In 1943 the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler addressed the SS Major Generals at Posen. You are aware of that speech, are you not?
Q Perhaps you recall his complaint, and I will read it to you: "I come now to a fourth virtue, which is very rare in Germany - to truthfulness. One of the greatest evils which has spread during the war is the lack of truthfulness in messages, reports, and statements, which subordinate departments in civil life in the State, the Party and the Services sent in to the departments over them," Of course, that was in 1943.
Did you exaggerate the reports which you sent to the RSHA? were reported to me, and I know that double countings could not be avoided, and I also knew that wrong numbers were reported to mo, I have avoided to pass on such double countings or wrong statements because the neighboring units did not know their figures and, nevertheless the reporting of wrong figures was not prevented - and especially the reporting of strange figures - figures of other units were not prevented. The the report from Chernovitz is certainly the reporting of such strange figures, namely, the reporting of such actions which were done by the Roumanians in Chernovitz. system was maintained in Einsatzgruppe D to keep track of the people slaughtered? were sent from the Commandos to the Einsatzgruppe, and these reports were gone over and the figures contained in them were sent to the RSHA.
Q Well, it is quite obvious that that is what happened. But tell us now who reported for Einsatzkommando 12, say, during the first six months of its operations the killings by Einsatzkommando 12, to you?
Q And who was the man who reported to you? in this case by the then Sturmbannfuehrer Nosske. numbers killed by his unit? for example, was 200 or 250 kilometers away from me.
Q Witness, I don't mean to cut you off, but I think if I ask you now to attempt to make your answers as responsive as possible, I shall attempt to make my questions as explicit as possible - and I believe we both shall benefit. So - I ask you again - now why you did not check up on Nosske, but simply the question ... Did you rely on Nosske for truthful reports of the slaughters committed by Einsatzkommando 12?
A I didn't understand the last part of the question. Only the last part of the translation.
THE PRESIDENT: Please repeat the question, Mr. Heath, BY MR. HEATH: of persons slaughtered by Einsatzkommando 12 while it was under his command?
A I was of the opinion that these reports were truthful. In the case of Nosske however, in one case it was brought to my attention that the report was not truthful. But that was relatively at an early stage in Nikolajev.
case which were not killed by his kommando but by a strange unit. exaggerating the number killed by his unit? unit under you?
Q Yes, do you recall an exaggeration in the case of 10-A?
Q Any other Einsatzkommando do you recall exaggerating figures? yourself in today, it should be possible for you to give us a minimum figure based on the reports of the man who were under you, should it not? one half years that to the best of my knowledge, about ninety-thousand people were reported by M 4 Einsatzkommandos. How many of those were actually killed I do not know and I can not really say.
Q Very well, we will leave this after one more question. This figure ninety thousand is the best estimate you can give at this moment. I take it we must continue to read that with the qualification that you gave in direct testimony, that you think there is a great deal of exaggeration in it?
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Heath, I do not understand the witness to say that he regarded the figure ninety-thousand to be an exaggeration. He states, and he stated not only here but before the International Military Tribunal, that his estimate of the number killed by the Einsatzgruppe D during the time he was in charge was ninety-thousand, and he comes to that conclusion from the reports and that is what I understand he says today.
MR. HEATH: I agree with Your Honor: I had understood him to say that in the transcript his testimony was - - go ahead?
THE WITNESS: I am not quite in agreement with this answer, Your Honor. Insofar as I said that the number ninety-thousand was reported as having been killed, but I cannot really say whether that number had been actually killed, I would not want to say from the last that they were killed by the Einsatzgruppen, because from exaggeration I also knew definitely that the Einsatzkommando reports of the killings were made which were carried out by other units. Therefore, I could only repeat that ninety-thousand were reported.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, you may agree to what I have stated, but you will have to agree to what you stated yourself on January 3, 1946, you were asked: "Do you know how many persons were liquidated by the Einsatzgruppen D under your direction." And you answered: "In the year between June 1941 and June 1942 the Einsatzkommandos reported ninetythousand people liquidated,"
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Question: "That included men, women and children? Answer: Yes, Question: On what do you base these figures? Answer: On reports sent by the Einsatzkommando to the Einsatzgruppen. Question: Were those reports submitted to you? Answer: Yes."
MR. HEATH: Your Honor, please, if I may interrupt, the defendant, I think I can clear up the difficulty. I have the advantage of having the transcript of his testimony before me.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. HEATH: I don't know that Your Honor has had the opportunity to sec it.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I have not.
MR. HEATH: He did make this statement with respect to the affidavit which you just read.
THE PRESIDENT: It is not the affidavit. This is testimony put to him in court.
MR. HEATH: He followed by that to this extent in the case of the direct examination. BY MR. HEATH:
Q Witness, this is from your testimony of last week. He said, if of course, the figure of ninety-thousand was named by me, I always added that in this fifteen to twenty percent are double countings, that is, on the basis of my own experience. I do not know any longer how I could have remembered the number of just ninety-thousand, because I did not keep a register of these figures. The "approximately" must have meant that I was not certain. It is evident that I mentioned this number of ninety-thousand by adding a number of other figures. I do not mention this in order to excuse myself, as I am perfectly convinced that it does not matter from the actual fact whether it was forty-thousand or ninetythousand. I mention this for the reason that in the situation in which we are today, politically speaking, figures are being dealt with in irresponsive manner. That is the qualification that I had referred to.
THE PRESIDENT: But that still does not in any way take away from what he said on January 3, 1946.
MR. HEATH: I agree, sir, with you.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the testimony of that day, and it still stands now as he gives this explanation and the Tribunal sees no difference between what he said then and what he said today, namely, that this estimate of ninety-thousand is based upon the report which he personally saw.
MR. HEATH: Alright, sir.
THE WITNESS: With what was just read by the President of my affidavit of 3 January 1946 I agree completely.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Anything else which I have said on direct examination is merely a commentary to the testimony of 3 January 1946.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
MR. HEATH: Very wall, sir; BY MR. HEATH:
Q As we adjourned for lunch, Mr. Ohlendorf, I had begun to ask you about the Karaimians and the Krimschacks, I think you called them.
Q I beg your pardon?
Q Karaimians. I understood that you were confronted in the south of Russia with the question further to slaughter Krimschacks. Krimschacks I understood were human beings who had come by way of Italy to Russia, and they carried with them and they had Jewish blood. The direction which you got from Berlin was to kill the Krimschacks, is that correct? another sect whom you encountered in the south of Russia, and this sect had no Jewish blood, but it did share the religious confessions of the Jews. Is that right? should be killed, and I understood you to say that the order you got from Berlin was you shall not kill them for they have nothing in common with the Jews except the confession?
had no idea, and that you have no cause today to think that there was any plan to exterminate the Jewish race in existence, nor that you had any information of putting it into effect. Is that right? between the Karaimians and the Krimschecks, except Jewish blood?
A I understand your question completely. In reference to the Eastern Jews, in the case of the Jews who were found in the Eastern Campaign it was the order that these Jews are to be killed for the reason that they were considered carriers of Bolshevism, and, therefore, considered as endangering the security of the German Reich, This concerned the Jews who were found in Russia, and it was not known to me that the Jews in all of Europe were being killed, but on the contrary I knew that down to my dismissal these Jews ware not killed, but it was attempted by all means to get them to emigrate. The fact that the KarKaraimians were not killed showed that the charge of the Prosecution that persons were persecuted for their religion is not correct, for the Karaimians had that Jewish religion, but they could not be killed because they did not belong to the Jews in Russia, and because they did not belong to the Jewish Race. the last sentence, "They did not belong to the Jewish Race," is that right?
Q They were found in Russia?
Q But they participated in the Jewish Confession in Russia? blood in them?
Q So they came absolutely under the Fuehrer Decree; or the Streckenbach Order to kill all Jews?
Q Except for blood?
A Because they were of Jewish origin. For you must understand the Nazi Ideology as you call it. It was the opinion of the Fuehrer that in Russia and in Bolshevism, the representatives of this blood showed themselves especially suitable for this idea, therefore, the carriers of this blood became especially suitable representatives of the Bolshevism. That is not on account of their faith, or their religion, but because of their human make-up and character.
Q And because of their blood, right? their nature and their characteristics. Their blood, of course, has something to di with it.
Q Let's see, if I can understand it; we got a lot of time, I hope. What was the distinction except blood?
A Between whom?
Q Between the Karaimians and the Krimschecks?
Q Only the difference in blood, is that so? was blood? has not been doubted during the entire trial, that in this Fuehrer Order the Jews were designated as the ones who belonged to that circle in Russia and who were to be killed.
Q Very well, witness, let's not quibble. Let's come back again. What you followed was the Fuehrer order, Now I leave you out of it for a moment, your own idea of what should be killed and what should not be killed.
THE PRESIDENT: I disagree with you, Mr. Heath, that the witness has quibbled. I think he has stated very clearly that his orders were to kill all Jews, that was the criterion which he followed. If he was a Jew he was killed, if he was not a Jew then they might figure some other reason to kill him but he wouldn't be killed because he was a Jew.
MR HEATH: Yes, Your Honor, I am attempting to get him to say the word blood and not the word Jews. That is the reason I was saying he is quibbling, but I am perfectly happy to leave it where it is.
THE PRESIDENT: I think he has been rather forthright.
MR. HEATH: Very well. BY MR HEATH:
Q Let's see, Mr. Ohlendorf, let's go for a moment to this order which you got at Pretsch in the Spring of 1941. Did you have any knowledge whatever of the purposes of the Einsatzgruppen before you went to Pretsch?
Q But you did not know what they were to do? missions in which people of the Security Police and the SD were working that is, of course, true. Security Police would be to slaughter Jews and Gypsies?
A I could no longer say today that I had such an idea, but I don't believe so. In my opinion the order about the killing of the Jews was known to me for the first time in Pretsch, that is, for the Russian campaign. Einsatzgruppen to kill all Jews and Gypsies and certain other categories, you would remember it today -- would you not, Mr. Ohlendorf?
not?
Q And. twice you refused?
Q The order in the first instance came from Heydrich? came from Heydrich?
Q You refused both the first and the second order?
Q Why?
A For two reasons. For one thing, because I had not been a soldier and did not have any interest in the military, secondly, because I was not a policemen, and had no interest for police work, and police work was against my nature, and third, because I had a genuine job to do in Berlin which I knew would not be replaced once I left it, and I wanted to do a job in which I could do the best I had. circumstances, excuse me, Ohlendorf was your military superior, was he not?
THE PRESIDENT: Ohlendorf you say? BY MR HEATH:
Q I mean, Heydrich? order must be obeyed without a question? people you have told us because you were ordered to do it, not because you wished to do it?
people please stick to that and question me about this matter.
Q I'll come to that in due time. I shall ask you now again how you refused the first Heydrich order to join the Einsatzgruppe? leave Berlin, and I said in my direct examination I was indispensible to the Reich Trade Group, that is, I had a note in my military passport which obligated me to work for the Reich Trade Group, and, therefore, Heydrich first had to consult me and remove this note. Therefore I had the chance to discuss these matters with him. go to Russia, and twice I refused?
Q Did you go to Heydrich and say, I refused to go to Russia? I used the tact which is necessary when discussing such matters with a superior, that is usually customary.
Q On the second occasion what happened? you were able to persuade him to relieve you of that assignment?
A When the last order came I could not evade it. How strenuously he insisted on this could be seen from the fact that Mueller and Streckenbach, Chief of the Gestapo and Chief of Personnel, were of the opinion that it would not be useful to give me an Einsatzgruppe, and they also protested to Heydrich about giving me the command of an Einsatzgruppe, but since he wanted it, the third order came down, and there was no chance to evade it this time.
Q I didn't follow you there. Who was it that insisted, Streckenbach? Mueller.
were to do in Russia?
A I don't know.
Q I beg your pardon?
A I don't know whether he did. any idea of what they were to do? job away from the Army, whereas, up to that time he had detailed personnel to the Army, and the Army worked without letting him in on his work, therefore, he expanded his domination to include the operational areas. gruppen? Armed Forces High Command and the Army Command, and Heydrich commissioned these two agencies. you to go to Russia in command, he knew what work you were going to perform in Russia, did he not?
A Whether he already had the Fuehrer's Order I don't know. I only knew the fact that the Einsatzgruppen were being set up. say, what the Einsatzgruppens were to do?
Q Now he had a special order?
Q In your direct testimony you said the order read as follows: Did you see the order yourself?
A No, I did not say, it read as follows? I merely gave the contents, for I always said, there was no written order.
Q I misunderstood you, the transcript said "Read as follows," So your understanding of the purposes of the Einsatzgruppen came from Streckenbach orally at Pretsch?
Q And you protested? a general protest.
Q What form, did your protest to Streckenbach take? possibly accomplished. It is impossible to ask people to carry out such executions.
Q Why? for people spiritually than to have to shoot defenseless populations. worse than to be shot either, when you are defenseless? for example, to starve.
Q It is not meant entirely ironically. I have read the whole of your testimony, and I am impressed by the fact that not once did you express any sympathy or regret.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr Heath, I don't think that that observation is in place.
MR HEATH: I withdraw it, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: You are not to comment on the witness. Ask him questions, and he is to answer them. What you think about him is of no consequence.
MR. HEATH: I know that, Your Honor, and I ask the Court's forgiveness for having out the question. BY MR HEATH :
Q What form of protest did the other men present at the time? What did they say about this order which Streckenbach described?
bach and Millar were persons who had the same rank as the other Einsatzgruppen leaders, so that here there was lively protest not of a formal kind, but as among comrades, the reaction to this order was expressed in rough words, and I sail in my direct examination that Streckenbach immediately interfered in our argument and confirmed it in even stronger terms than we had just expressed it.
Q. What was Streckenbach's rank?
A. At that time he was Bridgadefuehrer or Gruppenfuehrer. At any rate he was the chief of an office, as I was, and as Nebe who led the Einsatzgruppe B, and besides Rasch was in the same rank.
Q. Now you have answered my question. What other protest was made besides pointing out to Streckenbach the bad effect on the morale of troops who would have to do these killings?
A. I didn't get the question.
(The question was repeated by the interpreter.)
A. I didn't mention that sentence. I merely said that the order for the killings was an inhumane order. I didn't speak of morale, for those experiences were to be made only afterwards when the order was carried out. Here is tas merely a protest of the inner being of each man against such an order.
Q. A protest against killing defenseless human beings, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. How strongly did you feel that at the time?
A. I don't know how to explain this to you.
Q. Was it sufficiently strong, your feeling of revulsion, was it sufficiently strong for you to doubt the possibility that the head of the German State had ordered any such thing?
A. I didn't understand the question.
Q. You say that you felt very strongly that this was an inhumane order.
A. Yes.
Q. Did your feeling of revulsion against what was ordered cause you to question whether the head of the German State had in fact made such an order?
A. First of all, it was not concerpt. If I must describe this feeling I would have to say grief and sorrow, not only for the momentary order but for the moral and spiritual consequences which such orders would have to have in their wake and which are still not concluded.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, I don't think that you quite grasp the questions which Mr. heath put to you. Let me try to put it. Were you appalled and shocked by this order that you questioned whether it could be true and that possibly some mistake had been made and that the Head of the State had not issued such an order?
THE WITNESS: I did not doubt the fact that the Fuehrer had given it because this was also the first reaction of Streckenbach, that he repeated this word, "Fuehrerorder" to us.
Q. (By Mr. Heath) With no prior information from anyone about the order you were fully prepared to believe and did believe that Adolf Hitler had ordered those exterminations?
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Heath, I don't understand why you want to pursue that business. There is no doubt that the order was issued by the Head of the State. It was so explained to him. He believed it, acted on it and executed it, so why do you question that?
MR. HEATH: If your Honor please, I was trying to get, with the Court's permission, at this man's state of mind and why having access to Heydrich and having access to Himmler if he thought it impossible that.
THE PRESIDENT: He didn't think it was impossible. He never said he thought it was impossible. He knew the order came from Hitler, Himmler, et al., and accepted it.
MR. HEATH: I had not so understood, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think there is any Question that he accepted it as coming from the higher leaders. Do you have some doubt that he accepted it as such?
MR. HEATH: If your Honor please, I have no doubt that he accepted it as such and acted on it as such,
THE PRESIDENT: I am sorry, I forgot to turn the switch, I will remember to keep it up.
MR. HEATH: Shall I repeat that answer to your, your Honor?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please.
MR. HEATH: I said, sir, I have no doubt that he accepted it and I have no doubt that he acted on it as an order coming from Hitler. What I am attempting to find out is his state of mind when he tells the Court as he has, "I felt bound I had to act because of the military command." I am trying to get the witness to explain to us why if he was horrified by this order, as he says he was, he did not use the channels that were open to him: to go to Heydrich, to go to Himmler, and to question whether Hitler had in fact ordered this thing.
THE PRESIDENT: For the simple reason that there was no doubt in his mind that the order had. come down.
MR. HEATH: Very well, very well.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the reason he didn't go.
MR. HEATH: Very well, if it is as clear as that, Your Honor, I shall certainly not labor it any further.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the conclusion the Tribunal reaches, and if we are in error I am sure the witness will volunteer directing us.
Q. (By Mr. Heath) Witness, I leave that now and go to this question that we haven't quite finished with yet. Streckenbach, when you men protested this order, said, "I myself protested a similar order in Poland, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. "And my protest came to nothing." I suppose he told you that, did he not?
A. Yes.
Q. In fact he said, I think, that Himmler had rebuked him for protesting.
A. Yes.
Q. Now, when he told you that, did it occur to you that Jews in Poland, who had been the subject of a similar order prior to your invasion of Russia were not properly classified as bearers of Bolshevism in what was the nearly Fascist state of Poland?
A. I don't know that the same thing was ordered and carried out in Poland what was ordered and executed in Russia. I know just from this talk with Streckenbach, that individual actions were ordered in Poland, but not that a general order existed, and Streckenbach already at that time protested against single actions. These aporadic actions were not so much directed against Jews as also against Poles for the reason that after the invasion of the German troops there were border guards who as exaggerated retaliation revenged themselves on the Poles who whortly before and after the outbreak of the war had committed misdeeds on Ethnic Germans and had killed a large number of them, and Streckenbach objected to these actions, and I was personally a witness in the dispute between him and. Himmler because this happened on the official trip on which I accompanied Himmler.
Q. How long have you known Walter Schellenberg?
A. Walter Schellenberg?
Q. Walter Schellenberg.
A. I know him since my SD time, since 1936.
Q. You have told the court that you did not want to go to Russia. Do you recall the conversation about going to Russia which you had with Walter Schellenberg after your return to Berlin?
A. No. I don't.
Q. Do you remember saying to Schellenberg that he was not a good National Socialist in that he had not proved himself?
A. I don't think I have ever expressed myself in such a primitive form. I never used such phraseology until this very day.
Q. You must understand that the language I use is a quotation from an interrogation of Walter Schellenberg. I know that you and Schellenberg used better German than comes out in English. I have heard it said that you use excellent German yourself.
A. Mr. Prosecutor, you can depend on the fact that since 1937 I have had such a bad relationship with Schellenberg - which I don't want to describe here - that in the year 1942 when I know him even better than in 1937, I certainly did not have any such talks with him.
Q. Well, I don't want to increase your troubles with Mr. Schellenberg, but he has said some good things about you, as well as that. I will ask you again, did he not answer you and tell you that you were rather slow because he knew how to avoid service with the Einsatzgruppen and you didn't know how to do it?
A. That is so grotesque that I don't know any answer other than I can only say to you that Schellenberg would have taken any possibility to pick out an Einsatzgruppe in which he could have done the most to please Himmler, for nothing else was the purpose of his life down to the very moment when he believed he could please and had to please other persons.
Q. Now, let us move to something that is not qrotesque. I want to ask you, or I say this, Sir, You have told the Court repeatedly that to your knowledge there was absolutely no purpose to exterminate races. You are charged here, of course, with war crimes, which is one kind of killing, and crimes against humanity which is another kind of killing. You have told the Court that you have no reason today to believe that these killings were part of an extermination program. I want to ask you further, you are aware of this speech which Hitler made in 1953 at the party rally in Nurnberg, and I would like to ask you, when I have read you this quotation, to comment on it, "But long ago man has proceeded in the same way with his fellowmen. A higher race, at first higher in the sense of possessing a greater gift for organization, subjects to itself a lower race, and thus constitutes a relationship which now embraces races of unequal value. There thus results the subjection of a number of people under the will often of only a few persons, a subjection based simply on the right of the stronger, a right which, as we see it in nature can be regarded as the sole conceivable right because founded on reason." Do you recall that or any of the similar outgivings of Adolf Hitler during the period 1933 on?
please the Prosecution especially. Despite repeated readings I have still not understood it to this date, Perhaps the last two sentences are reasonable, but the first two-thirds I cannot make any sense out of. a great deal of Hitler's statements, were you not? about politics from various scattered quotations. If one were to do this it would be hard to find any statesman of one whom could say that he had ever any definite idea. for statesmen are in the difficult position of being in politics which is something changing and developing and statesmen always adapt themselves to this changing characteristic of politics. This has not been only a quality of Hitler but all statement use to do this until this very day. the jurists of the Third Reich, Karl Schmidt, whom you quote in your direct examination, as the author of what you call the theory of "friend and foe". You pointed out to the Court that this theoretician of the Nazi movement, the top legal theoretician, had, in your opinion, an impossible doctrine. Schmidt was the top juridical commentator on the Nazi State, was he not?
A In '33 and '34, yes, but then it was at an end after that,
Q Now, in Schmidt's conception man had the very power, which Hitler described here, too coerce his weaker brother, did he not, the moral, right to do it? ppeared as the top jurist of the Third Reich because he credited such mistaken theories to National Socialism. because he opposed your view of National Socialism?
A That is very difficult. You ask very much. National Socialism, unfortunately, had no time to work out its theory thouroughly and thus I looked in vain for even one book of principles on which National Socialism really was based.