Q. These reports which you handed on, did you make these out from your own experience, or were those events reported to you and passed on by you?
A. Well, essentially I only passed them on. I never was in Nikopol. I could only report what my men who were fighting with the Army experienced themselves, but what I experienced I reported from my own experience.
Q. What did you do; what did you report from your own experience?
A. I reported that we had fights but we ourselves made no prisoners.
Q. How did such a reconnaissance action take place? Briefly describe it, will you?
A. We did this in several actions. Three or four villages which we wanted to attack from various directions, that is the unit was divided up in several vehicles and ordered to be there at a certain time.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, this is purely a technical matter, giving us the history of how he attacked. How is that going to help us in solving the real issue which is in the indictment. He was fighting partisans. All right, he fought partisans. He fought in one village; he fought in another village. We have a general idea of how this fight occurred, but to give us all the minute movements of various platoons and men is just a little bit of unnecessary detail.
Q. (By Dr. Hoffmann) Witness, apart from partisan warfare you know that you are charged here with having executed Jews, women, and children, on the basis of the Fuehrer Order. Did this happen during this period?
A. No.
4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_24_1_Ninabuck (Lea)
Q. Why not?
A. There was a special mission here to fight the Partisans in this area, that is to stop the disturbance to the supply columns. That was the mission in which kept the Kommando from reaching the 17th Army. That was an unpleasant interruption of the march and I was constantly on the march. to? a large area and on this flat land the prerequisites did not exist. We would have had to search and we didn't do that, and I may add that I was in the German settlement area, North-East of this area for a brief period or one trip. Of the population of thirty thousand people, none were left. They had been committed to dig an anti-tank ditch and they had been sent back into the interior of Russai when the Germans approached. The villages were empty. Only a few inhabitants had remained.
Q Did you ever get to the 17th Army?
A Never. The only person from the 17th Army I talked to was the G-2 of the 17th Army.
Q Where was he?
Q And where was your Kommando at that time? had gotten stuck there in the winter. the officer of the 17th Army?
A I think this distance is not so important. Mariupol is at least another two hundred kilometers away.
Q What did you speak about with the officer of the 17th Army? the Einsatzgruppe chief had visited Milkailowka and that winter had set in, that I had only been able to travel ten kilometers a day and that I had finally been forced to stop at a place, Fedorowka, which was not my objective at all and which was not even on the map, that I could neither proceed nor go back, whether he had any orders for me where I should proceed to.
Then he described to me the situation of the Army as a result of the setting in of winter. The advance had stopped; the Army had fallen back on the Mius front. There was no combat activity. The supply line was endangered and now everything would remain where it was. I asked him whether I should go any place else. At least I wanted better shelter for the winter. Thereupon, he said, "Just remain where you are. Everyone wants to move now in winter. It would make the supply problem more difficult. Just stay where you are. I have no orders to give you, and now there is nothing else to do but to wait till we can consider advancing.
Q When was this?
A I arrived at Fedorowka about the 18th. A few days later, before Christmas, I visited the G_2 in Mariupol, about the 20th, or 21st. D?
Q Did you report the result of the conference with the G_2 to the Einsatzgruppe?
Q Was, the Einsatzgruppe in agreement?
A Yes, I did not get any other directives. At any rate in this situation there was nothing else for me to do. Of course, there was a reaction when I received the radio order to take a detachment of about 30 to 35 men and send it to the Crimea where it was needed urgently because of the military situation.
Q When did you set this Kommado started?
Q And how many were left with your Kommando in January?
Q And where were all these people?
Q And what were the local conditions?
A Fedorowka was a very primitive settlement. The shelters were accordingly. The winter was especially severe in this steppe area. There were snow storms and impassibility of the few existing roads which prevented any activity. Vehicles had already gotten stuck some distance back and one could only more around by sled.
Q Witness, how long did this condition last in Fedorowka? Crimea, it was only a short way to get to the coast at least they had a better opportunity to get moving along the coast because a supply line had been laboriously established along the shore, and my Einsatz Kommando remained there until the first days of March. Then a change came in the weather. At this time the other half Kommando under Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Bolte joined me in Fedorowka then I was relieved.
Q When did this happen?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, I must now come to talk about the documents and the points with which the Prosecution charges the defendant Noeske. I would be grateful if I could start this on Monday.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think that would be a very logical thing to do. The Tribunal will now adjourn until Monday morning at the usual time of 9:30 o'clock.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 8 December 1947 at 0930 hours.)
America, against Otto Ohlendorf, et al., defendants, 0930-1630.
Justice Musmanno, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II. Tribunal.
DR. KOESSL: Dr. Koessl for the defendant Ott. In the name of the defendant Ott, and my own name also, I would like to express to the Tribunal my thanks for the generous favor, namely, that the defendant Ott was allowed to attend the funeral of his mother in Augsburg. For the defendant it was a significant event, and it was a great relief for him that the Tribunal granted him that favor.
THE PRESIDENT: You are very welcome indeed, and we are happy that we were able to grant a very reasonable request which was made by you on behalf of your client, and we can not help but express a regret and sympathy with the defendant for the great loss which he has suffered.
DR. KOESSL: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Dr. Hoffmann. BY DR. HOFFMANN: if I remember correctly. Now I should like to go through the Prosecution's documents with you very briefly. I refer to the Prosecution's charge in which it says, which is on page 246 of the German record of the 30th of September, the case against the defendant Gustav Nosske - - - - and the Prosecution there says, in accordance with your own declaration
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, you have n ot given us the number of the book.
DR: HOFFMAN: Excuse me. Your Honor, I said from the record on page 246.
THE PRESIDENT: I see. BY DR. HOFFMAN: that from June 1941 to March 1942 you were the commander of Einsatzkommando XII, is that correct? your activities after you were relieved in Russia, and the Prosecution assumed that you were in charge of a type of Commando Staff. Now, I Would like to discuss this activity in Berlin with you. What happened to you when you returned to the Reich?
MR. WALTON: May it please the Tribunal, that is Document Book III, page 69 of the English -
THE PRESIDENT: Even you are not giving it to us. III what?
MR. WALTON: Document Book III-B, Your Honor, page 69 of the English, page 114 of the German, and it is Prosecution's Document NO4146, Exhibit No. 167. He particularly refers to paragraph 4 of that affidavit, which is on page 2 of the Original. BY DR. HOFFMAN: the Reich?
reported for the second time to the Personnel office. That was the beginning of May. My final employment had not been deceided upon as yet. That is what I found out there. Probably I would be employed in office IV. In the meantime, Office I asked me to work there as an Auditor, and, they asked me as such to go to the Security Training School in Charlottenburg. Q What was your activity exactly as an Auditor? A Correction - it was as Pruefer, Examiner, not an Auditor. I was active as an examiner in Penal Procedure, Administrative Law, and Civil Law. Q Did you also work in office IV at that time? A No, not at that time. Q Who was your immediate superior? A May I ask you, you mean of Office IV? Q No, I mean during this time. A During this time, of course. I was subordinate to Office I. My final activity had not been decided upon, and I was subordinate to the director of the Fuehrer School. Q When did you start your office activity? A In June 1942, I reported to Office IV, that was about ten days after Heydrich's death. When I reported to the Chief of Office IV, he told me that I was to take over a new department. That would be Department IV-D-5, which had been part of Lindergruppe, of Group-D, and one job of this office was to evaluate the reports concerning the Partisan warfare. Attached to this particular department was a sub-department for the evaluation in which the documents which had been seized in the Soviet Zone would be translated. All other matters I would find out eventually when I would report to my immediate superior.
Q Who was that? Oberregierungsrat, Senior Government Councillor, Dr. Jonas. to you? he acquainted me with it, and concerning my own activity, he gave me the following explanation: With the beginning of the Russian Campaign, the position of information and intelligence officer had been created in the RSHA, and this man would have to deal with all reports from the Einsatzgruppen via the office chief, and they would then pass into Office IV-A-I, which would deal with the actual evaluation and report almost daily about the reports coming from Soviet Russia. In the Autumn of 1941 the office of the Einsatz Intelligence Officer had been given up. But actually the activity itself had not changed, and the Department IV-A-I, now called"Commando staff" still evaluated the Eastern reports. Since, however, the reports were very unreliable, incorrect and inaccurate, a basic change had to be made in the Spring of 1942. The evaluation of the Eastern Reports from this time on, was not undertaken by this one Department IV-A-I, but by the competent sub-departments off all the departments to which these reports were sent. Since the reports about partisan activity and warfare could not be handled by any existing department, the new department IV-D-5 has been created, of which I was going to be in charge from then on. asked you quite specifically, did you find out about the reports coming from Russia and dealing with executions on the part of Einsatzkommando, and did you receive such reports?
Order, after this change in making reports, were, in my own time, no longer incorporated in the reports. I know that these reports went via the Office Chief IV to the GroupEichmann IV-B-IV. As a consequence,of this, in the compiling of the reports, the individual contributions furnished by the various departments, as for instance, Jewish actions, could no longer be incorporated in the new report from the Eastern Occupied territory.
Q Witness, who was Eichmann? deal with all Jewish matters. the RSHA hear anything about the assignment which Eichmann had, and of the activity that he carried on? the small circle around him. actual elimination order in the safe? this fact? Even his office, geographically speaking, was not in the Main Building of the RSHA, and was in a special building. I never entered this building, and when the secrecy in the office was very strict, Eichmann's seclusion was almost hermetic.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, you state that the elimination order - - - you stated the elimination order was in Eichmann's safe.
By whom was that order signed?
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, this order was also signed by Hitler. I now refer to a statement by Vitzizety in the IMT, who described how he first learned from Eichmann that 250,000 Czechoslovakian Jews had been exterminated in Auschwitz; that it what this defendant said when he was on the witness stand for the IMT, and when he asked Eichmann in Berlin how these 250,000 Jews were exterminated, Eichmann went to the safe and showed him this particular order which was signed by Hitler. I believe Mr. Walton also will remember this episode.
THE PRESIDENT: Was this the Fuehrer Order, or another order?
DR. HOFFMANN: That was another order.
THE PRESIDENT: If you know the reference number, or can without too much trouble locate it, we would appreciate your letting us have the page number in the IMT record in which this episode is related.
DR. HOFFMANN: Very well. Your Honor, I just learned that it is contained in the Document Book of Ohlendorf's, and was submitted, and even though it is, I shall submit it to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. You say, therefore, that you didn't find out anything about this particular part that Eichmann played, as he was in a secluded soot, as it were?
A. It was only known that he received immediately from the office chief, or from Himmler himself, as I said; apart from their small circle nobody of those employed on the office found out anything about that.
Q. I now return to your activity. You were then in charge of a department on this office, and what was the size of this department?
A. The department consisted besides myself of four people, one collaborator, one registrar, and two stenotypists.
Q. And what was your task in detail?
A. My task was to deal with reports which had been sent us by the Main Office about Partisan activity warfare, espionage, and to evaluate those reports, and to compile them clearly and concisely. Particular care had to be taken that the organization of the Partisan groups were to be recognized, their tactics had to be established, the means with which they work, and so forth, in order to inform the authorities in the East who had to deal with the actual Partisan warfare, and to show them the Partisan activity as it developed in the whole Eastern territory.
Q. Did you have to combine any executive power with this activity?
A. No, executive power in this respective activity I would say didn't exist. Furthermore, no directives where even prepared in this particular department. The directives could only be given through the ordinary channel of com and in existence, that was only by the office chief, and chief of the Security Police, or Himmler himself.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, was it his office which prepared the operational reports, his office?
DR. HOFFMANN: As the witness says, only those concerning Partisan activity, whereas reports concerning shootings, based on the Hitler order mentioned here, went to Eichmann who was in charge of the Jewish problems.
THE PRESIDENT: But the operational reports covered all activities. Activities against Partisans, activities against Jews, activity against saboteurs, everything.
DR. HOFFMANN: Perhaps the witness can comment on this again, very briefly and concisely.
A. Your Honor, those activity reports which were issued in the Reich Security Main Office are to be distinguished from those which bear the title "Reports from Soviet Russia". These reports, about two hundred copies, which also are here the subject of the charge were issued between June until the end of April 1942. These reports contained everything, partisan warfare as well as Jewish actions and all the activities talking place in the Eastern Occupies Territories and everything reported by Einsatzgruppen. These reports only appeared as top secret matters. In the spring, the basic change was brought; from this time on reports were not issued concerning the whole of Soviet Russia but new reports were called "Reports from Eastern Occupied Territories". Already the name shows that there was a basic difference in these reports, and these new reports which are also available here in the Document Center but which have not been introduced as evidence contain these reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories.
THE PRESIDENT: But who actually made up the reports in that office, the reports that have been introduced here in the Document Books?
A. The reports which have been submitted here as evidence by the Prosecution were issued by the Department 4-A-I. That is a sub-department of Office IV in the RSHA. The people concerned are known, the man in charge was Lindow, and his collaborators Dr. Knobloch and Fumy.
THE PRESIDENT: And who?
A. Fumy and Dr. Knobloch.
THE PRESIDENT: Then those three men are the ones who actually prepared the reports which we have here as evidence, Lindow, Knobloch, and Fumy?
A. That is correct.
COURT II CASE IX BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. Until when, witness?
A. These reports of events from USSR came to a stop at the end of April 1942. The last copies bear numbers about 194 or 196. The reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories which were issued after that, and only weekly, bear new numbers which begin with one.
THE PRESIDENT: Then, do I understand that the modus operendae was for these three men, either acting separately or collectively, to receive the reports from the field and then to combine them and issue them as reports from Berlin?
A. Yes, that is correct. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. But, Herr Nosske, that was not your activity, was it?
A. I and nothing to do with reports that have been submitted here as evidence by the Prosecution. They and been concluded at a time when I had not joined the office yet.
Q. Do you know what the reason was for this new kind of reporting?
A. As my predecessor had told me, it was for the reason that the manner of reporting until then had been most unreliable, incorrect, and inaccurate. I myself personally learned from Fumy at a later into that these two people, Dr. Knoblech and Fumy, were so much overworked and had to work under such bad conditions that it can easily be explained why these such bad conditions that it can easily be explained why these reports were so inaccurate. Therefore, the evaluation of the reports later on was not only transferred to this one particular office but were distributed to a number of individual departments.
Q. Your Honor, I take the liberty to introduce as Document No. 1 for identification the organizational plan of the RSHA. This chart is in English on order to make it easier COURT II CASE IX for the Tribunal and there the position of the defendant himself becomes quite evident from this.
Would you now comment on this and tell the Tribunal what your own position was?
A. I was in Department 4-D-5 which is Office IV in the center. The chief was Mueller. Then there are Groups A, B, B-4, C and D. The next-to-the-last department was the group to which my own sub-department was attached, and the last one is 4-D-5, Eastern Partisan Organization.
Q. Did you carry out any other special activity in connection with reporting, for instance?
A. Yes, Since the evaluation of the reports was carried out by a number of sub-departments of other departments one special department had to compile the results, and that was done by the departments concerned sent a representative to attend an auditors meeting once a week to which they brought along their own parts of the reports and their own contributions which had been approved by their chiefs. They were proofread, Sometimes objections were made of factual or technical matters and then the parts were put on steal plates and then they were printed and distributed by the Main Office. I want to point out to you the departments which actually contributed to those reports and this general report. First is Office IV in the center under Group A, Department I Communism, Marxism. Then Dept II, antisabotage activity. Then in the group of the same office B, B-1, Division 3, foreign churches, the Greek orthodox Church. Group 4-B-4, for instance, did not take part in this. Then there was in Group 4-D the subdivision 4-D-3, foreign emigrants. My own sub-department 4-D-5 and Group IV-E, counter-espionage and V, Espionage East. The contributions of Office III in the domestic sphere were complied by Group III-B and were brought to the editing meeting by COURT II CASE IX a representative of the sub-office III-B-1. As for the individual sub-departments in Department III, I do not have to deal with them here because more or loss all of them had the opportunity to contribute, be it in the sphere of culture, economy, or the already mentioned field, public health.
Q. How, witness - -
A. Finally, Office VI, that is the next-to-the-last office in the Reich. There was Group C represented by Department II, Russia evaluation.
Q. Would you also be able to explain based on this chart where the reports about execution on the basis of the Hitler order went, for you are new speaking of Partisan and other matters?
A. Yes. What I am crying to explain new concerns reports as they were issued after April 1942 in the new reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories. The Jewish matters, however, - all matters concerning Jewish Operations went immediately from the office chief to Office 4-B-4 Eichmann which is immediately in the center of the chart.
Q. Did you have say liberties as the editor of such reports from the East?
A. I, of course, had to submit the compilations of the reports to the office chief first for his approval. He either approved or changed them. Sometimes he even asked for the original reports but apart from that I had no particular power.
Q. How, as to such reports in which you yourself had participated were they also submitted here?
A. They appear in the new reports form the Eastern Occupied Territories but not in those which are the subject of the indictment here.
DR. HOFFMANN: Your Honor, may I say that in order not to be boring I should like to ask you whether the witness made it quite clear what his position was because perhaps the complication of this chart and also the translation make it very difficult. He takes the responsibility for the reports from June 1942 but he points out emphatically that reports concerning shootings went to the man dealing with the Jewish problem, Eichmann, in the RSHA.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am very glad you did present this chart because I think for the first time I have been able to get an overall clear picture of the RSHA activities. where?
DR. HOFFMANN: Who issued these reports?
A. They must have come from the East, either from the THE PRESIDENT: They came from the field? DR. HOFFMANN: Yes, certainly. THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, I still don't quite understand prior to the time that a change was made in the method of reporting how a report originating in the field and containing a number of subjects could go to any but one office in the RSHA. The report came on as one entity and it contained reference to Jews, Saboteurs and Partisans, and so on. It had to go to one office, it couldn't be divided up because it was all combined.
DR. HOFFMANN: That is quite correct, your Honor. Perhaps the witness can explain it.
A. During the time until April 1942 the reports from the Eastern Occupied Territories went as one entity, without being distributed to various offices, to this one office IV-A-1. Therefore, they did not have to be distributed.
COURT II CASE IX Later or a new scheme was started and we were told in what shape reports had to be issued. Then after this these reports consisted of separate parts. They were separate of subdivided and passed on to the various department and then it came about that for this particular part, Office IV-B-4, Eichmann, became competent.
Q. I still don't understand. Did they all appear on one shoot or were they separate?
A. They were separate.
Q. Therefore, the executions based on the Hitler order came on a separate shoot?
A. Yes, exactly. In the same way sabotage, economic subjects, domestic spheres - they again were not on the same shoot with Partisan Warfare, and again there was a new shoot.
Q. Witness, I was not in the RSHA. I ask you - -
A. Yes, I understand. The scheme of reporting caused the sub-dividing of the reports so that it was possible for us to distribute reports when they arrived in the Security Main Office.
Q. Do you mean a whole parcel of reports was received from one Einsatzgruppe in Berlin.
A. Yes.
Q. And there was one office - -
A. That was the Main Office who distributed the reports. They signed them and they marked them for these individual departments for which they were destined.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Hoffmann, this has nothing at all to do with reports but I am always curious to know just what a place in which activities took place looked like. Was the RSHA all in one building?
A. No, the main building was in Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Several groups of Office IV were housed there. In the COURT II CASE IX surrounding buildings in Wilhelmstrasse there were other offices of Office IV and Office III; apart from this, the offices of Office IV as well as other offices were distributed all over town, sometimes as far as 15 to 20 kilometers.
Q. Where was Eichmann?
A. Eichmann was in Kurfuerstenstrasse.
Q. What was the distance between his and your office?
A. From my office approximately 8 kilometers.
THE PRESIDENT: Did Heydrich have his office in the large building?
A. Yes, it was in the main building.
THE PRESIDENT: Did Himmler also have his office there?
A. No, not from the beginning of the War on. He had his field command post. BY DR. HOFFMANN:
Q. I think, witness, I have already asked you, how long did you work in IV-D-5.?
A. Until October 1942. of IV-D-3.
Q. What did IV-D-3 deal with?
A. IV-D-3 dealt with foreigners within the Reich. That was the circle of people who had migrated to Germany and were granted refuse in the Reich because of their political attitude in their own countries. There were two large groups, one group of Russian immigrants. That was the group of people who has gone to Western European countries after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The other group comprised the Rumanian group of immigrants. That was the part of the so-called Iron Guard, that was the National movement in Rumania, who had been indispute with the Chief of State Antonescu.
Q. What did your activities consist of? You said you were in charge of taking care of these people.
A. This office had the function of guidance. In fact it was the only office of the Reich Government to which they could turn in order to protect their own interests. These groups of refugees were mainly pro--German and, of course, on account of their knowledge of languages they already worked in a number of German Governmental offices. Therefore, they had to be investigated, and this was also done by this particular sub-department.
Q. Did anything unpleasant for you happen during this activity?
A. I had only been in this department for 20 days when the leader of the Iron Guard who was called Horia Shima, who with his close circle of so-called Captains, was housed in an SD recreation home in Bergenbrueck near Furstenwalde in the vicinity of Berlin. Horia Shima and his followers had given their word of honor not to be active politically in any way and not to leave the Reich territory. Shortly before Christmas - -
Q. Excuse me, Was Shima Rumanian?
A. Yes, he was a Rumanian citizen. He had the right of asylum in the Reich and was considered a guest of the Fuehrer.
Q. Who was in charge of the Romanian government at that time?
A. Antonescu.
Q. Why was Shima against Antonescu?
A. Antonosecu had himself been a follower of the Iron Guard but he had left it, and with the aid of the Army had made himself chief of State of Romania. Therefore, the position of the Iron Guard had become untenable.