to treat or to dispose of Jews in Poland, did he not specify, beyond what you have just told the Court?
A No. He attacked me in a public place, where the people accompanying him were together with some officers, and shouted at me across the table that this man was the product of my education. He wanted to express by this that he had behaved in an unsoldierly manner and that instead of acting he had examined questions which might result from such connections. It was not even a monologue in this sense, but merely shouting at me when I was sitting at the table. No actual discussion took place.
Q Did you know what it was that Himmler was rebuking you for?
A He had asked this certain SD man what he had done. He met him in the street and this man replied to him that he had studied the Jewish question in that territory, and the expression "studied" annoyed him so much. "studied" the Jewish question, Himmler was impatient and rebuked you because a man had used the word "study"?
Q Is that all that you know about Himmler's disaproval of the SD in Poland in relation to the Jews?
Q Well, that may mean a number of things. What did it mean to you? fuehrer Wolf, at that time chief adjutant of Himmler's ordered me to come, and revealed to me that Himmler wanted me to leave this service because agreement between him and myself was not possible, but there were other causes for this as well--not only this one. tell us about it?
the use of the word "study" - Himmler was impatient, because no study necessary about what was known the Jewish problem in Poland, but acting without study. Is that what he meant?
A No, it was much simpler. He merely accused the man that instead of helping to act, he merely occupied himself with obtaining information.
right? you further who ordered you to instigate pogroms in Russia? announced in Pretsch. by instigating pogroms, is that correct? said this, who was also present during this discussion. to you? pogroms, did you not? not achieve pogroms?
report. In all these reports which were submitted as documents, Einsatzgruppe D in this report is only mentioned in one line with respect to pogroms. refuse to execute a part of the order which had been given you?
A I think on the contrary -- not to carry it out. Part of the order about the manner of killing was not carried out by me.
Q Part of the order about the manner of killing.... You also were called upon by the Army to kill insane people in Russia?
Q Were you ordered by the Army to do that?
this was addressed to me as a request. It suggested to me as I would express it best. to you?
A I cannot say that any more now. It might have been Central Organs of the Army, or, generally, it would have been suggestions of local headquaters to local agencies of one of my commands. With such matters one did not come to me in my central position. of this decree, or this order to kill, and that it had the obligation also to execute the order within its ability? Is that right?
A Yes; but I do not know that in this order insane persons were mentioned; but I would have considered the insane persons kust like anybody else because they would have come under the order if they owing to their condition, would have endangered security - but not because they were insane alone, and for that reason I rejected this request.
Q You don't mean to say that the persons you killed had to endager security in order to be killed, do you?
Q Well, let's not say about the sense of the Fuehrer Order. Let's talk about reality. Did the people you killed in fact endager security in any conceivable way?
A Even if you don't want to discuss the Fuehrer Order it cannot be explained in any other way. There were two different regions one, where those people who, through the Fuehrer Order, were considered to endanger the security and, therefore, had to be killed. The others, namely, the active Communists or other people were people whose endangering of security was established by us and they were only killed if they
Q Very well. I repeat my question. Apart from the Fuehrer Order, and not because the Fuehrer Order assumed that every man with Jewish blood endangered the security of the Wehrmacht ... but from your own experience in Russia, from your own objective witnessing of the situation in Russia, did every Jew in Russia that you killed in fact endanger security, in your judgment? Order because this Fuehrer Order did not try to evade temporary danger, but also danger which might arise in the future. us see if we can't talk about it without the Fuehrer Order. I ask you the simple question... From your own objective view of the situation in Russia, did the Jews whom you killed, and the Gypsies, endanger the security of the German Army in any way?
I did not examine that in detail. I only know that many of the Jews who were killed actually endangered the security by their conduct, because they were members of the partisans, for example, or supporting the partisans in any way, or housing agents, etc.
Q Let's put the partisans or those who were aiding the partisans completely aside?
A I will assist you, Mr. Prosecuter. Of course, at a certain time there were persons when one could not have said that at that moment they were an immediate danger, but that does not change the fact that for us it meant a danger insofar as they were determined to be a danger, and none of us examined whether these persons at the moment, or in the future, would actually constitute danger, because this was outside our knowledge, and not part of our task.
Q Very well. You did not do it then because it was outside of your task. I want you to do it today for this Tribunal. Will you tell us then whether in your objective judgment apart from the Fuehrer's Decree, all of the Jews that you killed constituted any conceivable threat to the German Wehrmacht. not connected with the Fuehrer's Order. Therefore, I can not give you this answer which you would like to have. make - - you need not answer that. Let me make it clear then, in the Crimea - - No, I believe near Nilelajew, Himmler came to see you in the Spring of 1942, did he not, or Fall of 1941? farmers is that right, and you had determined not to put them to death? constitute any security threat whatever to the German Wehrmacht?
the general situation, and of the Army. I considered it more correct not to kill these Jews because the opposite would be achieved by this, namely, in the economical system of this country everything would be upset, which would be of importance to the operation of the Wehrmacht as well.
Q Then, I ask you the question again. Because these people were farmers, you concluded that it was wiser to get grain they produces, than to put them to death? I was conscious of this danger.
Q Of the danger, that they might house partisans in their houses? the Jews would conceal partisans in their houses?
A No, I only named this as an example. There might have been agents against us who could endanger us in any way. I only mentioned this as an example. wouldn't it, or what do you call them, Karaimians.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Heath, I must confess a confusion here. I understand the witness to say, or perhaps you said it, that the reason the Jewish farmers were not executed is that they were used to bring in the harvest. Then a discussion ensued as to the possible threat that these Jews could bring to the security because they could house partisans. There must be a contraciction there; in one instance, there was no need to kill them, and the other instance, they were a threat and therefore were subject to executions. Were they saved, or were they not saved. If they were saved, why, and if they were killed, why?
MR. HEATH: As I understood the witness, Your Honor, he said he was balancing the desirability of getting in the harvest as against a potential threat.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
MR. HEATH: He exercised discretion.
THE PRESIDENT: And came to the conclusion that there was more to be gained not liquidating.
MR HEATH: Precisely, I understand it.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that correct?
THE WITNESS: I think it is even simpler. They were not farmers, they were craftsmen, who when there would be no longer work for them to do would endanger considerably the interests of the Wehrmacht. I never considered this problem in discussion but now Himmler came to me and ordered that without consideration to any other circumstances these Jews were to be treated according to the Fuehrer Order, without any further discussion, and without any further considering, of circumstances. BY MR HEATH:
Q What about the gypsies. I believe you have no idea whatever as to how many gypsies your command killed, have you?
A No, I don't know.
Q On what basis did you kill gypsies, just because they were gypsies? Why were they a threat to the security of the Whermacht?
Q Blood? that the Jews actually during wars regularly carried on espienage service on both sides.
THE PRESIDENT: You were asked about gypsies. Jews?
Q I beg your pardon?
Q I think I best repeat the question. I would like to ask you now on what basis you conceived or determined that every gypsy found in Russia should be executed, because of the danger to the German Wehrmacht?
A There was no difference between gypsies and Jews. At the time the same order existed for the Jews. I added the explanation that it is known from European history that the Jews actually during all wars carried out espionage service on both sides.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, now, what we are trying to do is to find out what you are going to say about the gypsies, but you still insist on going back to the Jews, and Mr Heath is questioning about gypsies. Is it also in European history that gypsies always participated in political strategy and campaigns?
THE WITNESS: Espionage organisations during campaigns.
THE PRESIDENT: The gypsies did?
THE WITNESS: The gypsies in particular. I want to draw your recollection to extensive descriptions of the Thirty-year War by Richardo, Huch and Schiller -
THE PRESIDENT: That is going back pretty far in order to justify the killing of gypsies in 1941, isn't it? a part in this, to get at this decision.
THE PRESIDENT: Could you give us an illustration of any activity of a band of gypsies on behalf of Russia against Germany during this late war? that they actually played a part in the partisan war.
THE PRESIDENT: You, yourself can not give us any illustration of any gypsies being engaged in espionage or in any way sabetaging the German War effort?
A That is what I tried to say just now. I don't know whether it came out correctly in the translation.
For example, in the Gilay Mountains, such activity of gypsies have also been found.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you know that of your own personal knowledge? the reports which came up from the Gilay Mountains.
THE PRESIDENT: In an instance in which gypsies were included among these who were liquidated, could you find an objective reason for their liquidation?
A From Russia I only knew of the gypsy problem from Sinferopel. I do not know any other actions against gypsies, except from the one in Sinferopol.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR HEATH: May I proceed, Your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please, BY MR HEATH: gence? Isn't is a fact that the nationals of any invaded state are notorious bearers of intelligence. Don't the Americans bear intelligence, and the Germans bear intelligence, and the Russians bear intelligence for their countries when they were at war?
A I don't think so, But the difference is here that these populations for example, the German population, or the American population have permanent homes, whereas gypsies being unsettled as people without permanent homes are more prepared to change their residence for a more favourable economical situation, which another place may promise them. I believe that a German, for example, is very unsuited for espionage.
Q Well, let's not get into that. I understand you to say on direct examination that you took positive measures, to pacify the conquered territory, and you found that in reality the positive measures which you took as against these killings was about all that was necessary, except in the Crimea, is that right?
A I didn't quite understand your question?
Q I shall repeat it. "During my time in Russia. I sent a great number of reports in which I reported about the fine cooperation of the Russian population," do you remember that? said that you did not have the same fine cooperation in the Crimea, because there were so many Jews down there?
A No, I did not say that, but on the contrary. I even said that owing to the fact that I was able to remain very long in the Crimea and looked after the population there in a political respect very carefully the cooperation of the population in the Crimea and the Einsatzkommande became even closer than it was in the other areas.
Court No. IIA, Case No. IX.
Q Mr. Ohlendorf, what happened to the Jewish children, the gypsy children? parents.
Q Did you kill them just like their parents?
Q I don't understand your answer. Did your reports show the killing of children or did they show that children had been spared? to the security of the Wehrmacht a child constituted in your judgment? I did not have to determine the danger but the order contained that all Jews including the children ware considered to constitute a danger for the security of this area. for killing children except genocide and the killing of races? from the fact that this order did not only try to achieve a security but also a permanent security because for that reason the children were people who would grow up and surely being the children of parents who had been killed they would constitute a danger no smaller than that of the parents. tion of whole races in order to remove a real or fancied threat to the German people.
A Mr. Prosecutor, I did not see the execution of children myself although I attended three mass executions.
Q Are you saying they didn't kill children now?
A I did not say that. May I finish? I attended three mass executions and did not see any children and no command ever searched for children, but I have seen very many children killed in this war Court No. IIA, Case No. IX.
through air attacks, for the security of other nations, and orders were carried out to bomb, no matter whether many children ware killed or not,
Q Now, I think we are getting somewhere, Mr. Ohlendorf. You saw German children killed by Allied bombers and that is what you are referring to? bomber who drops bombs hoping that it will not kill children and yourself who shot children deliberately? Is that a fair moral comparison? covered a city that was a fortified city, square meter for square meter, with incendiaries and explosive bombs and again with phospherous bombs, and this done from block to block, and then as I have seen it in Dresden likewise the squares where the civilian population had fled to--that these men could possibly hope not to kill no civilian population and no children. And when you then read the announcements of the Allied leaders to this--and we are quite willing to submit them as document--you will read that these killings were accepted quite knowingly because one believed that only through this terror, as it was described, the people could be demoralized and under such blows the military power of the Germans would then also break down.
Q Very well, let's concede -- I think there is truth in what you say, though I never saw it. Does it occur to you that when the German Wehrmacht drove into Poland without provocation and when you drove into Norway and when you drove into the Low Countries and when you crushed France and when you destroyed Belgrade, Jugoslavia, Greece, when you put Roumania, Bulgaria under your heel, and then attempted to destroy the Russian State, does it occur to you that people resisting your tyranny stand on a higher moral level when they resort to the same horrible cruelties which you initiated in order to destroy your tyranny. Answer that, please.
Court No. IIA, Case No. IX.
which you referred to, in a different way than you do.
Q And that is also my opinion; on that we have a difference. events of the last weeks in particular even if the price of peace calls for force because there is a danger which, if it is not broken by force, will cause a battle of bloodshed, that we then as the ones who were closer to Bolshevism than you in the States, much sooner came to realize than you; and with this view I agree principally with your statesman in America at the moment, and I believe that among these statesmen hardly anyone does not hold the view that Roosevelt made a mistake when in 1942 he presumed that we were not in an emergency state concerning Russia, not in a German only, but also in an European state of emergency.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a moment, please. This is a very interesting debate and if the Tribunal didn't have a very serious and solemn responsibility in passing upon the issue of guilt or innocence in the charges very solemnly drawn in the indictment, the Tribunal would be glad to listen to this debate which could go on for a very long time but since the issue is a very narrow one, Mr. Heath, let us try to adhere to the problem which is before the Tribunal, namely, is this defendant guilty of having perpetrated illegal killings.
MR. HEATH: Thank you for the admonition.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't mean by that that occasionally it is illuminating to get into these side issues but I am afraid this last exchange went beyond all bounds of normal discussion on a question of murder. BY MR. HEATH: the slaughtered in Russia. I think you have not yet answered my question. What conceivable threat to the Wehrmacht was offered by the children of gypsies and Jews, let's say under five years of age?
Court No. IIA, Case No. IX.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the witness has stated that the reason these children under five, under four, under three, down to conception I imagine, were a possible threat to Germany in the future years. That is his answer and he stands on it.
MR. HEATH: Your Honor, I have no further questions. I trust I have not imposed too much on the patience of the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: You have not imposed on us. We have enjoyed your discussion very much.
A (BY THE WITNESS) Your Honor, may I say one thing. That was not for me the, reason for the killings, but merely to clarify the question of the Prosecutor I tried to give a possible motive for the Fuehrer Order, but not an argumentation of the conditions us they were with the Einsatz Commander in the East, because the Fuehrer Order also included the children, and I merely tried to give an answer to the question of the prosecutor but not my own personal view. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q What the Prosecutor put to you Mr. Witness is a very fair question, namely, you are an individual of intelligence, a person of reflection and you don't do things blindly and dumbly and when an order comes to you to kill down and shoot down in cold blood children that you had to give an explanation to your brain as to why it was necessary to do away with these tots. That is the question he put to you and your answer is you had the order of the Fuehrer because it constituted a threat to the future of Germany. time when I received the order.
MR. HEATH: Your Honor, I am in the unhappy plight of having to ask permission to ask one more question. We of the Prosecution objected to the same thing on the part of the gentlemen for the defense this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Prosecution on occasions forgets too.
Court No. IIA, Case No. IX.
MR. HEATH: I did forget, your Honor. BY MR. HEATH:
Q Mr. Ohlendorf, on the question of the order which you say you felt you had to honor and fulfill, the Fuehrer Order. It is a fact, is it not, that you could have failed in your duty as a soldier and escaped this without any penalty, in short, you could have played sick. direct examination because I expected it.
Q Let's see if you expect the next one - I suppose you do. At one juncture you were told by the Chief of Staff of the Army above you down there, in the South of Russia, that unless your collaboration with the Army improved, he, Colonel Woehler - I forget his name - he would recommend your immediate dismissal in Berlin, so there was a way, was there not, where you could have avoided service merely by refusing to be agreeable with other military gentlemen. Is that right?
debate but factual reproaches which were not true. And did not do anything else than rectify untrue reproaches.
Q I am sorry, I didn't understand that. Is it true that you were threatened with a recommendation for dismissal unless your collaboration with the Army improved?
A No, it was the first word of the Chief of staff, "If your cooperation with us does not improve we will request that you be dismissed," and then a number of factual reproaches which were untrue, and I merely had the possibility with regard to the Chief of Staff, to reject these untrue reproaches. Nothing else was being discussed. I do not think that you expect that, in order to be relieved, I should have allowed these reproaches which were not true, to be put on to me and my men. thing, I simply wanted to find out whether it was possible for you to win a dismissal from this job or task that you had by disagreeing with the military and you have it was. BY THE PRESIDENT: at pretsch when you first learned of this mission. How many of the defendants were present at that conference? this word - Nikolajev how many of the defendants were present if you recall?
Q Who?
leaders were there, only I cannot remember the individuals. stated that valuables and clothing were not taken from the victims? Valuables were taken away and a part of the clothing was also taken, I merely prohibited that they had to undress. outer clothing, were they not?
THE PRESIDENT: They are scolding me from the interpreters' section here.
Q (By the President): Witness, do you stand on all the testimony which you gave before the International Military Tribunal, you approve of what you said before the IMT?
A I only want to add two things. The record I have seen about my statement is very incorrect and there are several mistakes of context which not only change the matter but also contain expressions which don't make sense. For example for "conference" they put "food stores" or something. Inasfar as these mistakes are removed I stand up for my statement before the IMT. This does not concern the interrogations in your records, I know from experience that they are full of mistakes, and not one of the records was corrected by me afterwards or signed, but I talk now about my statement before the IMT. in Court and the interrogation?
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Aschenauer.
DR. ASCHENAUER: I presume that Mr. Walton wants to continue with the cross-examination. I want to point out the ruling that only one member of the Prosecution is allowed to conduct the cross-examination. In the case against the generals, against the Southeast generals, the Prosecution tried the same thing, to have one general questioned in cross-examination by two prosecutors. The Tribunal ruled that it is not permitted, according to the ruling which applies before this Court, and only one prosecutor has the right to conduct cross-examination. For that reason I object to the coming cross-examination by Mr. Walton.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you point to any actual ruling of this Tribunal which prohibits the Prosecution from questioning the defendant on all phases even if two attorneys are required to do that or more?
DR. ASCHENAUER: Your Honor, it is a decision by the Tribunal here in Nuernberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Which Tribunal?
DR. ASCHENAUER: That is the Tribunal which is in session against General List and Field Marshal von Weichs the Southeast generals.
THE PRESIDENT: Are List and von Weichs in this box?
DR. ASCHENAUER: No, but I presume that here the same ruling applies, and I also remember a written ruling where it says, "This ruling applies to all military Tribunals in Nuernberg."
THE PRESIDENT: Who said that?
DR. ASCHENAUER: That only one prosecutor is entitled to do the cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Who said that it applied to all tribunal
DR. ASCHENAUER: It is my opinion it is a fixed jurisdictional ruling and that one Tribunal admits a decision and the other permits the reverse. The usual thing is that one ruling applies always and that one ruling of the various military tribunals also applies for this tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Dr. Aschenauer you very well know that cases differ from Court to Court There undoubtedly was a good reason for the ruling in that particular case, just as there is a good reason for the ruling in this case, and the ruling in this case is that your objection is overruled.
DR. ASCHENAUER: Then I can't add anything.
THE PRESIDENT: I will say naturally, Mr. Walton, that you will not go over the same field covered by Mr. Heath.
MR. WALTON: It is not the intention of the Prosecutor at this time to encroach on the field covered by Mr. Heath. However, they do overlap.
THE PRESIDENT: Wall, of course that would happen.
MR. WALTON: If I go too far afield the Tribunal will call my attention no it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. BY MR. WALTON: examination that you were conscripted or drafted for the campaign in the East as a high-ranking member of the SS and the SD? examination that you were conscripted or drafted for the campaign in the East as a high-ranking member of the SS and S the Eastern campaign.