arrested a Jew. Now, which answer are we supposed to believe -- did you arrest a Jew, or did you not arrest a Jew? arrested. and you finally were able, after great searching of your conscience, to say that you once received an order to arrest a Jew and then you didn't even execute that order. Now, you tell us that you did arrest some Jews. Now, how many Jews did you arrest in all your life?
Q Well, was it 100? which took place and I cannot possibly remember all those episodes.
Q How many Jews did you arrest in ell your life?
Q 25? the whole time while I worked in the Security Police, I did not carry out.
Q. Did you ever have any individual arrests? Let's leave aside mass arrests -- individual arrests?
A. They also occurred.
Q. How many -- how many Jews did you arrest individually?
A. Your Honor, in view of the numerous State Police events throughout those years, I cannot recollect this at all.
Q. You remembered this one single solitary episode of the order which you received and went into great detail as to why it wasn't necessary to execute it, but yet you cannot remember how many you actually arrested?
A. Your Honor, this one case was a special event.
Q. All right, now you have told us that. Now, answer this question, how many Jews in all your life did you arrest?
A. I cannot possible give that figure.
Q. Would you say it was 50?
A. Your Honor, any figure is wrong.
Q. Would you say it was 5?
A. Your Honor, my testimony will not become any more concrete if I also have to refuse to answer this question.
Q. Did you ever molest a Jew?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever beat a Jew?
A. Never, your Honor.
Q. Did you ever take away his property?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. In all the time that you were in Russia, did you ever execute the Fuehrer Order insofar as it pertained to Jews?
A. No, I evaded it.
Q. Well, why did you go to so much trouble yesterday and on Thursday in telling us how heartbroken, how conscience-stricken, how morally depressed you were because of Fuehrer Order -- you never executed it?
A. Because I was worried and because I was afraid to be put into a situation, where I would have had to carry out this order, where I could not have evaded this order.
Q. When you took the witness stand you immediately began your testimony with the expression of the great shock which you experienced when receiving this Fuehrer Order. Now, if you never killed a Jew, doesn't it occur to you that it would have been far more logical to begin your testimony by saying, "I never killed a Jew, never arrested a Jew, never molested a Jew, so therefore the Fuehrer Order in no way affected me", might that have been a little more logical?
A. Your Honor, the testimony which I make here under oath in the witness stand I did not make from a point of view of logic, but only according to my conscience.
Q. Do you find a great difference between logic and conscience?
A. Between mind and feelings and that what I consider conscience, there is a difference.
Q. Are you adjusting your answers according to the reports which you have studied or according to your memory of the events as they occurred?
A. I make them according to my conscience.
Q. Do you believe in the Nazi ideology?
A. That question would have to be replied to in a different way now, than it would have been replied to formerly.
Q. Well, did you believe in it then -- I don't mean now -- all the time that you were the uniform -- did you believe in the SS?
A. Only for some parts of it, not the entire Nazi ideology.
Q. Did you take the oath to Hitler?
A. Yes,
Q. Did you hear his speeches -- some of them?
A. Several, certainly.
Q. Did you read the Nazi Party program?
A. If I must also scrutinize my conscience, in this respect -- no.
Q. Did you read "Mein Kampf"?
A. Certainly not.
Q. Did you associate with other Nazi members?
A. I was bound to.
Q. Well, then you knew generally what the policy of the Nazi Party was with regard to Jews?
A. In general, yes.
Q. Yes. And did you agree with that policy?
A. No, or only with part of it, Q. which part did you agree with?
A. In fact, I had no objections -- no important objections to the fact that the Jews before the War be limited to a proportion in accordance with their number and could only have an influence in accordance with this proportion.
Q. That is the extent to which you agreed with the Nazi program insofar as it pertained to Jews?
A. I can confirm this even more because I talked to Jews myself, who also held this opinion.
Q. Well, now, I am just -
A. Who themselves had that opinion.
Q. Yes. Did you believe that they should wear signs on their breasts and on their backs pointing out to the world that they were Jews?
A. Those things I consider unworthy.
Q. Did you believe that they should be disfranchised and deprived of citizenship, no matter how long they had lived in Germany?
A. They were not deprived of their citizen rights, they continued to be citizens even after the Nuernberg laws.
Q. Did you believe that their property should be taken from them?
A. No
Q. Did you believe they should be sent to concentration camps?
A. No definitely not.
Q. Did you believe that they should be put into ghettos?
A. No.
Q. Did you believe that they should be made to work without pay?
A. No.
Q. Did you believe that they should be publicly humiliated and degraded?
A. No
Q. Why then did you remain a member of organization which did these things?
A. All these things, your Honor, which mentioned here are events which developed at a later time.
Q. When did they develop?
A. The most important things which you mentioned here occurred only after the beginning of the war when I was under military law and had no choice but was forced.
Q. You said that none of these things happened before 1939 -- September 1, 1939?
A. I said expressly, your Honor, a few of them, and those which occurred before the war could not give me the impression that they were such as to oblige me to leave my organization already at that time.
Q. November 10, 1938 is chronologically prior to September 1, 1939, isn't it?
A. Your Honor -
Q. Please answer that question.
A. That is right.
Q. Yes. And you knew of your own personal knowledge of the excesses against the Jews on those two disgraceful days, November 10 and 11 -- you knew of your own personal Knowledge, didn't you, of what happened?
A. I heard about it.
Q. Yes. Did you leave the SS after you heard of these excesses?
A. No, your Honor, I did not leave it because these excesses had nothing to do with my organization.
Q. You Knew that the synagogues were being destroyed, didn't you?
A. I heard about it, and I was just as disgusted about these matters.
Q. And you Knew that Jews were being sent to concentration camps prior to September 1939, didn't you?
A. No, your Honor.
Q. You didn't know that?
A. I only heard of it, and according to what I heard of the events of the 9th and 10th, only the following happened: at the order of Heydrich the Jews were arrested and were released again some weeks later. This was a measure to which Heydrich felt himself compelled and, which was not his original intention. This was merely done in order to stop those wild actions which Goebbels organized. That is what the Reichstatthalter told me, and from those who disapproved of this in the highest circles, I did not get the impression that this was the intention of the state and of the responsible persons.
Q. Nonetheless, you Know that Heydrich issued an order to arrest Jews, especially the rich ones, and to take them into protective custody, and you Know that he issued orders that the police were not to in any way interfere with any violence against Jews and Jewish property, you Knew about that didn't you?
A. The order did not read like that, your Honor. The order read, the Jews and in particular the rich Jews, were to be arrested and this was done in particular during the wild actions which were initiated by the SA and through Goebbels in order to take these persons into protective custody, to really protect them so that no excesses would occur which necessarily according to Goebbels orders would affect the rich Jews.
Q. Then we conclude from what you said that you approved of Heydrich's order of November 10, 1938 you approved of that order:
A. I did not approve of this order, but I considered that this order could be explained.
Q. You were defending Heydrich's order. Now we ask you, did you approve of it, or did you not?
A. If I considered Heydrich's order understandable insofar, I still did not approve of it, but I can imagine that in this forced situation Heydrich hardly had any other way out to legalize these violent excesses.
Q. Then you did not approve of what he did, is that right?
A. On a whole, I did not agree to it.
Q. But you still remained with the SS?
A. I remained because those were no measures which my organization had started at all, and I could not make my organization responsible for what Heydrich might have done in a state of compulsion, and I could not consider them to be the cause for having increased the severity of the Jewish Question. I am convinced that without those violent actions Heydrich on his own would never have given such an order at that time.
Q. I will read to you from the decision of the International Military Tribunal, "In the early morning of November 10, 1938, Heydrich sent a telegram to all offices of the Gestapo and SD giving instructions for the organization of the programs of that date and instructing them to arrest as many Jews as the prison could hold, especially rich ones, but to be careful that those arrested were healthy and not too old." Did you approve of that action?
A. Your Honor, what is contained in this IMT judgement I did not know, I only knew Heydrich's original order, and since this original order in my territory and from that Reichstatthalter in Styria was considered as being settled, because no violent actions had occurred in my territory, I had no reason to disapprove.
Q. We asked you only simply whether you approved of the order or not.
Do you defend Heydrich's order or not?
A. I was horrified about this order, but after I heard the reasons, why this order had been given by Heydrich, I could not consider this order quite as dangerous, because Heydrich did not originally initiate this order, but was forced to carry out such a measure of arrest.
Q. Then we come to the conclusion that originally it horrified you, but after inquiry you were satisfied that it was an order dictated by necessity -- do we correctly interpret your view?
& 19 Court 2, Case 9
A. It was not a measure originally intended by Heydrich, and when I realized that, I could not condemn Heydrich as much, if I may say so new - because he would not have done it ----
Q. Very well. Now you are just repeating what you said before, so that we will conclude from whit you say you could not condemn Heydrich. How we ask you if you condemned the events which followed the Heydrich orders?
A. In my territory nothing happened, and since I thought it was similar in other territories, I thought that with reasonable consideration of all the events this measure would not be carried out to its full extent.
Q. You know from the newspapers and from your conversations with your associates what actually happened on those two days, don't you? You know of the violent excesses?
A. In the newspapers in consideration of the foreign countries no details were mentioned about these events, at least not in our newspaper in the Reich, and when weeks later I managed to talk to so someone or other, these people were able to inform me that in their territories, too, this action had been carried out in such a manner that the Jews, some of whom had been arrested, were already released and that, therefore, the entire action which Goebbels had started, through interference of the Security Police had been done away with.
Q. Well, did you know that some of those Jews had been sent to concentration camps?
A. I did not hear anything about that.
Q. So you were telling this Tribunal that in all that time you were in the Gestapo you never heard of any Jews being sent to concentration camps because they were Jews?
A. Of course. Your Honor, only now I thought to speak about this question in connection with 9 November.
&19 Court 2, Case 9
Q. Well, let us make it very specific. Prior to September 1, 1939, were any Jews sent to concentration camps because they were Jews?
A. Through my Police Security activity there were not, and I do not assume that it happened owing to the Security Police activity of other state police chiefs.
Q. Well, then you tell us that so far as you knew prior to September 1, 1939, no Jews were sent to concentration camps because they were Jews?
A. Hot through my Police Security work. Yes, I confirm that.
Q. So far as you know generally, not only your own particular district but in all of Germany, no Fews were sent to concentration camps because they were Jews?
A. Basic instructions to arrest any Jews only because they were Jews-----
Q. Don't tell me what the basic instructions were. Please answer the question. Did you of your own personal knowledge know that any Jews were sent to concentration camps prior to September 1, 1939, because they were Jews?
A. No.
Q. Did you know of any Jews being sent to concentration camps after September 1, 1939, because they were Jews?
Q. Did you have a hand in sending any to concentration camps?
A. No.
Q. Why were they sent to concentration camps after September 1, 1939?
A. I cannot imagine this either, because I was not doing that kind of work which was concerned with this problem.
Q. Did you disapprove of that?
A. Yes, I disapproved of it.
Q. Very well. Now when you heard this speech by Heydrich and Streckenbach that you were to go into Russia and liquidate Jews, did you believe that that was a necessary development of the antiSemitic program of the Nazi Party?
A. No.
Q. You said that Streckenbach indicated that the Eastern Jews were the most important bearers of Bolshevism and that the main purpose of the German forces was to destroy Bolshevism. Did you agree with that proposition?
A. I did not agree with the extermination of the Eastern Jews without making any distinctions.
Q. Did you believe that the Jews were a threat to the Reich?
A. I could not judge that, and I doubted it.
Q. You did not believe that they were a threat to the Reich?
A. I could not judge it; I could not realize it.
Q. Did you believe in Hitler?
A. In general I believed that he wanted the best for the German people.
Q. When you made your speech to the men, did you tell them about the Fuehrer Order?
A. No.
Q. Did you tell them about your orders in Russia, what you were to do?
A. No. I only spoke general words, about discipline ---
Q. Here you are, the commanding officer of an organization of a military organization in the field, and you make a speech to them and you don't tell them what their instructions are?
A. Mr. President, the circumstances in this connection did not make this possible. he men had been lined up in the street, German speaking people were standing around, and, therefore, I could not possibly tell the men about one of the most secret orders.
Q. Well, did you tell them privately then?
A. Of course. I was stationed together with the staff of the Einsatzgruppen in several garrisons at first.
Q. Did you tell your men of Einsatzkommando 12 about the Fuehere order?
A. I had to because the officers would have addressed me concerning this; what is going on here, whether I didn't know anything about that. Of course I had to tell them ---
Q. Very well. Now you told then about the Fuehrer order which called for the liquidation of Jews, gypsies, Communists functionaries and certain Asiatic or social inferiors. Did you after you spoke to them of the order then say, "Now, I don't want you to obey this order because I do not agree with it?"
Did you add that?
A. Your Honor, such an order I could not give, and I did not give.
Q. So then the Tribunal may draw from what you have just said that you passed on this order to your man who took orders from you, and you did not add any veto or prohibition to the execution of the order, is that correct?
A. I arranged it in such a manner that those men were in my hands and depended on me.
Q. Well, very often it happened as you testified here that your kommando was far away from you and you couldn't reach them. You couldn't reach them by physical contact; you couldn't reach them by communication. Couldn't they then have been executing the order, the Fuehrer order, to kill the Jews?
A. Your Honor, if you describe that situation and consider that period, - there were the following circumstances of which I was able to tell the men because they were orders of the Einsatzgruppen chief or generally known.--
Q. Well, then now, do you tell us that you instructed them not to obey the Fuehrer order? Is that what you tell us now?
A. For a certain period, yes, insofar as they were in a foreign territory where they had to know that the Fuehrer order was not to be carried out in foreign territory and not on the flat land.
Q. On the flat land? But they could kill them up in the high lands? Is that you want to tell us?
A. Your loner, the expression flat land means for us the village previously by other witnesses.
Q. Let us be precise about this. I asked you if you passed on the Fuehrer order to kill Jews and others, You said that you did not do it in this public speech because there were German-speaking people about and this was a secret order. You added, however, you told the men privately that they had to execute this Fuehrer order. Then I asked you if you added to that instruction that although they heard the order, they were not to obey it. You said, "No." I asked you then if it wouldn't be proper to draw from what you had said that you had passed on an order and had never in any way vetoed it, and, therefore, it was being executed by your men. Then you said, "Well, but I had immediate contact with the men." Then we called your attention that you had testified that these men. were often so far away from you that you couldn't control them. New that brings it up to date. were not to obey the Fuehrer order?
A. No. Your Honor, but I told them that they had to obey my orders and were only to do what I told them and when. For example -
Q. And what you told them was to obey the Fuehrer order. That is what you had told them, wasn't it?
A. To obey my orders.
Q. And what were your orders?
A. My orders were - for example, when they were carrying out the harvesting action there was the order from the Einsatzgruppen chief which was generally valid that in the flat land, in the rural district, the Fuehrer order was not to be carried out. The order was that in foreign territory the Fuehrer order also was not to be applied. I could tell them that because it was a well-known order from the Einsatzgruppen chief -
Q. Then you changed your statement which you made just a moment ago that you never told the men not to obey the Fuehrer order? You changed the statement which you made just a moment ago that you had vetoed the order? Do you change that?
A. No. Your Honor, I do not change it. I see no contradiction.
Q. You see no contradiction from your very direct statement that you never vetoed the Order and your statement that you told the men not to obey it? You see no contradiction in that? Suppose you think it over during the fifteen minutes, and then tell us after the recess whether there is any contradiction in those two statements.
( A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal is again in session.
DR. RATZ: Dr. Ratz for the defendant von Radetzky. Your Honor, I ask that the defendant von Radetzky be excused from tommorows' session, Wednesday, so that I can prepare his defense.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant von Radetzky will be excused from attendance in court tomorrow so that he may prepare his defense. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Witness, in answering several questions, put to you by Mr. Walton on the number of executions performed by Einsatzgruppe D, it was indicated on page 20 of Document Book II-D, that the total figure of executions was 54,000. Then later on in Document Book II-D, page 28, the total figure of executions performed by Einsatzgruppe-D was 75,881, and, you confirmed that Einsatzcommando XII contributed whatever number the figures would show towards this total of 75, 881; that Einsatzcommando XII was included in the commandos was included in the commandos whose activities had brought about a total of 75,881 executions up to the time indicated, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now why did you make such a distinction between this total figure of 75,881 and the 90,000 indicated by the defendant Ohlendorf, which covers a much larger period. Why do you distinguish between 75,000 and 90,000 a matter of 15,000?
A. Your Honor, when I commented on this and gave my explanation for this, I wanted and could only say that in the total figures of the Einsatzgruppe-D my numbers were necessarily included, that they just happened to be included in the figure 54,000, or 70,000, I didn't mean to express.
Q. Well, the figure 75,881 is a figure taken from an official report, that is correct, isn't it?
A. Yes, but I can not say anything about how this report was drawn up and about the correctness of this figure. I never knew of it before, and I find out from the document here without knowing anything about it.
Q. In the same document book, on page 52, there is a reference made to 5,000 Jews rounded up in each town by Einsatzgruppe-D, after a statement that 13,000 odd Jews and Communists had been executed. I ask you, how many Jews you rounded up during the period that you were in Russia?
A. Your Honor, that is the gist of my testimony that I was not in a position to go to any city but Nikolzjew, in which such measures would have been necessary; I must go further and say, I never got into any city at all.
Q. Did you round up any Jews during all the time that you were in Russia?
A. No, I had no special opportunity.
Q. All right. Now, let's sum up the situation: You shot no Jews, you arrested no Jews, you rounded up no Jews, is right?
A. Yes.
Q. The only contact you ever had with the Jews was when you led six or seven-thousand of them across the river?
A. In this connection, yes. In connection with the general Security Police measures, no.
Q. Well, what did you have to do with the Jews?
A. If Jews were among those people against whom I had to carry out some investigation , or measures to be taken, they were arrested along with the others, but I already said they were arrested as suspect to have committed something , not because they were Jews.
Q. Neither did you when you were in the Gestapo, nor the time that you were in the Security Police, you never arrested a man because he was a Jew; you never maltreated him because he was a Jew. You never subjected him to any discomfort because he was a Jew, is that correct?
A. Until the time of the war, absolutely.
Q. Well, what about after the war, or the starting of it?
A. After the war began I was no longer in a State Police executive function,until I took over the office in Duesseldorf.
Q. The statement is correct, that during your whole life, we will make it broader than what was said before, you never killed a Jew, you never ordered the death of a Jew, you never ordered the arrest of a Jew, you never maltreated a Jew, you never in any way caused discomfort inconveneince or a heartache to a Jew because he was a Jew, is that right?
A. Not just because he was a Jew, but at the time at Duesseldorf, it is possible that on the basis of special instructions several arrests were made.
Q. That is the time of the half-Jew incident?
A. it is the time, I whole time I was active in Duesseldorf.
Q. Are you referring to the episode of the half-Jew, which you described heretofore?
A. This appertains to that time.
Q. Yes, are you referring to this half-Jew that you arrested?
A. No. when sometime or other some special occasion existed, which I can not remember, I only want to reconcile them with my conscience, and I didn't want to absolutely exclude it for this time.
Q. Do you admit that you never arrested a whole Jew, but you may have arrested a half-Jew? You will grant us that much. In all you life you may have arrested half a Jew, is that whet it comes down to now? Is that the concession you are making, that you admit having arrested half a Jew?
A. Not only because he was a half-Jew.
Q. Well, then, you never arrested the one-half of his body; you didn't arrest the one-half which was Jewish but you did arrest the other half which was not Jewish, is that what you are telling us now?
A. Your Honor, I can not find an answer to give to this.
Q. Well, listen witness. You must admit that it is pretty difficult to accept the fact that a member of the SS, a member on the Gestapo, a member of the SD, of the SP, of the Einsatzgruppe, or the Nazi Party, who "heiled Hitler" for twelve years, who knew of the constant, very progressive campaign against the Jew, you must admit it is a little difficult to assume when a man tells us that in all these years he never once laid a rough hand on a Jew, you will admit that is a little extraordinary, don't you?
You admit that is a little unusual?
A. Only a man can understand it who knew the conditions. That in our Security Police Mission, at that time I didn't get any special Jewish orders besides the one I have mentioned, and, I personally and in my attitude had no cause just to be rough simply because they were Jews.
Q.Well, how do you explain, witness, that the chief of your organization in the field had admitted that the report showed that 90,000 were executed by all the commandos in that group. If you don't want to accept the 90,000, take a figure less than that. Let's take one-half. Let's say that 45,000 were executed. How do you explain that although your commando was one of the five in the group, that it could have avoided, and did avoid the killing of one, single, solitary Jew, when your orders were specifically to kill Jews?
A. Your Honor, this can be explained by the following: First of all this figure which you assume to be 45,000 in this case does not at all include the number who were shot merely as Jews. I am con inced that I can say from the report that a very large part of these executions happened as the result of the special order. The number, 90,000, which is given here as a total are not executions, just on the basis of the Fuehrer Order, but the numerous executions of Partisans, sabotuers or sabotage cases, and other cases, which take up a large part in this figure, and, my personal assignment, I would say, the good forture i and my commander had in that assignment brought with it the fact that until October I had no chance to apply the Hitler Order, because I was not assigned in a city where measures were carried out, because I was in a foreign territory in which the Hitler Order did not need to be applied, and in the following time, from November on, I was active in a territory far away from the group, with a small remainder, and in a Steppe area where no Jewish question had to be solved, and I on the basis of my attitude did not look for any opportunity to arrest any one.
Q. There were no Jews in the Steppe area?
A. I think a documentary source of material about Jewish settlements will show that in this sparsely settled area there was hardly any Jewish population, and, if so, one would have had to look for them individually, and this special searching I did not conscientiously engage in.
Q. Then you have had nothing to do with whole Jews, half-Jews, or Steppe-Jews?
A. Your Honor, this is a distinction which I .....
Q. Witness, do you admit that any Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppe-D in Russia in accordance with the Fuehrer Order?
A. Yes.
Q. And you put the blame on the other commandos, that Einsatzcommando XII never executed any Jews?
A. I don't put the blame on the other Einsatzcommandos, but it was unfortunate for other Einsatz-commandos to be put in a situation where they had to carry it out. If I had come to the Crimea, for example, then I probably would have had to carry out the Order, and not to have evaded it, as I was able to do here.
Q. All right. Now, you would have carried out the Order, if you had found some Jews?
A. If I had received the Order, and could not have evaded the Order any longer in any other manner, in other words, if the final consequence would have compelled me to be shot myself, then I would have carried out the Order.