But I had no intellectual stimulus living in the country. Apart from that, I went through a psychological change under the influence of the NSDAP. Those questions and problems of many kinds which were my field of interest, cropping up in the ancient Orient, I recognized more and more that we Germans, apart from the scientific interest in other parts of the world, we neglected and forgot our own little piece of the world. I turned my interests to the German home history, and the European pre-history, especially the old Germanic religious history in myth, saga and fairy tale, It took all my attention. And in this frame there was also genealogy, which also had taken my interest when I was a student. Thus it came about that I lost interest in my scientific works dealing with the Orient, and I became more and more interested in the subjects which I have just mentioned, the subjects concerning the German man in history and the present.
Q. When did you join the NSDAP?
A. On the 19th of July, 1926.
Q. Will you make a small interruption, Witness, so that the interpreter has the chance to translate the sentences? How did it come about that you joined the NSDAP?
A. My very religious mother, who had died who had never cared very much about politics formerly, asked me at the beginning of the 20's to subscribe to the Voelkischer Beobachter, which was then a weekly. It was my first contact with National Socialism. My father was at that time a leading member of the Social Democrat Party in Neumuenster, and he tried to win me over into this party. Through my mother, in contact with the Voelkischer Beobachter, it came about that my father, as well as myself, got very interested in this young party. My father joined the party in 1925. The following ideological thoughts made me join in 1926: collapse of the Reich in 1919. Therefore, for me as a soldier it was the duty of conscience to do everything in order to have rescinded the Versailles Treaty, which I regarded as very humiliating.
I imagined that this could be done by an agreement. I regarded the Versailles Treaty as so humiliating because every one-sided agreement is always a chain.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, when you joined the NSDAP, you were already an ordained minister?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Just as a matter of information, did ministers generally join the NSDAP in Germany?
THE WITNESS: Yes, a large number.
THE PRESIDENT: Had you read "Mein Kampf" before you joined the National Socialist Party?
THE WITNESS: No, I had not.
THE PRESIDENT: Were you familiar with Hitler's views on religion generally before you joined tha Party?
THE WITNESS: I only knew what was generally known at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you regard Hitler as a God-fearing man?
THE WITNESS: At the time, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you ever have occasion to change your views?
THE WITNESS: Personally, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: When?
THE WITNESS: I was asked whether I had ever had the opportunity to change my opinions.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, did you ever change your views about Hitler being a God-fearing man?
THE WITNESS: After what I heard, after 1945, a number of things now appear in a different light to me.
THE PRESIDENT: You did not change your views about Hitler's religious attitude until after 1945?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you know about the persecution of the Jews in Germany?
THE WITNESS: It depends , your Honor, what you mean by the persecution of the Jews .......
THE PRESIDENT: Did you know that Jews were deprived of their citizenship rights?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you know they were deprived of their property?
THE WITNESS: No, I did not know that their property was taken away from them.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, I shall deal more explicitly with this set of questions in the course of my direct examination, if you will permit me to mention this, within the frame of the whole thing.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, Dr. Bergold, proceed.
THE WITNESS: I spoke of the Versaille Treaty which I regarded, as it meant a chain, as most humiliating. I hope that this mistake - this one-sided treaty - that in fact a mistake of that kind, will be avoided by the American Government so that no animosity of any kind will be brought up again. then nationalist parties did not seem capable, because they worked on too small a base. In this young National Socialist Party, a simple man of the working population who had begun as a simple soldier and had helped bear the whole hardship of a war, became the expression of the people' s will, and he became the expression of a strong national will whom one could not resist as a German man. Equally strong in me was the war experiences. I had lived in very close community with workingmen during the war, and I had experienced the comradeship which is unforgettable. Added to this is the fact that I, as a clergyman, regard the human responsibility especially towards those who are socially inferior, as an order of God. The solution of this social question, the urgent necessity to include the worker in the human system, of human society, was a necessity for me. I experienced in the NSDAP, a workman's party, which wanted to materialize this aim, and which was led by a man who knew and who had the same experience at the front during the war and who had shared the hard lot of the working man. A national and social element worked hand in hand with each other in the National Socialist Party, and promised to fight all destructive elements, and to create a people's community which wanted to equalize all classes of the population.
That was an ideal which none of all the other parties had, because they were to a larger or lesser extent only communities of interests of part groups of the population. The one man was the leader of this party who had a power of will and a power of reaching his aim which made the materialization of these aims -
MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD: If the Tribunal please, it seems to the Prosecution the witness by no means gives his own impression. He gives a general lecture about National Socialism and about Hitler. I do not think that his lecture is relevant in this place, and I further think that the Tribunal is very well informed about what Hitler and the National Socialist Party were and what they did. I do not think that it is necessary for the witness to expound on this point further.
DR. BERGOLD: I must contradict the honorable representative of the Prosecution. The witness speaks merely about his own impression here of the party. It is correct, it sounds like a National Socialist speech, but it was just his own world of ideology and thought, which, of course, one must understand.
MR. HORLICK-HOCHWALD: I had the impression that it was by no means understandable from the lecture of the witness that this was his personal view. He stated these things as established facts, never saying that, "I had the impression that it was that". He said Hitler was that; the National Socialist Party was that. He gave all these impressions entirely as established facts. He never said, "I had the impression, it seems to me for that and that reason," etc. He just lectured to us for about twenty-five minutes now what a wonderful thing National Socialism was.
DR. BERGOLD: I have to contradict the representative of the Prosecution again. Before the witness began he said the following sentence: "The following ideological thoughts were responsible for my decision to join the Party," and then he gave these thoughts as they struck him at that time as facts.
THE PRESIDENT: We will allow the witness to continue.
THE WITNESS: For my decision to enter the party was also responsible the very clear program of the NSDAP against materialistic Marxism and Communism. Q (By Dr. Bergold) Could you be a little more brief? thought, we want to destroy all culture, the thought of a class struggle, and a campaign against any religion, as it was called "opium for the people", through the creation of a larger extended Atheist community, as the Communist idea was in fact materialized in Russia, employing bloody means and catastrophical famines. Especially as a religious person I was confronted with the alternative, on the one hand, Bolshevism, that means the decline of the Occident with its religion and its culture, or Anti-Bolshevism, as I could only find in National Socialism at the time. I was under no doubt at the time that the churches will have to subscribe against Bolshevism, and the most shaking, the most overwhelming thing for me today is, that everything has come different, that National Socialism had to -
THE PRESIDENT: Now, are you talking about today or when you joined the National Socialist Party?
THE WITNESS: No, I just said something about today. My last sentence is an expression of what I feel today. Only the last sentence, your Honor. The other, the remainder of what I said was all the ideology, my thoughts which made me join the NSDAP.
I have just said that at the time I was of the clear conviction that the churches would -
THE PRESIDENT: We heard you. You don't need to repeat it. Continue.
THE WITNESS: What shakes me now is that the development became so different and that the Pope can still speak about Bolshevism in the same way as National Socialism used to at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, do you think that that is relevant, what he just said now?
DR. BERGOLD: That is his attitude today. I think it is of superior importance here, but I think he has now exhausted this subject. Q (By DR. Bergold) Witness, did any personal interest take any part in this decision to join the Party?
A No, never. I had my own profession which secured me a safe existence. I did not think of myself when I joined the party. I only thought of my people and this attitude I never changed. My life was spent in the service of the people and serving God. service to the church? Was there no conflict? service and my service in the party. The Evangelical the Protestant Lutheran Church had always been national until 1918. The head of the State was also the head of the church. Also the Protestant Lutheran Church always attached great value to sacrificing the highest percentage of blood when waging war. The solution of the social question is the nucleus of the existence, existence of the church, and the highest order of God are the words of Jesus:
"you must love your neighbor as you love yourself." Also Point 24 contains recognition of the positive Christianity.
Q What do you call Point 24?
Q What about the racial question? His Honor, the President, has directed your attention to the racial question.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bergold, suppose we take that up after the recess? The Tribunal will be in recess fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken).
THE MARSHAL: Take your seats, please. The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. RIEDIGER: Your Honor, may I ask that the defendant Haensch be excused this afternoon from session, so that he will be able to prepare himself for his appearance on the witness stand, and, I also ask you to instruct for him to be brought to Room 57.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant will be excused from session in the court this afternoon, and arrangements will be made with the Marshal to see to it that he is taken to Room 57, so he may there consult with his attorney.
DR. BERGOLD: Your Honor, I have been asked to request that the defendant Ohlendorf be excused from attending session this afternoon because the Prosecution in Case 8 wants to interrogate him, and the fact that he would like to do some work of his own in his cell.
THE PRESIDENT: In accordance with the statement just made, the defendant Ohlendorf will be excused from attendance in court this afternoon. First, he will be taken to Room 57, then after the business there is completed, he will be allowed to confer with his attorney in connection with his own case.
BY DR. BERGOLD:
Q. Witness, the last discussion just before recess was on the Party Program, and I now ask you what is your opinion concerning the racisl question, and what was your opinion at the time to what was contained in the party Program?
A. I wish to comment on this in the following, firstly, the Racial question, in particular the Jewish Program is not a religious question, but a biological question and a question of communal like; secondly, the question of various races is a fact which exist by the will of God, therefore, has to be respected.
Q. That is your opinion?
A. Yes, that is the opinion which I had at the time, which even in my theological capacity was not in contradiction with my opinion concerning the Party Program; thirdly, that the relation of various races among themselves be brought to a satisfactory solution, is, in my opinion is no crime against the Will of God, but rather a fulfillment of His Will; fourthly, violation of races results from race throry in my opinion is wrong.
Apart from that, the NSDAP was not the first Party to think about the racial problem, but in their early beginning they made an orderly and just solution of this problem a point of their program; that many things were changed later on no one could know; and I could not know if either, and no one intended this at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, just when was that you formulated the idea that the program of the National Socialist Party coincided and harmonized with your views on religion?
THE WITNESS: At the time when I joined the Party, I would like to point out that all views at that time were quite different from those things which became known to the public later on, -------------------
THE PRESIDENT: Then from 1926 until what thime did you still entertain the conviction which you have just expressed, namely, that the program of the NSDAP insofar as it pertained to racial questions harmonized with your views on religion?
THE WITNESS: Until the very end.
THE PRESIDENT: And you Lave told us that you were a student on the Old Testament?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And you were able to reconcile the National Socialist Party program insofar as it pertained to the Jewish question with the teachings of the Old Testament?
THE WITNESS: I hardly think, Your Honor, that the teachings of the Old Testament have anything to do with the later events in Germany, because, as I already said it was not a religious matter which was concerned, but merely a biological matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let's put it this way, that there was nothing in the Party Program which conflicted with the Old Testament insofar as it pertained to Jews?
THE WITNESS: No, I don't see any contradiction there.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
THE WITNESS: I only want to say particularly that according to known at the time of what the NSDAP intended to do.
THE PRESIDENT: You say "What you could have known." Did you know?
THE WITNESS: What I knew at the time. I mean to say, that this formulation of these facts refer to all that the NSDAP had shown to the public about these questions at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: You make a distinction between what the program said, and what actually happened insofar as your knowledge is concerned?
THE WITNESS: I witnessed this personally, but later on things occurred which had nothing to do with the program, and that all we old National Socialists in particular felt very bitter about this.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Dr. Bergold.
Q. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, As for the racial question, did it not include the theory that a master race existed which was superior to the other races?
A. No, considering the racial question as such, it does not express the thought that a master race or inferior races existed. This idea is a distortion of the subsequent propaganda. I always considered all races equal before God, but in the fact that various races exist I saw the will of God that these should continue to exist separately.
THE PRESIDENT: DR. Bergold, I am sorry that I interrupt you, but I think it is best that we clear up a point while it is fresh in the minds of everybody. Now, the witness referred to Point 24 of the Party program and he told the Tribunal that in this Point 24 he saw a guarantee of religion. Now, we would like to read that paragraph, that Point 24, and have the witness tell us how he reconciles this point with the religion which he studied in the Old Testament and of which he has now told us a great deal. I will read it:
"Point 24: We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the State so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party, as such, advocates the standpoint of a positive Christinaity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework - common utility precedes individual utility." in this Point 24 which you yourself referred to, that the COURT II CASE IX Party combats the Jewish spirit, how do you reconcile that with your teachings gleaned from the Old Testament?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I am not a student of the Old Testament in the sense that for me the Old Testament is my basic book of religion. But I worked on the Old Testament as a Scholar within the Protestant Lutheran Church, so that it was a purely scholarly interest, and the teachings of the Old Testament were not binding for me, because for a Protestant the personality of Jesus stands above everything, and therefore, in referring to the Old Testament in this connection I cannot consider that correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Then, do you reconcile that Point 24 with the New Testament and its teachings?
THE WITNESS: I did not understand why the teachings -may I have the question repeated please?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. You have told us that you did not accept the Old Testament as your Bible, that for you the Old Testament was merely a subject of scientific study, and that you were not bound by the teachings of the Old Testament. I understood you correctly there, didn't I?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I ask you whether the Point 24 which you referred to can be reconciled with the teachings in the New Testament?
THE WITNESS: It says expressly that the Party believes in a positive Christianity. This word, contained in the Party program was decisive for a great number of Christians and religious people when joining the Party.
THE PRESIDENT: Well then, you would say that it does reconcile itself with the teachings in the New Testament?
THE WITNESS: What do you mean, your Honor? What cannot be reconciled?
THE PRESIDENT: Do you believe in the New Testament?
TEE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you believe in the New Testament and also believe in Point 24 of the Nazi program?
THE WITNESS: Yes, why not?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Now, that Point 24 advocates the combating a certain Jewish spirit within Germany and in that combat you know that synagogues were destroyed. You know that, do you?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I know it, but I never approved of it. As a religious person I was very much disgusted that this happened.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, but you saw that in the Point it says "We combat a Jewish materialistic spirit"?
THE WITNESS: The materialistic Jewish spirit.
THE PRESIDENT: And that was interpreted by certain groups in Germany to countenance the destruction of Jewish property, including synagogues?
THE WITNESS: Never had anything to do with this. The other is a spiritual argument.
THE PRESIDENT: Well then, you did not approve of any action against the Jewish synagogues?
THE WITNESS: Never.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, at the time it was explained to me, and I can only say what I heard at the time and what calmed me very much in 1938. That was the news that the Fuehrer was supposed to have had a fit of rage about it. I say what I heard.
THE PRESIDENT: You must understand, witness, and I think Dr. Bergold understands it, that these questions are put only for the purpose of securing information, to find COURT II CASE IX out what you thought and what you did,
THE WITNESS: Yes, of course, I understand.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
Q. (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, as a member of the Party what did you do until 1933?
A. When I joined the Party I pointed out my special profession. They respected this and the Gauleiter especially certified and said that I would not have to take part in any political activity, because I did not intend to be particularly active politically or to become a politician even. I never had that idea, and I have never been a politician. At the time, when joining the Party, I was still an individual member because in 1926, in Schleswig-Holstein there was hardly a local group in the country. Later on, after 1929, I conducted field services for the SA, flag dedications and services for the dead and Christmas services. I was always asked for this expreslly. When dedicating flags, I had discussions with Church authorities. I justified my activity by pointing out that these men, when making propaganda, constantly had to expect to be shot or beaten from ambush. At their express request I considered it my duty to give them the consolation of the faith.
Q. You did not have any political office before 1933?
A. No, before 1933 I did not have any kind of political office.
Q. What was your political activity until 1933?
A. From December, 1924 until 1927 I was pastor of a small congregation on the West Coast of Schleswig-Holstein, and from November, 1927 onwards until November, 1933, I was pastor of the large rural congregation, Kaltenkirchen, District of Segeberg.
Q. Witness, what is your attitude to the Church dogma?
Your Honor, I have to discuss this question because later on it will be shown that the defendant left the Church. That is why I have to show his religious development.
A. As I have already mentioned at the beginning, when I was a young man at school I already felt a close contact with God which became stronger owing to the war and my experiences there. This relationship to God was not at all connected with Jesus of Nazareth as Christ, that is, as the second person in the picture of the Trinity. In my theological studies, moreover, I particularly took an interest in studying the old Orient.
nucleus question more and more: what is your attitude towards Jesus of Nazareth as Christ? The dogma says that Christ is God Himself Who, as the Son of God, redeemed humanity by dying on the cross and relieved them of their sins. About this central problem I was never able to find a positive answer in myself. I did not know any belief in Jesus as Christ, but I firmly believed in one God alone as Jesus himself talked about in his speeches.......
THE PRESIDENT: Is this what you were preaching in your church?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I realized this more and ore clearly and also preached about it....
THE PRESIDENT: Then you say that you believed in the New Testament?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You believed in the New Testament and yet you expressed in Church what you have just now told the Tribunal?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
A (Cont'd) I consider Jesus a brother like myself and anyone who believes in God and is a child of God. This, attitude, was nothing exceptional or anything in particular. In the Protestant Church there were all kinds of views on religious questions, from the orthodox people down to the pantheism, out already at that time I perceived the idea: whether it could be combined with truth whether with this, my attitude, I could remain in church office.
THE PRESIDENT: You said that views ran the entire gamut from orthodox views to pantheism. Was pantheism taught in some of the Christian churches?
THE WITNESS: Yes, there were a great number in the Protestant Church. The idea of God as such on the one hand was considered in a very strict manner according to the dogma and very orthodox, and on the other hand, it was vaguely dissolved in pantheism.
Q (By Dr. Bergold) Did you belong to any particular group within the Church?
THE PRESIDENT: What was the name of your church?
THE WITNESS: The Protestant Lutheran Church of the Province Schleswig-Holstein. That's a State church.
THE PRESIDENT: And is this what is taught in all Protestant Lutheran churches, what you have just told us?
THE WITNESS: No, that depends on the clergyman. One clergyman had orthodox views and another had pantheistic views, and every one of them preached in his own way. The Protestant church existed in this tension.
Q (By Dr. Bergold) Now let us go back to this religious group. group at the time. I was an individualist and have remained one. However, in that time, like in many other clergymen who had joined the NSDAP before 1933, the wish in me arose to discuss matters. The formation of the National-Socialism Clergymen's Association was not permitted. As an answer, in order to form an orthodox group, the movement, so-called the German Christians was formed which I joined in 1932.
THE PRESIDENT: Did the German Christians believe in Christ as being divine?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you believe in Christ as being divine?
THE WITNESS: No, as I already said....
THE PRESIDENT: Could you preach just what you pleased in your church?
THE WITNESS: Yes, provided it was part of the New Testament. I mean, the person of Christ is always in the center of all these sermons and all these thoughts, but not Christ as a God, as a Christ, as a Messiah, but Christ as a human being, as brother, as leader towards God.
THE PRESIDENT: And do we understand that it is your interpretation of the New Testament that Christ is not considered a divine being?
THE WITNESS: Yes, not only I do this, but a great number of university professors have the same view.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I am saying the New Testament. You read the New Testament and you conclude from what is contained in the Testament that Christ was not divine?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Q (By Dr. Bergold) Witness, talking about an orthodox group, what do you mean by that? With the starting and growing of the NSDAP and with the joining of a great number of clergymen in this Party orthodox religious circles, started to worry whether they would be able to keep up their dogma. In the year 1931 when the SA marched through the streets of Altona the Communists attacked them with weapons and many SA men died. The following Sunday church circles called for a special religious service because of this event. The SA men and Party members followed enthusiastically and joined the church service. They were disappointed in one thing. They were described as partly guilty because, owing to the march, they had asked for this attack. In a solemn manifesto the Clergymen laid down certain directives, the so-called Altona confession. From this, resulted the emergency assocation of clergymen, and finally the so-called confession front. dogma, this organization finally became a fighting front of the religious sphere; ad this organization started to object to National Socialism more and more. This confessional front was opposed by the German Christians.
Q You were a member of the German Christians. What were the aims of these German Christians? The beginning was promising. As the name implies, it was a confessional movement.
Belief had created an interest because of the dogma, that is, the modern problems were to become one with the old traditions, with the aim to make faith alive again among the people.
Q That was the program? German Christians. Unfortunately, all this led people astray because some people were ambitious who were not concerned with belief but with the power position within the church. In 1933 church elections were proclaimed: the Party was misused. The old church governments collapsed and the leading positions were taken by leading German Christians. The election of the Reich Bishop belongs to this. According to the report of a participant it was a power act. After the executive positions had been occupied the interest in the movement of the German Christians was no longer so great. The group disintegrated and was divided into several subunits, such as the Thuringia German Christians, who had serious beliefs, or another group, the Mecklenburg German Christians and many other parts which were of no imporatnce. were concerned with real belief? the Thuringia German Christians, which seems ridiculous to me, I could not join. It consisted of the idea to make Jesus into an Aryan. I consisdered this childish. In Jesus I always saw and still see a human being who, being closely connected with God, the sovereignty and dignity of the human being is considered the will of God. Racial standards do not apply to Him at all. He was a human being who had the Power of God like nobody else. That He was a Jew does not change the truth of His message.