Q. (By the President) So that if any unusual equipment came into your Einsatzgruppe it would be likely for you to notice this unusual equipment, considering that you had a limited number of vehicles?
A. Yes, I would notice that.
Q. How was it that you didn't notice this murder van which came, this gas van?
A. I don't even know whether it ever arrived. I didn't see it and no one ever told me about it.
Q. You read the correspondence about the gas van, did you not?
A. No, I did not see it.
Q. You read it here today?
A. Yes, here I saw it.
Q. You do not doubt the authenticity of those letters, do you?
A. I didn't examine them that carefully.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you quickly show him those letters again?
THE WITNESS: Looking at the photostat one can see no proof of the fact that it is not authentic, at least I can't see anything.
Q. (By the President) Now, the letter requesting the additional gas van states that your Einsatzgruppe already has three vans, but they are not sufficient for the purpose intended, and the purpose is quite obvious. A request is madefor another van, and the letter of June 22nd says that this 5 - ton van will arrive the middle of the following month, which would be in July while you were still the commander of Einsatzgruppe A. Now, are we to understand that although your Einsatzgruppe had four gas vans, vans which were equipped to kill people by a very ingenious device, although you had this most extraordinary equipment, that yet it did not come to your attention?
A. In any case I did not see the letter. That is an absolute fact. I just didn't see it.
Q. Let's forget about the letters. I am speaking now of the vans . These vans were especially equipped to treat Jews in a special way.
The original letter speaks of a transport of Jews arriving weekly. Now, that isn't an incident which could be bery easily overlooked, transports of human beings arriving and being gassed to death in certain types of equipment. All this constitutes a series of events which would not be easily over looked or not noticed by the commander of an operation who has his wits about him.
A. Apart from these letters I did not receive any reports that such transports of Jews were brought in. One single time they spoke about Jewish transports from white Ruthenia, but it was said because of the partisan situation no transports could be brought through.
Q. It says,"A transport of Jews, which has to be treated in a special way, arrives weekly at the office of the Commandant of the Security Police and Security Service of White Ruthenia." Here we have this most extraordinary spectacle of a transport of human beings arriving and being systematically fed to gas vans and there being liquidated. Now, this extraordinary situation in no way came to your attention although you were the commanding officer?
A. No, it did not become known to me.
Q. And although then the equipment was increased to four vans and you only had as many as one hundred vehicles, yet you did not know of these four gas vans which were used for the purpose of exterminating human beings, you did not know that?
A. If it was not reported to me and cannot suspect these things, then I cannot know them.
Q. You made inspections from time to time, I take it?
A. Yes, but nothing was said to me about gas vans and nothing was shown to me.
Q. You inspected your equipment from time to time, did you not?
A. No, I didn't inspect vehicles in detail.
Q. What kind of a Major General are you that you were conducting an operation and yet are not familiar with your equipment and its state of repair?
A. If they don't tell me anything about these vans I can't know it; I didn't see them.
Q. Did you inspect your equipment from time to time?
A. The vehicles, if I came to the garage yes, I looked at them.
Q. And if these gas vans had been there you would have observed them if you inspected the equipment, would you not?
A. If they had been there I would have had to see them, yes.
Q. So therefore we come back to the proposition that you questioned these letters.
A. I said I cannot see anything from looking at the photostat that they are not genuine.
Q. Very well. If the letters are genuine then your Einsatzgruppe would have three gas vans and ordered a fourth one, and the communications indicate that the fourth one would be delivered the middle of July.
A. It says in the letter that the gas vans were to go to White Ruthenia. That is, it is to a certain locality and not to the Einsatzgruppe, not even to the place where I was.
Q. Well, but you had command of that area, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Then we will sum it all up by saying this, that although you were an officer in the German Army, and although you had been a soldier for many years, yet you did not inspect your equipment and you were free to ignore orders which came to you from the highestranking officer in your organization.
A. I don't know what is more difficult, to live under this pressure for four months or to say this today. It would be easier not to say it today, and it would have been better for me at the time to act differently and not to make these efforts for months to achieve a different goal. I have said it day before yesterday, that I did not act this Way because my inner feelings forced me to act that way, and the realization of what would befall all these victims , not only the Jews, but that this would have terrible consequences, that something would have to be done against it.
That was my conviction.
Q. You are making a comparison between that period and the stress under which you find yourself today, and do we understand from that comparison that you are wondering now whether it might not have been easier for you to have executed the order and not find yourself in a position here on a witness stand admitting that you refused to obey an order, is that what we are to believe?
A. No.
Q. Then I don't understand why you made the reference to the great difficulty you have been having at the present time.
A. No, I wanted to say that at the time it was terribly difficult to make this attempt to swim against the stream, and that today it is very difficult to describe it in the manner it happened, especially since those people who knew about it and who were there are not to be found today. That is my misfortune. If the people whom I mentioned to my lawyer and who know about this affair were to be found then they can confirm it without any question. I have said that to my Lawyers,they know that for, that was a fact which I could not tell to a hundred people. Only a few could know about it.
Q. Very well.
A. That is why I asked that these witnesses be looked for, and I ask once more to look for them so that these things can be confirmed.
Q. Well, we can't find Reinhardt Heydrich for you but we might be able to locate Mueller.
A. No, I ask for Landgraf and Nyhogen and Jadeke . These are the three men who know about the situation.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II-A.
Military Tribunal II-A is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Schwarz, are you ready to proceed?
DR. SCHWARZ: Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have anything further to present in the case of defendant Jost at this time?
DR. SCHWARZ: Your Honor, I have no redirect examination to put to the defendant. May I say only what I have already said yesterday that I reserve the right to call the witnesses later on, as soon as they have arrived here.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the defendant Jost will now be taken back to the defendant's dock.
DR. SCHWARZ: May I ask that the defendant Jost be excused from this afternoon's session.
THE PRESIDENT: For what reason?
DR. SCHWARZ: I Would like to discuss with the defendant the affidavits which yet have to be taken.
THE PRESIDENT: For the reasons indicated by defense counsel, the defendant Jost will be excused from attendance in Court this afternoon.
DR. SCHWARZ: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulmer, are you ready to proceed with the defendant Six?
DR. ULMER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the defendant Six will be escorted to the witness stand.
FRANZ SIX, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
JUDGE DIXON: Hold up your right hand and repeat after me: the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath)
JUDGE DIXON: You may be seated.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed. BY DR. ULMER:
Q. I ask the defendant - what is your name?
A. My name is Franz Alfred Six.
Q. Please give your data.
A. I was born on the 12th of August 1909 in Mannheim. I attended the Gymnasium - High School - and graduated in 1930. From 1930 to 1934 I studied social and policical science, history, at the University of Heidelberg.
Q. Did you only study at Heidelberg?
A. Heidelberg was the German school of Socialogy. I got to know teachers and personalities which impressed me very deeply. They gave me an extensive knowledge in the entire theory of political science and sociology, and above all, they gave me a picture of the modern world state.
Q. Was Heidelberg in this respect of great importance for your future career?
A. Yes; in Heidelberg there was the first Institute for teaching foreign political science.
Q. Please describe this Institute.
A. It was an Institute for comparative political science and sociology. It gave me an interest in the study of political science and to set up a teaching institute, that is to say, the way it had already existed for a long time in the Anglo-Saxon countries.
Q. These interests which were aroused in you in Heidelberg could you make use of them and realize them after your studies?
A. No. It was clear to me that if I wanted to take up a scholastic career I first had to pass the prescribed examination.
Q. What examination did you pass?
A. In the year 1934 I passed my PhD at the University of Heidelberg. In the fall of the same year I took up a teaching position at the University of Koenigsberg, and at the same time I took the press position and publicity directorship in the German Students Association. In the year 1936 I passed degree of Dr. Phil. That is, a higher doctor's degree than the previous one, and got another degree at the University of Koenigsberg. As a result of these examinations, in the year 1936 I became a lecturer, and in the year 1938 I became a professor in the faculty for law and political science, at the University of Koenigsberg. In the year 1939 I was transferred to the University of Berlin.
Q. Didn't you pass an examination in Leipzig?
A. Yes, that was the Venia Legendi.
Q. You said Koenigsberg; you meant Leipzig?
A. Yes.
Q. What professorship did you receive in Berlin...to which professorship were you called?
A. In Berlin I received the chain for foreign political science anf for external politics. I taught general political science, the history of the European powers, the history of world politics, and world states, and history of diplomacy and foreign policies.
Q. Did this mean the realization of your plan made at Heidelberg to extend these political sciences?
A. Yes, in Berlin I was able to realize this.
Q. In how far?
A. In Berlin there were two semi-academic institutes, a University for political science, and the Semi-academic institute for foreign policies. I made them into full academic institutes, and incorporated them as a faculty of political science into the University of Berlin. I was the first Dean of this faculty in Berlin.
Q. And the educational aim of this faculty, - what was it?
A. The educational aim of this institute of foreign politics was the training of a number of highly qualified people for all the private and official agencies of the Reich in foreign countries. This education took place in three branches. A branch for international law, a branch for world economics and foreign trade, and a branch for cultural history and philosophy. Everyone of these branches was connected with the study of a special country and its language. Outside of this educational aim I aimed at the education of Germans who could think internationally, whom we had not yet known how to create since the beginning of the Reich. Above all, this new type of German was to see that Germany was led away from its intellectual isolation and to see to it that the prejudices against Germany were lifted.
Q. You were the Dean?
A. That is right.
Q. And how was your faculty composed?
A. The faculty included the best specialists from the German universities. These experts had been visiting professors for years, or even for decades, at the leading universities of foreign countries. Thus they had knowledge of the international situation. They had formed their own political opinion, and for a great part they had reservations about National Socialism.
Q. Was one of the educational aims of this faculty the training of the diplomatic service?
A. Originally not. The Foreign Office under State Secretary Luther had its own school for the training of diplomats, but it had not proceeded with its plans. For this reason in the year 1942 I was given the task by the Foreign Office to take over the planning and the training of people for the Diplomatic Service. I was to carry out this training within this faculty of international politics.
Q. This was then an additional task for you as a university professor?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you serve in any other capacity in the Foreign Office?
A. Yes, the development for total war made the drafting of many age groups as attaches of the Foreign Service - made that impossible for the duration of the war. The tranining for the diplomatic service, therefore, was postponed for the duration of the war. For this reason I was offered the direction of the cultural political branch. This I directed from 1943 on.
Q. Was it customary that a university professor took over the direction of the cultural branch of the Foreign Office?
A. No, since the establishment of the cultural branch in the Foreign Office in the year 1920, it had become a tradition to take scholars and university professors and make them directors of a cultural branch.
Q. What were the missions of this cultural political branch?
A. The cultural branch had the direction and administration of German cultural organizations in foreign countries, that is to say, of the German schools, of the German scientific institutes, of the German language institutes of the German visiting professors, etc. Outside of that, the whole cultural exchange program under this branch, that is, in the fields of poetry, of science, of the theater, of music, of the fine arts, and of the film. As war missions there was added the translation and dissemination of German writings in foreign countries, especially of the papers and document books.
Q. This, then was a mission which one could only give you, and which you could only assume on the basis of your scholastic capacity?
A. Well, as I have already said, My predecessors were mostly scholars and university professors. The difficult and complicated relations with the scholars in the Reich and in foreign countries made it seem feasible to have scholars as directors of this branch.
Q. What rank did you hold in the Foreign Office?
A. After assuming this cultural political branch I became an Envoy, First Class.
For this purpose I gave up my professorship and continued my lectures as an honorary professor.
Q. That is the some activity as a professor, only you did not have the possibility to be a regular professor because of your official activities, and you were forced to become honorary professor?
A. Yes, the duties were the same, but the official duties changed. This was a normal, a customary prescription in the former German administration system.
Q. How long did you direct the cultural political branch?
A. I directed this branch until the capitulation.
Q. And now your Party dates, place.
A. Member of the Nazi Party in the year 1930. Membership in the Student League of the SA, November 1932. Member of the SD and SS in the year 1935. Chief of office in the RSHA in 1939.
Q. Your personnel file is here.
DR. ULMER: Your Honor, it is Document 4807, Prosecution Exhibit 126, Book III-B, page 145 in the German text. I don't know the page number in the English text.
THE PRESIDENT: We have it. 79.
DR. ULMER: Page 79 in the English text.
Q. (By Dr. Ulmer) In this personnel file you are listed as chief of office as your official position.
office?
Q What were you working at in full capacity?
A I was university professor that was my only capacity. As such I was paid and as such I carried out my activities. to you as a General, designated you as a General. Were you a General? Did you have the title of a General?
A No, it was one of the few titles I did not have. I was Honorary Brigadier General, but that is to say, Brigadier General in the General-SS. In the Waffen-SS I was Untersturmfuehrer; I never held a rank of the Police as a General. you had held this rank in the Waffen-SS, or in the Police Service, that you were actually a general in the Police Service? the Police and the Waffen-SS, or something like that.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you mean by "Honorary Brigadier General"? I became Brigadier General in January 1945. This was done in accordance with my promotions to a higher class envoy. That is, to say, my appointment to Brigadier General was honorary.
Q Were you at the time addressed as a General? weren't you so addressed? people in the service of the State to give them ranks in the SS in order to give them equivalent ranks according to heir official civil service ranks. Accordingly, I became a SS-Brigadier General.
Q Well, you were entitled to that designation, were you not?
A Your Honor, I would have to explain it linguistically. The meaning of Brigadier General in German does not mean a General, but in English it is translated as Brigadier General. In order to be a General in Germany it would have to say "Brigadefuehrer und General, this is an Army Brigadier General and SS Brigadier General. would be Brigadier General? rank in the English concept of the word. value in the English language, it would be Brigadier General, would it not? equivalent would be Brigadier General? for in German there is a difference between the rank in the SS and the military rank in the Waffen-SS, or in the Police. For if this were not this way, every State-secretayr, or every official of a ministry who held an honorary rank in the SS would have to have a rank such as major, or general, or something like that, or some other rank, but this was not the case. Did I explain that sufficiently, Your Honor? confusion into my mind in this respect. That you are the first officer that I ever heard ow who was entitled to be called a General, but didn't want to be called a General.
A May I answer this, please?
Q No, I don't think it is necessary?
A This is a very basic question. As an university professor, and as an official in the diplomatic service, I could not very well assume a Police rank, and I didn't think there was adequate connection in the rank and positions. As an university professor, I could hardly call myself General of the Police, I have always refused to do it, and today I am saying that I did so rightly, and for my inner convictions.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, counsel, General or Corporal, let's proceed.
DR. ULMER: Your Honor, may I just state in conclusion that as the translation brings about a mistake, perhaps Brigadier-leader would be the translation in the SS rank, and Brigadier General, that is, General Major in German, which is the designation of an equivalent to a uniformed soldier, or a Police officer.
THE PRESIDENT: I assure you that despite the witness's efforts to extricate himself from what he regards as an ignominy, of being a General, that even if the Tribunal were to ascertain him as holding a General rank, we would not impute to him any additional incriminality because he was a General. BY DR ULMER:
Q Why did you join the Nazi Party?
A I was born in an industrial city, and grew up in one. I came from a working class family. From my sixth to twenty-fourth year, I saw most of the social questions, and its root, namely, in my own home, and in my development. I had to earn my living early in my life, when I was still going to school, and then the situations were often so difficult that I had to leave school in order to be able to earn my living, and in order to continue to go to school, and continue my studies at the university, which I could only make possible by hard work and going short. In all these years I did not get any assistance from the State, or any scholarship. But I had no chance that there would be any prospect for that from the State. In view of this unfortunate situation, and my hopeless future, I set my hopes on the Party, which would bring about a justifiable solution of the social question. Many of my generation faced this decision either to become Communists or National Socialist. I became a National Socialist. Less for reasons of the program, but from recognizing the potential power of National Socialism, which promised me to solve the social question not from the class point of view, but from the whole peoples point of view.
But perhaps, that is not a reason that I became a National Socialist when I was twenty years of age, and, for this reason I would like to site two examples which were decisive for me. In my home town, I witnessed the bloodiest class sturggles through the years of 1918 until the year of 1933, that is, for fifteen years workers rose on every First of May, for fifteen years the regular police, or the Reich Militia, came in and put down these revolts with machine guns. I asked myself at that time if the State was still in order; if the request for bread and employment is not by a machine gun and rifle. The second example, I carried on my studies at Heidelberg, for four years on an average of twenty marks a month. I needed elevne marks to live in an attic, and that left me nine marks to live on. Nine marks, that meant thirty pfennigs a day, at ten pfennigs for the lunch in the kitchen for the poor, ten pfennigs for four rolls in the evening, and ten pfennigs for cigarettes, and this I lived through for four years in the midst of Heidelberg Student Romanticism, where the main problems were welfare and donation and then I asked myself, whether society was still healthy, if it finds so much camplacency, and how it can reconcile this complacency with so much distress. The answer which I gave myself was joining the Nazi Party. much the reasons?
in those years did not mean anything, or nothing at all. It was known as a temporary program, and that is how we judged it. I would just like to give a few examples. There was the interpretation of the "Feder" ideology and the interpretation of "Rosenberg" ideology. There was the school of Spain and the school of Greek; there were western ideologies, and eatern ideologies. There were believers in Germanic Divinity, and there were positive Christians -
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, when did you begin your scholastic career at Heidelberg?
Q Your affidavit states"from 1933 until 1934 I studied Social, Political Science, History and Journalism at the University of Heidelberg."
A That is a mistake, Your Honor. It means 1930.
THE PRESIDENT:Yes. Socialist Party?
Q Yes. Now you have given us a heart-rendering tale of eating in a garret for four years, and then you joined the National Socialist Party, but apparently jou joined the Party before ever these trials and tribulations had developed at the University of Heidelberg, where there was so much complacency in the midst of distress; now did you anticipate what you were going to suffer at Heidelberg at the time? worked for two years before I graduated; I saw this and actually experienced it. ing at the University of Heidelberg, you then joined the Party?
lead me to become a Nazi. the University of Heidelberg?
A Yes, that is right? could draw upon while you were at the University?
A I didn't understand what advantage - what profit I could draw from it. that you found yourself that your only resource could be was to join the National Socialist Party. You found that was the only escape that you could find from this distress in which you were?
Q Yes, all right, then you became a Nazi in 1930? titled to have from 1930? could be derived from this political affiliation with a certain Party you could get from 1930. but you have described to us the harrowing experience and your distress at the University of Heidelberg when you already were a fullfledged Nazi? Party that did not help any while you were at the University of Heidelberg?
Q Or did it ever help you?
Q THE PRESIDENT: All right.
BY DR. ULMER: Heidelberg, or in the hope that this Party will keep its promises and realize then out of the entire German distress? and in the year of 1930, one didn't think about that a Party would distribute any advantages. It was a really inner will and hope that there would be an ideal of a community where class struggles would be eliminated, and the advantages of social order would be brought about. and when? the time the Party issued a decree that every member of the Party would have to become a member of the professional organization. Accordingly I became a member of those two organizations.
Q And then in 1935 you also became a member of the SD. Why? and press expert. A University colleague suggested to me to build up a press department in the SS agency. That made the material of the world press available to me which was no longer available in a common way. For this reason I decided to take over this activity as a sideline, and this was in the year of 1935. the SD; what did you know about the SD at the time this offer was made?
A Until the year of 1935 I had no connections with the SD. It was nothing more to me than an agency of the SS, just like many others.
Q You were not then with the SS. Why did you become a member of the SS, was there any connection between them? SS automatically. Merely to mention it, I never made an application to enter the SS. I didn't fill any racial questionnaires either. I was just taken in and then later had to be dismissed from the SA.
Q You were in the SD Main Office from 1935 to '39. What branches did your activity include? and Writing, and from the year of 1937 to 1939, Domestic Department. University? professor and as a sideline I was Department Chief in the SD from '35 to '39.
Q Then in '39 you handed over these activities in the SD. Why? ship with Heydrich. In the year of 1939 I was dismissed from my job.
Q And why did your relationship with Heydrich become worse?
A We had human end political reasons. Human reasons since a purely power political terroristic character like Heydrich could not bear intellectual arguments for any length of time, every co-worker who had his own intellectual opinion sooner or later had to be suspected of being soft and agreeing to compromises, that is intellectually. Heydrich's political attitude was to divide the entire German people into supporters and opponents and therefore disregarded education and personal opinion completely.
A (Continuing) For this reason I had an increasing number of disputes which then led to the bad relationship and finally to my dismissal.
Q And what were the results of this dismissal?
Q Was it possible to be dismissed from the SD? dismissal. Furthermore I was university professor in full capacity and financially independent so that I could permit myself this stop.
Q And Heydrich approved the dismissal, or didn't he? and how an SS Leader can leave the SD.
Q And Why didn't Heydrich approve this dismissal? This was one of the characteristics of Heydrich which has often been described here. No one could be honorably dismissed from his service. Either something was said about him or he just ruined him. September, 1939, on? start completely new office, the office for science and research.
Q What was the name of this institute?
Q What were its missions? questions.
Q What type of research purposes? no modern problems but historical ones in the manner of a historical university institute. It was to undertake cultural history, intellectual history, an intellectual history of foreign countries. The reason why Heydrich founded such an institute during the war can only be seen from his own snobbishness.
He just wanted to have his own office of science which would, so-to-speak, be a decorative office in his RSHA. with them? necessary research workers impossible. Thus there were only a number of publications about the history of liberalism and Free Masonry.
Q Could these research results be used practically? lished in a series of publications. Therefore, they could not be used in the Reich or anywhere else.
Q How many collaborators were there in office VII?
A The Office VII was in charge of 15 referents, experts. In addition there were some translators, some archive workers and liberians and some stenographers. All told there were forty people.
Q And how large were the other offices in comparison? Police Office included 800 people.
Q All others had several hundred? occupied territories? 40 people.
Q How long were you director of this office? from December, 1941, until July, 1942. about? 1940, I was called up.