With this procedure it is intended to insure a total liability of all men and women of the kin of the perpetrator. It furthermore affects to the utmost the family circle of the political criminal. This practice has shown, for example, already at the end of 1939 the best results in the new eastern territories, especially in the Warthe districe. As soon as this new method for combatting assassins and saboteurs becomes known to these foreign people -- this may be achieved by oral propaganda -- the female members of a kin in which members of the resistance movement or bands are present, as shown by experience, will exert a curbing influence." prisoners of war, and I refer to Document 1531-PS, US Exhibit 248. This document contains an order of 12 June 1942, signed by Mueller, 1531 in the second volume, which authorized the use of third degree methods in interrogations where preliminary investigation indicated that the prisoners could give information on important facts such as subversive activities, but not to extort confessions of the prisoner's own crimes.
Now, I quote from Page 2 of the English translation, Paragraph 2:
"Third degree may, under this supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah's Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, parachute agents, anti-social elements, Polish or Soviet-Russian loafers or tramps. In all other cases, my permission must first be obtained."
Then I pass to paragraph 4 at the end:
"Third degree can, according to the circumstances, consist amongst other methods, of:
"Very simple diet (bread and water); hard bunk; dark cell; deprivation of sleep; exhaustive drilling; also in flogging (for more than 20 strokes a doctor must be consulted.)" the District of Radom published an order issued by the Befehlshaber of the SIPO and the SD at Cracow, which is Exhibit L-89, US Exhibit 507, L-89, in the first volume. This followed closely the provisions of the previous decree that I have just quoted from, and I quote the first paragraph after the list of offices on the first page:
"In view of the variety of methods used to date in intensified interrogations and in order to avoid excesses, also to protect officials against eventual criminal proceedings, the Befehlshaber of the Security Police and of the SD in Cracow has issued the following order for the Security Police in the General Government which is based on the regulations in force for the Reich."
And then the regulations are quoted. The significance of this document is that it proves that as late as 1944 third degree interrogations were still being conducted by the Gestapo. agencies for the persecution of the Jews, and I do not intend to go into any of the evidence previously introduced, except to refer to the part of these organizations. program carried out by the Einsatz Groups of the SIPO and SD and in the annihilation camps to which Jews were sent by the SIPO and SD has already been considered, and I simply cite the Tribunal to Document 2615-PS, which has previously been introduced, and in which it was referred to the number of Jews executed and referred to by Eichmann. I simply call attention that Eichmann was head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo. That section of the Gestapo dealt with Jewish affairs, including matters of evacuation, means of suppressing enemies of the people and State, and the dispossession of rights of German citizenship.
laws, which have heretofore been introduced..
I now invite your Honors' attention to Document 3058-PS, US Exhibit 508. That, I'd like to exhibit to your Honors, is a red-bordered document signed by Heydrich himself, and addressed to the Defendant Goering. It is dated the 11th of November 1938, I pass this to the reporter, and before it is passed to the reporter there is an appendix attached to it to the effect that the matter had been called to the attention of the Defendant Goering. connection with the anti-Jewish demonstration, you will recall, in the fall of 1938. This is a report from Heydrich himself personally to the Defendant Goering. It is addressed to the Prime Minister, General Field Marshal Goering, and is dated the 15th of November 1938, and the previous documents showed that that activity occurred just before, and the order for it in connection with the Jewish uprising or extermination:
"The extent of the destruction of Jewish shops and houses cannot yet be verified by figures. The figures given in the reports: 815 shops destroyed, 171 dwelling houses set on fire or destroyed, only indicate a fraction of the actual damage caused, as far as arson is concerned. Due to the urgency of the reporting, the reports received to date are entirely limited to general statements such as numerous' or 'most shops destroyed.' Therefore, the figures given must have been exceeded considerably "191 synagogues were set on fire, and another 76 completely destroyed.
In addition, 11 parish halls, cemetery chapels and similar buildings were set on fire and three more completely destroyed.
"20,000 Jews were arrested, also 7 Aryans and three foreigners. The latter were arrested for their own safety.
"36 deaths were reported and those seriously injured were also numbered at 36. Those killed and injured are Jews. One Jew is still missing. The Jews killed include one Polish national, and those injured include two Poles."
Now, the paper appended to that document I want to call your Honors' special attention to:
"The General Field Marshall" -- that is Goering-- "has been informed no steps are to be taken, by order and dated the 15th of November 1938," by an illegible signature. Goering with this entire program, and we next offer in evidence the original of that order, 710-PS, US Exhibit 509. That is an order dated the 31st of July 1941. It is written on the stationery of the Reich Marshal of the Greater German Reich, Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Chairman of the Ministerial Council for National Defense, and it is dated at Berlin, the 31st of July 1941; and directed to the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service, SS Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich.
"Complementing the task that was assigned to you on 24 January 1939, which dealt with arriving at -- through furtherance of emigration and evacuation, a solution of the Jewish problem, as advantageous as possible, I hereby charge you with making all necessary preparations in regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe.
"Wherever other governmental agencies are involved, these are to cooperate with you.
"I charge you furthermore to send me, before long, an overall plan concerning the organizational, factual and material measures necessary for the accomplishment of the desired solution of the Jewish question." Signed, "Goering." final solution of the Jewish problem was as conceived by Heydrich and executed by the Security Police and SD under him and under the Defendant Kaltenbrunner, which was enslavement and mass murder. and SD to which I will refer is that these organizations were the primary agencies for the persecution of the churches. Already evidence has been received concerning the persecution of the churches. In this struggle the Gestapo and the SD played a secret but very highly significant part.
Section B 1 of the Gestapo dealt with political Catholicism. Section B 2 dealt with political Protestantism, and Section B 3 with other churches and Freemasonry. a peculiar function of the Gestapo to combat it. It issued restrictions against church activities, dissolved church organization, and placed clergymen in protective custody. This is a very large file, this original document, and I want to quote only portions of it This was a file of the Gestapo regional office at Aachen. It discloses the purpose of the Gestapo in combatting the churches was to destroy them, and from the beginning I want to read the first page of the English translation, 1815.
IV, B, 1, to all Staatspolizeileitstellen. For information: The SD LeitAbschnitten; the Inspectors of the SIPO and SD.
I understand this word "Abschnitten" means sub-division.
"The chief of the RSHA has issued an order, which is to come into immediate operation, in which the SD and SIPO Study and Treatment of Church Politics, which has hitherto been divided between the SD-Abschnitte and Stapostellen, shall now be taken ever entirely by the Stapostellen," which I understand means Regional Offices of the Gestapo. on March 1, 1941. "In addition to combatting opposition, the Stapostellen thus take over the entire Gegnernachrichtendienst"-I understand that word means counter-intelligence--"in this sphere.
"In order that the Stapostellen should be in a position to take over this work, the Chief of the SIPO-SD has ordered that Church Specialists, hitherto employed in the SD-Abschnittren, should be temporarily transferred to the same posts at the Regional Gestapo Offices and operate the Nachrichtendienst"-which means Intelligence Service in the Church.
"On the orders of the Chief of the RSHA, and after reaching agreement with the heads of Amts III, II, and I , those Church Specialists specified in the attached lists"-
THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): Is it necessary to give us the details of this?
COLONEL STOREY: No, sir, I don't think so. a direction as to how they will proceed. conference of these so-called Church Specialists attached to the Gestapo Regional Offices that I have mentioned. That was held in the lecture hall of the RSHA in Berlin. Notes were taken, and this same document contains notes of that conference. The program is shown; the plan is worked out in connection with the churches. I will just read the closing statement to these so-called Church Specialists; it is very short:
"Each one of you must go to work with your whole heart and a true fanaticism. Should a mistake or two be made in the execution of this work, this should in no way discourage you, since mistakes are made everywhere. The main thing is that the enemy"--meaning the church--"should be constantly tackled with determination, will, and effective initiative." is on the eighth page of the English translation, which sets out their immediate aim and their ultimate aim; it is on page 8 of the English Translation:
"The immediate aim: The Church must not regain one inch of the ground it has lost.
"The ultimate aim: Destruction of the Confessional Churches to be brought about by the collection of all material obtained through Nachrichtendienst activities, which will, at a given time, be produced as evidence for the charge of treasonable activities during the German fight for existence." presentation which I shall make in connection with the SD and Gestapo. Closely allied with it is the case against Kaltenbrunner, as the representative of these organizations, which will be presented immediately after lunch by Lieutenant Whitney Harris. Also, there will be one or two witnesses that will be introduced in connection with these organizations and in connection with Kaltenbrunner.
With that I should like to conclude, with just these remarks: in Prussia in April 1933 for the specific purpose of serving as a police agency to strike down the actual and ideological enemies of the Nazi regime, and that henceforward the Gestapo in Prussia and in the other states of the Reich carried out a program of terror against all who were thought to be dangerous to the domination of the conspirators over the people of Germany. Its methods were utterly ruthless. It operated outside the law and sent its victims to the concentration camps. The term "Gestapo" became the symbol of the Nazi regime of force and terror.
of informants; spied upon the German people in their daily lives, on the streets, in the shops, and even within the sanctity of the churches. Gestapo where his fate and freedom were decided without recourse to law. In this government in which the rule of law was replaced by a tyrannical rule of men, the Gestapo was the primary instrumentality of oppression.
criminal act of the conspiracy. The category of these crimes, apart from the thousands of specific instances of torture and cruelty in policing Germany for the benefit of the corspirators, reads like a page from the Devil's notebook: for attacking Poland. children by the infamous Einsatz groups. of war camps, and murdered them. murdered them. thousands of people into them for extermination and slave labor. hundres of thousands to their deaths in annihilation camps. countries and shipped them to Germany for forced labor, and sent slave laborers to labor reformatory camps. civilians who lynched allied flyers. trial and punishment. under special criminal procedures which did not accord fair trials, and by summary methods. persons who had allegedly committed crimes. prevent their release by the allied armies. private property.
tion, closely centralized and controlled from Berlin headquarters. Reports were submitted to Berlin and all important decisions emanated from Berlin. The regional offices had only limited power to commit persons to concentration camps. All cases, other than of short duration, had to be submitted to Berlin for approval.
The Gestapo was organized on a functional basis. Its principal divisions dealt with the groups and instutions against which it committed the worst crimes - which I have enumerated. each section performing its parts in the general criminal enterprises ordered by Berlin. The Secret State Police should be held responsible as an organization for the vast crimes in which it participated.
The SD was at all times a department of the SS. Its criminality directly concerns and contributes to the criminality of the SS. in the sense in which that term is used in Article 9 of the Charter; that the Defendants Goering and Kaltenbrunner committed the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter in their capacity as members and leaders of the Gestapo; and that the Gestapo, as an organization, participated in and aided the conspiracy which contemplated and involved the commission of the crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter. of the famours Heydrich, the former Chief of the Security Police and SD, and I quote from a speech published therein, which was delivered by Heydrich on German Police Day, 1941, as follows, of which I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice:
"Secret State Police, Criminal Police, and SD are still adorned with the furtive and whispered secrecy of a political detective story. In a mixture of fear and shuddering - and yet at home with a certain feeling of security because of their presence - brutality, inhumanity bordering on the sadistic, and ruthlessness are attributed abroad to the men of this profession."
organization.
Does your Honor want to go ahead?
DR. KURT KAUFMANN (Counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner): I have just heard that during the afternoon the testimony shall concern the Defendant Kaltenbrunner.
THE PRESIDENT: The translation is not coming through.
Will you speak again, please?
DR. KAUFMANN: I have just heard that during the afternoon session the testimony shall concern the Defendant Kaltenbrunner. I therefore regard it as advisable
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing): One moment please. I can't hear. Please try again. It was coming to some of us but not to all.
DR. KAUFMANN: I have just heard that this afternoon the testimony shall concern Kaltenbrunner. I therefore regard it as advisable to make a proposition regarding Kaltenbrunner right now, before the recess, and not in the afternoon. his absence. Kaltenbrunner, so far as the entire proceedings so far have been concerned, has taken part only partially. The reason for his absence is an illness which, according to my opinion, is of a serious nature, for it is obvious that in so important a trial only a very serious illness can bring about the absence of a defendant and justify it. I don't have any doctor's report on his present condition. It therefore appears to me dubious whether he will be capable of attending the hearing at all in the future. Kaltenbrunner be postponed is not in contradiction to paragraph 12 of the Charter. If a defendant is alive that cannot be brought to trial in person, then the trial can proceed against him in his absence. This thought is particularly justified if the defendant is concealing himself, and if he thus is obliged to submit to the trial even in his absence.
Nevertheless, Kaltenbrunner is here in prison. He did not withdraw himself from the trial, and he wishes nothing more than that he may be able to take a position as regards the accusation. But if such a defendant is absent without its being his fault, then a trial that was nevertheless carried out would hardly correspond to justice. specifically. precisely, now Kaltenbrunner must have an opportunity to give me information in my capacity as his Defense Counsel. The particular indictment is not even known to him; it was given to him just before the Christmas recess.
I do not need to emphasize how greatly the Defense's task is made more difficult by a continuation of the trial - indeed made almost impossible.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the application which has been made on behalf of Counsel for the Defendant Kaltenbrunner, and will give its decision shortly.
The Tribunal will now adjourn until 2 o'clock.
COLONEL STOREY: If I may make just one statement in connection with that, if your Honor please.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.
COLONEL STOREY: The evidence against Kaltenbrunner will be in connection with the part he played in these organizations, and we thought, in the interest of time, the individual case against Kaltenbrunner could be presented at the same time. Now, if it were not presented in this connection, it would be within a few days, early next week, in connection with the other individual defendants. Counsel mentions that he probably will not be able to be here, for some time, and I thought I would make that statement.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
(Whereupon at 12.50 hours the Hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 14.
00 hours.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has considered the motion made by Counsel on behalf of Kaltenbrunner, and, it considers that any evidence which you were intending to produce which is directed against Kaltenbrunner individually, and not against the Organizations, ought to be postponed until the Prosecution may deal, as the Tribunal understands you do propose to deal, with each defendant individually; and, the Tribunal thinks that the Kaltenbrunuer case might properly be kept to the end of the individual defendants' testimony, and that the evidence which is especially brought against Kaltenbrunner might then be adduced. If Kaltenbrunner then still is unable to be in Court, the evidence will have to be given in his absence.
COLONEL STOREY: If Your Honor please, I don't believe that the case, as we have it prepared now, can be separated as between the organizations and the individuals.
THE PRESIDENT: No, but if it bears against the organizations, it can be adduced now.
COLONEL STOREY: I understand that, but if Your Honor please, I say that the preparation we have made is in connection both with the organizations and the individuals. In other words, it is a joint presentation, therefore, under Your Honor's ruling, as taken, it would have to go over until next week with the individual defendants' cases, because we prepared it so it will affect the organizations as well as the defendant individually, as his acts are in connection with what he has done with the organizations included; in other words, we don't have it separated.
THE PRESIDENT: How will that effect you for this afternoon?
COLONEL STOREY: We can introduce a witness, next, but if Your Honor please, in reference to the witness, that witness, of course, would affect the organizations, and incidentally would affect Kaltenbrunner, too. I don't see now you could separate them, except the questions could be confined to the organizations put to the witness this afternoon.
Of course, the evidence which has been given up to date, much of it in Kaltenbrunner's absence, has in one sense been against Kaltenbrunner as being evidence against the organizations of which he was the head.
COLONEL STOREY: Colonel Amen is going to present testimony of a witness that is to be introduced orally, and it is primarily in reference to the organizations; and, that incidentally it would affect Kaltenbrunner's individual liability.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal would like for you to go on with the evidence.
COLONEL STOREY: Yes. It has been suggested, Your Honor please, we might have a few minutes to confer about the situation, and about the witnesses.
THE PRESIDENT: You wish to adjourn for a few minutes.
COLONEL STOREY: Just a few minutes until we can confer, as it changes our order of proof.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COLONEL STOREY: Just ten minutes will be sufficient.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. We will adjourn now.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now hear the evidence which the Prosecution desires to call, and insofar as it consists of oral testimony, the Tribunal will afford counsel for Kaltenbrunner the opportunity of crossexamining the witnesses, so-called, at a later stage if he wishes to do so.
DR. LUDWIG BABEL: (Counsel for SS and SD) I was called as counsel on duty for the members of the SS and the SD, who in these proceedings have offered themselves as witnesses. My duties were circumscribed in order to give the Court the motions in suitable form, not until the Tribunal gave notice on the 17 of December, 1945. It was then that I was called as defense counsel for the organizations of the SS and the SD, as such, and I have no client who could give me information or instructions for carrying on the defense. It is therefore necessary for me to rely for information by talking to members of the organizations I am representing, who are mostly in prisoner camps or are arrested.
Thus far, because of the shortness of time, I was not able to get the necessary information. me by the court and in the short pause since then I was not able to work my way through them all. copy of the indictment with all comments in a language he understands at a reasonable time, for the proceedings. This provision should, presumably, be applied analogously to the organizations. To serve the Indictment on the organizations is not provided for in the Charter nor has the Tribunal so ordered it. I was myself, not in a position to have copies made, that is, a sufficient number of copies made for the various camps in which these my rights as defense counsel.
To hear a witness against the Defendant the SS and the SD.
To hear this witness at this point would mean limiting defense.
I should like to add for these reasons there would be no delay
THE PRESIDENT: If you will allow me to interrupt you, I understand should be accorded to you.
You wish for on opportunity to cross-examine these witnesses at a later stage, is that right?
DR. BABEL: But now at this moment I should like to point out that
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing) Let us not take up time by that. Was these witnesses at a later date?
DR. BABEL: My motion had that meaning but also to make by defense
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is ready to give you the opportunity of
LT. WHITNEY R. HARRIS: May it please the Tribunal:
Defendant Kaltenbrunner. This book contains our documents, from which quotations will be made during this presentation.
Reference will be made criminality of the SS, the SD and the Gestapo.
The fusion of these organ plained from an organizational standpoint.
There is before the Tribunal a significance to this unity of the SS and the Nazi Police.
The name of this I now offer Document 2938-PS as exhibit next in order, U.S.A. Exhibit 511.
This is an article which appeared in "Die Deutsche Polizei", the entitled, "Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the New Chief of the Security Police and SD", and I quote the beginning of the article:
"SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. jur. Kaltenbrunner was born the sone of the lawyer Dr. Hugo Kaltenbrunner, on 4 October 1903, at Ried on Inn, near Braunau.
He spent his youth in the native district of the Fuehrer, with connected since olden times.
Later he moved with his parents to the little Realgymnasium, and there he passed his final examination in 1921."
The next paragraph describes Kaltenbrunner's legal education, his student groups.
It states that after 1928 Kaltenbrunner worked as a lawyer candidate in Linz.
The article continues, and I quote, reading the third paragraph:
"Already in January 1934 Dr. Kaltenbrunner was jailed by the Dollfuss al Socialists into the concentration camp Kaisersteinbruch.
He caused and Socialist prisoners.
In the following year he was jailed again because of (Upper Danube). After an investigation of many months, the accusation of high treason collapsed but he was condemned to six months' imprisonment for conspiracy.
After the spring of 1935 Dr. Kaltenbrunner was the leader of because of his National Socialist views.
It redounds to his credit that in "After the annexation, in which the SS was a decisive factor, he was National Socialist cabinet of Dr. Soyss-Inquart.
A few hours later he was Aspera, the Vienna Airport, on 12 March 1938, 3 a.m., as the first National the article quotes Kaltenbrunner -- "The SS is in formation awaiting further orders" -- closing Kaltenbrunner's statement.
"The Fuehrer promoted Dr. Kaltenbrunner on the day of annexation to
SS Brigadehuehrer and as leader of the SS Oberbachnitt Donau. On 11 Sept ember, 1938 this was followed by his promotion to SS Gruppenfuehrer."
I continue quoting the last paragraph from this article:
"During the liquidation of the Austrian national government and the moted to Major General of Police."
According to "Der Grossdeutsche Reichstag", Fourth Wahlperiode, 1938, published by F. Kienast, at page 261, our Document 2892-PS, Kalten brunner joined the Nazi Party and the SS in Austria in 1932.
He was party Prior to 1933 he was the Gauredner and legal advisor to SS Division 8. After 1933 he was the leader of SS Regiment 37 and later the leader of SS Division 8. KALTENBRUNNER was given the highest Nazi Party decorations, the Golden Insignia of Honor and the Blutorden.