to that in the SS, as this was customary in the police, that is, I was not promoted to Obersturmbannfuehrer as this would correspond to my rank as Senior Government Councillor.
Therefore, I was transferred there as an auxiliary provisional war member and I was not a member of the Gestapo.
Q. And now, the last. You have told me that you wanted to make a correction about the testimony when the President asked you whether you saw a report which mentioned executions. You informed me that you would like to make a statement about this. Please do so now.
A. This morning, Your Honor asked me for the number of people executed by the commando. I said in this connection when the reports were shown to me, as far as I remember, that these reports were made out by Nehring and not by me, that I therefore, saw no reports. It is absolutely possible that during this time I happened to sec a report in which a number was given for a certain period of time. I do not recall such a thing, but to be quite exact, I must point out to this possibility.
DR. BERGOLD: This concludes my direct examination. I would like to thank the Tribunal for their patience and their fairness with which they listened to this difficult case, and I also thank the prosecution that they were so patient.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Do any of the defense counsel desire to cross examine the witness?
DR. BELZER: Belzer for Graf. BY DR. BELZER:
Q. Witness, if you look straight ahead you see this diagram and you see under EK 6 your own name, Biberstein, and below it the name of Graf. I would like to ask you since when do you know the defendant, Matthias Graf?
A. I know the defendant, Matthias Graf, since my stay here in Nuernberg after the indictment was served.
Q. Thus you did not meet the defendant Matthias Graf, at Einsatzkommando 6 either in an official manner nor did you ever hear that name at the trial?
A. During my time with the kommando I had no official contact with Graf. I had no contact whatever with him, but in the Kommando I heard the name of Graf somewhere in some connection.
Q. Did you hear anything of the name, Matthias Graf before you came to Nuernberg and outside of your service in Kommando 6?
A. No, but I add that I never heard the first name. At the time I heard something about a man named Graf but I heard the name, Matthias, I heard the first name for the first time when I was interrogated in Eselheide. I was asked by the interrogator whether I knew a certain Matthias Graf, which I denied because it was the truth.
Q. I understand your answer to me that you do not know anything about a special mission which the defendant, Matthias Graf, had in October 1942 in Rostov and which he is alleged to have carried out there?
A. No, the interrogator asked me about such a special mission. I was not able to give him any information about it.
Q. Since you only got to know Graf here and did not know anything about him before in an official manner, I must submit to you two statements before I can ask my next question. According to his own statement, the highest rank of the defendant, Graf, during his membership in EK 6 was Oberscharfuehrer. According to his further statement, Herr Graf only was concerned with making out SD reports about Department III. I now ask you according to your official knowledge-
MR. HOCHWALD: If the Tribunal please, the defense counsel for the defendant, Graf, has questioned the witness now for several minutes and the witness has answered several times COURT II CASE IX that he did not know Graf, he had no knowledge about his position, and so on.
I do think this question which the defense counsel is just going to ask is not admissible. He said he did not know him, that is all he can say. I do not think that he can ask him whether he know that something was not said. He did not know anything; he heard the name of Graf, and nothing also, and I do think that that covers the ground the defense counsel is supposed to cover with this question.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Belzer, if somebody excludes all knowledge on a subject, then it is unnecessary to ask him if he is also ignorant of the little bite which fit into this all ignorance.
DR. BELZER: I am coming to the question, "Could Graf have been the Chief of Department III or was he only an expert?" That was the purpose of the question.
DR. HORLICK--HOCHWALD: But I do think, Your Honor, that this question is absolutely inadmissible.
THE PRESIDENT: If someone says he knows nothing about Abyssinia, then could you ask him, "Well, is it possible that Mr. X is the Chief of Police there?"
DR. BELZER: Not in this form, but I can put the question generally, "Could an Oberscharfuehrer be head of Department III?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's a different thing. Then you qualify this man as an expert in SS -
DR. BELZER: Yes, as a kommando leader, according to his official experience in the departments of EK. 6.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that would be proper, If you want to ask him whether someone with a certain rank could hold a certain position, yes, that's proper.
Q. (By Dr. Belzer) Then I ask you generally, Witness, could a Scharfuehrer or an Oberscharfuehrer in the Einsatzkommando 6 be the Chief of Department III?
A. From what I found in EK 6, the chiefs of the various departments in the staff of the Einsatzkommando were officers. The Chief of Department III was SS Obersturmfuehrer in my kommando.
Q. Then I have one final question. In Einsatzkommando 6, as far as you knew the conditions, were the Experts III used for police measures in Department IV?
A. No, for they had enough to do with their SD work, because partly they were not experienced men and therefore they needed a long time to get accustomed. I cannot remember such a case.
DR. BELZER: I thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Any other defense, counsel who desires to cross-examine the witness may do so.
MR. Hochwald, there being no other cross-examination on the part of defense counsel, will you now proceed?
DR. BERGOLD (ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANT BIBERSTEIN): Your Honor, I have a request. I observe that my client has become blue in the fact. He has a heart ailment and after this strenuous day I want to know if he is able to stand it; I don't want him to get sick.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, it is a quarter after four and we are certainly willing to accept your suggestion that the Tribunal will now recess. 9:30.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 24 November 1947, at 0930 hours.)
A. Musmanno, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
ALBERT HARTEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows;
JUDGE SPEIGHT: Raise your right hand and repeat after me: pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
( The witness repeated the oath.)
JUDGE SPEIGHT: Be seated. BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, please speak slowly because of the translation. Furthermore, I ask you to pause after each of my questions so that the interpreter can finish translating the question before you gegin with your answer. Do we understand each other?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. What is your name; when and where were you born?
A. My name is Albert Hartel, H-A-R-T-E-L. I was born on the 13th of November, 1904, in Ross-Holzen, Upper Bavaria.
Q. Who were your parents?
A. My father was Albert Hartel, a teacher. My mother was Babette Hartel. Her maiden name was Obermayer.
Q. What was your original profession?
A. I studied philosophy and Chatholic theology, and I was originally a Catholic theologian.
Q. What did you do during the Third Reich down to the end of the war?
A. Down to the end of 1933-1934 I was a teacher of religion at different seminaries and higher institutions of learning. Around the trun of the year, 1933-1934, for reasons of religious conviction, and for reasons of common sense, I left the church service. I was asked by the church to return several times. When I did not comply with this request I was suspended from my offices for reasons of refusal to obey the church order. At the beginning of the year, 1934, Himmler whose father and cousin I knew very well, gave me a scholarly commission, and in 1940 I got the order to take care of the Church Information Service in the SD Main Office, that is to say the later RSHA, and to build this service up. It was my job in this to get in touch with high-ranking church personalities of all confessions and to win them over for cooperation with the SD. Around the turn of the year, 194142, I was sent to Russia. There I obtained a special mission to study the spiritual situation in the Soviet Union, and in the second half of the year 1942, I was temporarily charged with leadership of the Departments I and II with the command of the Security Police in Kiev. The first half of the year 1943 I spent in several hospitals. After that I left the service in the full capacity and lived as a free-lance writer, and was known as a so-called V-man, in which capacity I worked for Office VI of the RSHA.
Q. When did you get to know the Defendant Biberstein?
A. I met him about the end of 1935 or beginning of 1936.
Q. On what occasion did you meet him?
A. Biberstein was in the church Ministry. He was a liaison officer from the Church Ministry to the Gestapo, and merely the facr that he was a Protestant thrologian and I was a former Catholic theologian, of course, brought with it many common interests.
Q. Is the fact that Biberstein was liaison between the church Ministry and the Gestapo, was that something special, or did the Ministry have liaison officers to other agencies?
A. All ministries had liaison officers to all kinds of agencies and in the Church Ministry too there were liaison officers detailed to various agencies, such as the Office Rosenberg, and to similar agencies.
Q. Do you know that the Catholic department in the Church Ministry had a liaison man to the Gestapo?
A. On the Catholic side the situation was as follows: A Catholic priest, Joseph Roth, was himself a director of the Catholic department in the Church Ministry.
Q. Was he a liaison man with the Gestapo?
A. He maintained contact with the most varied agencies. Mr. Roth, the catholic priest, was, for example, liaison man between the Church Ministry and the Office Rosenberg. In addition to that the Catholic Church also had another institution. It had its own Bishop Wienken, who had his own office in Berlin where he maintained contact with all Reich Agencies.
Q. Was this man Roth active without the approval of the Catholic Church, or did Cardinal Faulhaber approve?
A. According to the Concordate between the Vatican and the Reich Government, the regulation was that Catholic Priests who wanted to have a State Office needed the approval of the Catholic Church, or of their Bishop. That applied to all the religious teachers, theological teachers, and so forth since they all were civil servants in the Third Reich. Roth, before he came to the Church Ministry was already a religious teacher at the Maria Theresia High School, thus he did no longer need a formal approval before he could take over the position at the Church Ministry. Of course the church could have revoked the approval at any time. Such a revocation did not take place, and, therefore, Roth was considered an official recognized by the church. He always was on terms of cordian understanding with the various Bishops, they frequently called on him. He also enjoyed great respect with the Party, and, for instance received honorary tickets for the Party rally from Hitler for the Papal Easter Celebrations in Rome.
Q. That suffices. What job did these liaison men to the Gestapo have?
A. Their mission was partly merely a missenger role when it was a matter of transmitting requests or messages from the Bishop to the Chief of the Gestapo, and partly when it was a matter of subordinate a gencies, as of the office chief of the Gruppen-leiter of the Gestapo.
Then he had in all matters that concerned the Gestapo and the Church Ministry mutually to negotiate directly.
Q. Did these liaison men thus become members of the Gestapo?
A. No.
Q. Did they become members of the SD in this way?
A. No, they didn't.
Q. Are you of the opinion that Biberstein because of these activities already had an exact insight into the activities and aims of the Gestapo or the SD?
A. No, this in itself contradicted the purpose of the Information Service.
MR. HOCHWALD: Your Honor, I would think that is is necessary to rephrase this question. Dr. Bergold asked the witness what was his opinion: it would probably be good to have the witness say why he came to that conclusion, what the basis of this opinion was.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Bergold, it is not a question of opinion but a question of what he knows?
DR. BERGOLD: No, it is a question of his judgement here. He cannot know exactly what Biberstein knew, but he can only judge in general, whether it was possible or impossible, but then I shall ask him how he came to this judgment?
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
THE WITNESS: It was in contradiction to the manner of conducting the Information Service to allow an outsider any insight into the details of activity. That was the basic principle with every Information Service. If the Information Service had to give the newest and often most secret information to these official agencies, then this must not be immediately publicized, and later there was an express order from Hitler that no one must learn about anything except what was absolutely necessary for his special activity. Furthermore, the SD Main Office handled matters in such a way, that within the various departments, there was a law of secrecy, and there were many secrets, and no department would initiate another department into its activity as long as it was not absolutely necessary, and this was certainly true for an outsider.
Q. In the course of these activities, did Biberstein get into any contact with the SS?
A. In the course of the activity, he was taken into the SS as an honorary officer. I do not know exactly whether as an Untersturmfuehrer, or as an Obersturmfuehrer, but in any case it was one of the lowest officers rands.
Q. Did this appointment result in the fact that he had to perform a professional activity for the SS?
A. This appointment didn't change anything in the activity he was carrying out.
Q. Was Biberstein promoted quickly in the SS, or was he not promoted quickly?
A. Up to the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer he was promoted normally. After that he was no longer promoted. He didn't even get the rank to which he was entitled on the basis of his official position, because he was in the Senior Government Counsellorship, but he remained a Sturmbannfuehrer, however.
Q. Can you tell me for what reason the promotion didn't go through? Do you know the reason?
A. In the later time there was a strong lack of confidence and a great distrust for all theologians: partly there was a fight against former theologians. They were suspected of being Jesuits, and were not promoted in the same degree as they had been previously. At the same time it must be added in the case of Biberstein, that he was considered very soft, and, therefore, it was said about him that he didn't fit into the Gestapo.
Q. Did the activity of Biberstein in the Church Ministry proceed in a satisfactory manner, or did he have differences of opinion with the Ministry?
A. With the exception of the early days, Biberstein had very many differences with the Church Ministry. His Chief, Minister Kerl was of a very explosive temperament, on the one hand he would decide this way today, the other way tomorrow, and on the other hand, he had a basic principle in his church policy, which contradicted our philosophy, for we from the SS tried basically to achieve a peaceful separation between the church and the State in an agreement with the Vatican, the way it was done in many Democracies. The Church Ministry, however tried to achieve a State Church which according to our convictions, was absolete. Thus there were great objective differences outside of the personal differences between Biberstein and his chief.
Q. What results did these differences have as far as the promotion of Biberstein was concerned?
A. Biberstein was no longer promoted, whereas his Catholic Colleague, the Catholic Priest Roth very quickly was promoted Ministerial Director, but Biberstein was taken into the Ministry as a Senior Government Counsellor, as it corresponded to his previous position -- the position of Dean -- and then he was no longer promoted after that.
Q. Can you tell me -- I withdraw the question. What picture do you have of the character of Biberstein; was he an idealist, or just an ambitious man?
A. May I answer this question at the end, please?
Q. Yes.
A. I think it will become clearer then.
Q. Do you know that Biberst ein was drafted in the beginning of the war?
A. Yes, at the beginning of the war Biberstein was drafted, and he had a very low rank in the Army. I once saw him in uniform, and I believe he was a PFC, or at the most a corporal.