THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Adolf Ott.
ADOLF OTT: Mr. President, Your Honors: Since 1945 singular and most secret conferences and decrees have come to our knowledge which we hever had access to before. I must confess that under the influence of these documents numerous conclusions seem at hand which, however, were never drawn by me as I have never had knowledge of the internal connections. Thus, the Fuehrer Order looks quite different if we look at it today as it did then in Russia where I did not have any idea of the happenings in the concentration camps and similar matters. In Russia I, as a soldier, was confronted with the task to do my utmost towards securing the army territory for the fighting units. I carried out this task as well and as conscientiously as I was able to do. I saw no unjust war, I had no ideas of liquidations, but the decisive matter for me was my duty as a German and a soldier within the struggle for life of my own people. I only came in contact with the Jewish population of the sector of our assignment so far as individual Jews were members of the partisan groups which we fought against. I never searched for Jews in order to have them shot. In accordance with this I used Sonderkommando 7 b only as a unit for fighting partisans and for the prevention of acts of sabotage but never for liquidation operations. Even partisan counter-intelligence tasks I have tried to comply with using aslenient means as possible. Therefore, from my own initiative and under great difficulties I set up an internment camp in the vicinity of Orel to which I had people brought whose offenses would have sufficed to have them shot according to the general laws of warfare then in force. But I thought I would be able to secure their lives and merely punished them with 6, 9 or 12 months confinement. By doing this I saved the lives of about 200 people.
I have never hunted for external honors. All my actions have been guided by reason and humane compassion. My assignment in Russia did not result in promotion; I received no decorations, no priority in subsequent employment.
I did not apply for my assignment in Russia appointed to the same post I had held before. assignment, especially my activity in Lorraine was not regarded as one enforcing and supporting a terror rule by the population. It is most clearly shown in the letter of the French mayor, who, on his own initiative, says that I would be welcomed by the population of this particular French area at any time.
My conduct in Russia was not different. Whenever and wherever I saw injustice done or unnecessary severity exercised I openly applied to the responsible agencies as Gauleitung, Regierungspraesidium, and Labor Exchange, or State Police in order not only to bring about exceptional treatment by deviating the normal channels but also to cause the suspension of any and all unjust measures; concerning this, evidence has been brought.
Apart from this, any agency of my former domiciles can be asked concerning my behavior and conduct, be it my hometown Lindau, be it Norway, Saarbruecken or Lorraine. Therefore I faced interrogacontained in the common indictment. Yesterday the Chief Prosecutor, Mr. Ferencz, has stated that he will not submit a Closing Brief against me. I have only one special request to make to the honorable judges that they may arrive at their decisions only according to the defendant's own personal conduct and their motives, and not according to points of collective guilt. It is just because I was an old member of the Party that I know that we never as much as thought of elimination as a solution of the racial question. This kind of solution was invented in the heads of a few leaders under the impression of war. And it was only carried out by few of them, based on order which have nothing to do with the Fuehrer Order which is the subject of this trial.
Even at the time when I was inspired by the idea of a new European Order under German leadership I never for a moment thought of violent methods, which would be considered a terror regime against other nations.
The war has caused many hardships. It also treated me with severity by taking my wife from me. She was shot down in the street of a locality which was not defended when the enemy marched in by an antitank gun through a well aimed shot, as she was just coming out of a shelter. In spite of this sorrow no bitter feeling has remained with me but only the wish that peoples may, in future, be saved from the horrors of war.
13 Feb 1948_A_MSD_22_1_Spears (Hildesheimer)
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant Ott has made a statement with regard to trial brief. Does the prosecution intend to file a trial brief in his case?
MR. HOCHWALD: If the Tribunal please, the Tribunal is aware of the fact that Einsatzgruppe B was handled entirely by Mr. Ferenoz, however, I do think this is a mistake from the part of the defendant. As far as I know, trial briefs in all cases of all individual defendants are being filed and will be filed by the prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: We wouldn't want any defendant or defense counsel to be of the impression that a trial brief is not being filed if one is to be filed. We will repeat what we said before. The trial briefs will be accepted up to and including next Friday, February 20, but will not be accepted after that, and we recommend that both defense counsel and prosecution counsel get together, where briefs have not yet been filed, to see to it that with all expeditiousness possible that they now be submitted to the Tribunal.
MR. HOCHWALD: Very well, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: In their order, the next defendant would be Eduard Strauch. He is not here, we presume, for physical reasons. We would like to inform his counsel, Dr. Gick, that Eduard Strauch has the right to make his final statement in court and we do not know whether you purposely, Dr. Gick, did not have him brought in or whether it was just assumed that he would not be brought in, and perhaps he is actually in good physical condition to make his statement or it may be that Strauch doesn't care to make a final statement. We would appreciate it, Dr. Gick, if you would inform him that he is entitled to make this final statement unless he has already indicated to you that he waives that right. If he wishes to make the statement in open court and you inform the Tribunal, the Tribunal will sit to hear his statement. It may be that he will be satisfied to make merely a written statement in the nature of a final statement and that will be 13 Feb 1948_A_MSD_22_2_Spears (Hildesheimer) accepted by the Tribunal.
We will leave it entirely in your hands, Dr. Gick.
DR. GICK: Your Honor, I saw the defendant Strauch yesterday in the hospital and I found him in a state of health which was wprse than ever before. He gave completely confused answers and he spoke nonsense. I was not in a position to make it clear to him that he, if necessary, could say a few final words, but I was not in a position to make it clear to him what that meant. I believe that Strauch in his present state is not responsible for his actions. If the Tribunal will permit me to do so, I shall sumbit another medical certificate concerning the present condition of the defendant Strauch at a date to be fixed by the Tribunal.
MR. GLANCY: If it please the Tribunal, it is the prosecution's opinion that the defense counsel for the defendant Strauch is precluded from testifying as an expert in mental diseases. The Tribunal is well aware of his present condition and has been so advised by experts.
THE PRESIDENT: Defense counsel has on previous occasions made comments similar to those which he has just now made and the facts established the contrary. The defendant was brought into court and did testify in a normal manner after two or three attempts and after examination had been made by competent physicians. So that the present statement of the defense counsel may not be accepted as evidence of the defendant's condition.
DR. GICK: May I say a few brief words, Your Honor? It is not my intention to give an expert opinion here. I am not in a position to do so, but it was merely my intention to tell the Tribunal how I found the defendant, and what impression I gained.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Well, the Tribunal will ask you, Dr. Gick, to inform the defendant Strauch that he is entitled to make a final statement just like every other defendant is making. He may make 13 Feb 1948_A_MSD_22_3_Spears(Hildesheimer) it in writing.
Very well. The defendant Klingelhoefer will please advance to the microphone.
Mr. President, Your Honors. early youth through the fact that I was born outside of Germany. Besides my love for the German people and the inner obligation to dedicate my energy and my efforts to the good of the people, there always was the respect and the understanding for other peoples and nations. East made me join the NSDAP at a time when the political, social and economic conditions in Germany threatened to develop towards a chaos, which was bound to open the doors of Germany to Bolshevism. I also realized the fact that for Bolshevism Germany represented the key for the polticial conquest of Europe. From this point of view I considered the war in the East and therefore hoped for Germany's victory, being convinced that this victory in the East would also mean the final exclusion of the Bolshevist danger in the East. Einsatz as an interpreter, because of my knowledge of languages. This assignment was based on a military order, which could not be objected to. My task in this assignment was restricted to intelligence duties and those duties resulting from my knowledge of the language and the country. In consideration of my subordinate position within the SD in Germany I never could be given the independent job of being the leader of a commando. My activity was therefore limited to the execution of orders and directives given to me, without ever being able to issue orders on my own initiative. declared that I personally objected to this radical order and tried to evade it. I also succeeded in doing so. I again declare expressly that at no time whatsoever, was I in a position to have to carry out or pass on the Fuehrer order in its radical and absolute form. I 13 Feb 1948_A_MSD_22_4_Spears (Hildesheimer) therefore never sent any persons to death on the basis of this Fuehrer order.
of particular circumstances and under particular pressure I had to carry out on direct orders, and where my knowledge of the language played a decisive part, I never had anything to do with the executive tasks. This was entirely beyond the scope of my duties. the cases, where I had seen shootings or participated in them. At no time did I ever have the intention to deviate from the truth or to withhold something; in the witnesstand as well as in all the interrogations and affidavits I always tried to speak the truth. I did not do anything which for any reasons -- be it for fear of punishment or because of the knowledge of having done wrong -- I had to withhold. Everything I did and however reacted to the tasks assigned to me and orders I received, was directed by the awareness of my duty as a soldier as well as a soldier as well as by the intention to do only those things which according to my own and full conviction had to be done to maintain and guarantee the order and security in the rear of the fighting army. of the Tribunal at the beginning of the trial, I pleaded "not guilty", and with a clear conscience I can repeat this declaration at the end of the trial.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant, Fendler, will please come to the microphone.
On his final plea, my defense counsel Dr. Fritz stated our opinion on all points which might be of importance for the Tribunal in judging my case; he has arrived at the conclusion that the case-inchief has undoubtedly turned out favorably for me. Therefore, I shall 13 Feb 1948_A_MSD_22_5_Spears (Juelich) tell your Honors about my personal opinion concerning the indictment filed against me.
chief of Einsatzkommando 4B is just as incorrect as all conclusions drawn from that assertion. It is also unjustified for other reasons to make me responsible for the happenings in Einsatzkommando 4B which were discussed in the course of this trial. The truth is, and I solemnly confirm this, that my entire activity in the SD, both before, during and after my assignment in the East, consisted exculsively of intelligence work. At all times, including my assignment in the East, I only did what any state demands of its officials and officers entrusted with such jobs. I never had cause to fear that I was doing anything not permissable or even morally doubtful. Therefore I cannot hold a different opinion of my work during those years. sibility for actions which I neither ordered nor carried out, in which I did not participate in any way whatsoever, and which I was even unable to prevent.
I can only repeat what I said at the beginning of this trial: I am not builty!
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant, Von Radetzky.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant von Radetzky.
THE DEFENDANT VON RADETZKY: Mr. President, Your Honors, when I was given the indictment on the 13th of July 1947, to answer for myself before this Tribunal, I accepted it, being confident that the truth would be established in the course of the trial and that I would have an opportunity to justify myself for a period of my life which without my assistance took a course during which I was not able to decide freely for even one hour. I have now answered for myself before this Tribunal. I did not commit any crime. I need not ask for pardon for my actions. I only ask for unprejudiced understanding and I am confident that the Tribunal will arrive at a just verdict.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Ruehl.
THE DEFENDANT RUEHL: Your Honors, my career, my position, and tasks, my activity, and my attitude from 1933 to 1945 have been discussed at such length during the case-in-chief that it does not seem necessary to me to go into details about this again at this point. I would only like to say the following: SA and two years later I joined the SS with youthful faith in the truth and purity of the ideals and aims which were made known at the time. In this good faith I finally complied with the draft to the then completely unknown State Police in 1933 and worked there until 1940 on counter-espionage, having nothing to do with everyday political differences. began to undermine this faith, apart from the outer duress, I felt myself obligated to stay at that post to which I had been ordered in the decisive battles of my people of my native country.
answer for before my conscience is proved most clearly by my behavior in Augsburg. In opposition to binding orders from the highest authorities, I stood up for those people whom the prosecutions believes it was my aim to persecute. prosecution wants to ascribe motives to me in my action concerning the retransfer of those Jews in Mogilew-Podolsk, which did not even occur to me, in view of my basic attitude, which has now been proven. The important part which I played there as an intermediary of an order, was only based on the idea to avoid terrible misery and to enable those people to return to their native land. to give orders in this case, to which I was not entitled, I do not consider incriminating. On the contrary I hold the opinion that I would justly be in the defendant's dock now, if I had refused to assist at the time and had let those people perish in misery by referring to my incompetency. opinion that my conscience has not deceived me.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Schubert.
THE DEFENDANT SCHUBERT: Your Honors, being one of those tens of thousands of officers holding the same rank as I and holding the same position as adjutant, fate has placed me among those 220 German men who have to answer for themselves to the highest American Military Tribunals as the ones whol held the most responsibility. As long as I live I shall never understand that decision. Yet I shall never complain about my fate. I need have no fear for myself as to the verdict of this Tribunal.
manner, I feel eager to state my opinion at this point concerning the charge of the prosecution that every defendant was filled with boundless contempt for human life, because of National Socialist ideology in which he believed. age, a member of a generation born during the First World War and the majority of them probably witnessed the second one in the front lines. Everywhere we were in the center of events without having ourselves held any responsibility worth mentioning. event in the judgment of persons who were responsible for past happenings. I became a National Socialist and even more so an S.D. member, not because of contempt for human life, but because I always strongly approved of life in a community of human beings. The severe stroke of fate in my young life did not change this either, when, before my Eastern assignment I lost my wife and child as a result of Allied operations during the war. The love for my people always made my duty towards my Fatherland a perfectly natural sentiment. While searching for a real life in a genuine community of people, we found our way to National Socialism. From 1934 to 1945, in the SD, I considered it my noblest duty to serve my people. crossroads of events of decisive importance to the world, not only as far as time is concerned, but also because of the place, in a territory between two worlds. We did not set out to kill, but we set out to defend Western civilization. sphere of the events contained in the indictment, but I was all the closer to the men in those units, who the prosecution asserts were filled with boundless contempt for human life.
assignment. I know the mentality of these men, their surroundings, their troubles, and worries. I saw them when carrying out the hard task they had been given and I saw their struggle between duty and conscience when they were concerned with having to carry out the Fuehrer Order discussed here. I know that there was no one in those units that could have carried out the tasks assigned to him only because he did not respect the sacredness of human life. I know that these men decided to do their duty to a great extent because they realized that the defense against Bolshevism was a question of "to be or not to be" for their people, their wives, and their children. I do not believe that anyone has the right to charge these men with contempt for human life without having been in the same position himself at some time, since these men, as soldiers could only choose between obedience and the dishonorable death of a mutineer. tasks which were given to us in the Einsatz, but I wish that the ones who accuse us today would have once had the opportunity to witness the joy of liberation of the ethnic groups oppressed until that time by Bolshevism and to see the Einsatzgruppen looking after the cultural interests of such ethnic groups and other peaceful tasks. incriminating material my own statements in the preliminary proceedings in the form of affidavits. I did not at any time keep anything secret about my activity from the first day of my captivity, since I was and still am of the opinion that I can be justly judged only if I give a clear picture of myself to the persons who are to pass judgment on me.
I did not give any cause to the prosecution to make any further charges against me beyond my truthful and exhaustive statements. happenings of that time from the perspective of the present time, with the knowledge of connections gained in the meantime, but to imagine themselves in the area and in the situation into which we were placed at that time. Then it will become clear to the Tribunal that we did our duty not in contempt of human life, but in constant struggle between duty and personal feelings. Then I have the hope that the Tribunal will arrive at a just verdict.
THE PRESIDENT: The Defendant Graf.
THE DEFENDANT GRAF: Mr. President, Your Honors, it was not my wish that led me to the SD in 1940. It was fate that I was ordered to the East. In exactly the same way it was fate that I am the only one of approximately 5,000 noncommissioned officers and men in the Einsatzgruppen who came to this defendant's dock. not involve me in the things which have been the object of the indictment here. I have confidence that a similarly benevolent destiny will restore my honor and my freedom to me, thanks to the objective and righteous judges.
THE PRESIDENT: With the termination of the trial proceedings, the Tribunal wishes to express its appreciation to both counsel for the prosecution and for the defense for their courteous cooperation with the Tribunal at all times. We wish particularly to congratulate counsel for the defense for their indefatigable efforts in behalf of their clients.
Entrused with a difficult task, they measured up to the finest traditions of the bar, and they have earned the commendation of the Tribunal. judgment is to be rendered, date of which has not yet been set. However, all counsel will be notified in due time as to the date of the judgment, when it is decided upon by the Tribunal. upon order of the Tribunal.
(The Tribunal adjourned without day.)
THE MARSHAL: The Honorables, the Judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal hands to the Secretary General the Opinion and Judgment in Case No. 9. This document shall be the official opinion and judgment in the case. Any questions regarding translation and transcripts shall be resolved by consultation with this document. saving or for any other reason will not affect the authenticity and authority of the official copy of the opinion and judgment filed with the Secretary General.
Mr. Secretary General.
(The President handed to the Secretary General the Official Opinion and Judgment.)
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OTTO OHLENDORF, HEINZ JOST, ERICH NAUMAN,: OTTO RASCH, Cancelled, ERWIN SCHULZ, FRANZ SIX, PAUL: BLOBEL, WALTER BLUME, MARTIN SANDBERG,: OPINION AND JUDGMENT WILLY SEIBERT, EUGEN STEIMLE, ERNST BIBER-: STEIN, WERNER BRAUNE, WALTER HAENSCH, : GUSTAV NOSSKE, ADOLF OTT, EDUARD STRAUCH,: WOLDEMAR KLINGELHOEFER, LOTHAR FENDLER, : Case No. 9 WALDEMAR VON RADETZKY, FELIX RUEHL, HEINZ: SCHUBERT, and MATHIAS GRAF, Defendants : charged the twenty-four defendants enumerated therein with crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership in criminal organizations. The twenty-four defendants were made up of six SS-Generals, five SS-Colonels, six SS-Lieutenant Colonels, four SS-Majors and three SS-junior officers. Since the filing of the indictment the number of the defendants has been reduced to twenty-two. Defendant SS-Major Emil Haussman committed suicide on July 31, 1947, and defendant SS-Brigadier General Otto Rasch was severed from the case on February 5, 1948 because of his inability to testify. Although it is assumed that Rasch's disease (paralysis agitans or Parkinsonism) will become progressively worse, his severance from these proceedings is not to be regarded as any adjudication on the question of guilt or innocence. Indictment are identical in character, but the indictment draws the distinction between acts constituting offenses against civilian populations including German nationals and nationals of other countries, and the same acts committed as violations of the laws and customs of war involving murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and civilian populations of countries under the occupation of Germany. Count III charges the defendants with membership in the SS, SD and Gestapo, organizations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal and Paragraph I(d) of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.
commission of atrocities, persecutions, exterminations, imprisonment and other inhumane acts, the principal charge in this case is murder. However, as unequivocal as this charge is, questions have, arisen which must be definitely resolved so that this decision may add its voice in the present solemn re-affirmation and sound development of international precepts binding upon nations and individuals alike, to the end that never again will humanity witness the sad and miserable spectacle it has beheld and suffered during these last years. with which the Tribunal must deal in this Opinion are so beyond the experience of normal man and the range of man-made phenomena that only the most complete judicial inquiry, and the most exhaustive trial, could verify and confirm them. Although the principle accusation is murder and, unhappily, man has been killing man ever since the days of Cain, the charge of purposeful homicide in this case reaches such fantastic proportions and surpasses such credible limits that believability must be bolstered with assurance a hundred times repeated. slaughtered his brother. He has always had an excuse, criminal and ungodly though it may have been. He has killed to take his brother's property, his wife, his throne, his position; he has slain out of jealousy, revenge, passion, lust, cannibalism. He has murdered as a monarch, a slaveowner, a madman, a robber. But it was left to the twentieth century, to proclaim and to produce so extraordinary a killing that even a new word had to be created to define it.
biggest murder trial in history. Certainly never before have twenty-three men been brought into court to answer to the charge of destroying over one million of their fellow-human beings. There have been other trials imputing to administrators and officials responsibility for mass murder, but in this case the defendants are not simply accused of planning or or directing wholsesale killings through channels. They are not charged with sitting in an office hundreds and thousands of miles away from the slaughter. It is asserted with particularity that these men were in the field actively superintending, controlling, directing, and taking an active part in the bloody harvest. here participation in a crime of such unprecedented brutality and of such inconceivable savagery that the mind rebels against its own thought image and the imagination staggers in the contemplation of a human degradation beyond the power of language to adequately portray. The crime did not exclude the immolation of women and children, heretofor regarded the special object of solicitude even on the part of an implacable and primitive foe. of October 1, 1946 declared that the Einsatzgruppen and the Security Police, to which the defendants belonged, were responsible for the murder of two million defenseless human beings, and the evidence presented in this case has in no way shaken this finding. No human mind can grasp the enormity of two million deaths because life, the supreme essence of consciousness and being, does not lend itself to material or even spiritual appraisement.
It is so beyond finite comprehension that only its destruction offers an infinitesimal suggestion of its worth. The loss of any one person can only begin to be measured in the realization of his survivors that he is gone forever. The extermination, therefore, of two million human beings cannot be felt. Two million is but a figure. The number of deaths resulting from the activities with which these defendants have been connected and which the Prosecution has set at one million, is but an abstract number. One cannot grasp the full cumulative terror of murder one million times repeated. into units capable of mental assimilation that one can understand the monstrousness of the things we are in this trial contemplating. One must visualize not one million people but only ten persons -- men, women, and children, perhaps all of one family -- falling before the executioner's guns. If one million is divided by ten, this scene must happen one hundred thousand times, and as one visualizes the repetitious horror, one begins to understand the meaning of the Prosecution's words: "It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of more than a million innocent and defenseless men, women and children." realization that such things could happen in an age supposedly civilized and mankind may also well cherish the hope that civilization will actually redeem itself, so that, by reflection, cleansing and a real sanctification of the holiness of life, that nothing even faintly resembling such a thing may happen again.
information and guidance of the legal profession, but the Nuremberg judgments are of interest to a much larger segment of the earth's population. It would not be too much to say that the entire world itself is concerned with the adjudications being handed down in Nuremberg. Thus it is not enough in these pronouncements to cite specific laws, sections and paragraphs. The decisions must be understood in the light of the circumstances which brought them about. What is the exact nature of the facts on which the judgments are based? A Tribunal may not avert its head from the ghastly deeds whose legal import it is called upon to adjudicate. What type of reasoning or lack of reasoning was it that brought about the events which are to be here related? What type of morality or lack of it was it that for years bathed the world in blood and tears? Why is is that Germany, whose rulers thought to make it the wealthiest and the most powerful nation of all time, an empire which would overshadow the Rome of Caesar -why is it that this Germany is now a shattered shell? Why is it that Europe, the cradle of modern civilization, is devastated and the whole world is out of joint? Einsatzgruppen trial in particular makes no little contribution to that enlightenment. crossed the Polish frontier and smashed into Russia, there moved with and behind them a unique organization known as the Einsatzgruppen. As an instrument of terror in the museum of horror, it would be difficult to find an entry to surpass the Einsatzgruppen in its blood-freezing potentialities. No writer of murder fiction, no dramatist steeped in macabre lore, can ever expect to conjure up from his imagination a plot which will shock sensibilities as much as will the stark drama of these sinister bands.